The Match King

Partnoy’s biography of Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish engineer who built a global monopoly in safety matches in the 1920s by lending money to governments in exchange for match concessions, and financed it through a lattice of holding companies, off-balance-sheet subsidiaries and securities that American investors bought without being able to see through them. Kreuger was one of the most admired financiers in the world until his 1932 suicide exposed the structure as a fraud — and Partnoy’s argument is that the instruments and disclosure gaps he pioneered recur in every scandal since.

Why it’s on the list: One of the 46 books @mastersinvest read in 2025 — the financial-history entry on a list otherwise dominated by founder memoirs.

Where I saw it: @mastersinvest’s “2025 Reading … so far” list, August 20, 2025. The full 46-title list is transcribed on 2025 Reading So Far… (tweet).

Connections

• 2025 Reading So Far… (tweet) — the list this came from.
• Frank Partnoy — the author.