From banker to owner of half of Sweden

What do companies such as robotics leader ABB, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, technology company Ericsson, stock market operator Nasdaq, former car manufacturer Saab, and iconic appliance supplier Electrolux have in common? Although it may be surprising, all of them and many more are controlled by more or less the same Swedish family, the Wallenbergs.

This family, one of the richest and most powerful in the world, began its assault on power when, in 1856, André Oscar Wallenberg founded the family bank, Stockholms Enskilda Bank (Stockholm Private Bank), which was key to financing industrialization. It was also a highly innovative institution, revolutionizing the local banking system. One of this banker's 21 children was Knut Agathon Wallenberg, the man who would grow the family empire to become an almost unique source of power in Europe.

Before joining the board of directors of the family bank at a very young age, Wallenberg trained at the army's naval academy, from which he graduated with the rank of interim second lieutenant. In 1886, following the death of his father, he was appointed president of the bank and began a highly ambitious expansion of the institution, particularly internationally. Of course, he first had to work hard to restore the solvency of the institution, which had been severely affected by the financial crisis of 1878-79 (at that time, the over-indebtedness of Swedish railway companies caused a chain of defaults that directly affected the country's banking system).

His only interlude as head of the bank was from 1914 to 1917, when he served as Sweden's Minister of Foreign Affairs, during a particularly turbulent time due to the First World War. In his position, Wallenberg championed the Scandinavian neutrality. It was precisely the war that prevented the banker from achieving his main objective as minister: signing a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom. After leaving office, the tensions experienced during his term caused him serious health problems, to the point of having to remain bedridden for a month with gallbladder problems. As he himself put it, he "had put too many stones in his liver" while serving as minister. Once he resumed his responsibilities at the bank, he never left office again. He died as its CEO (1938).

Network of foundations

The fact that Wallenberg's marriage to Alice Nickelsen left no children led them to make a decision that would prove momentous in the future: to create a family foundation to receive his entire legacy. Thus, in 1917, the couple signed the documentation that led to the creation of the foundation, initially focused on promoting trade, industry, forest resources, and scientific advances. This philosophy prompted them to invest in numerous companies in the country. A year before the foundation, they had created an entity called Investor AB, the family's investment arm, motivated by the legal obstacles that arose regarding banks' investments in industry. Using foundations to channel their assets has provided them with both tax advantages and a degree of anonymity.

In the 1970s, when globalization was still in its infancy, the business conglomerate controlled by the Wallenberg family accounted for 40% of all jobs in Sweden and 40% of the value of companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Today, the Wallenberg family's combined sixteen foundations are estimated to control business assets worth an estimated $278 billion, with a combined turnover of $160 billion.

One of the main assets controlled by the foundations is the investment arm, the aforementioned Investor AB. Fifty percent of the capital belongs to the family, and the remainder is publicly traded. Its market value amounts to $90 billion. The current leaders of the family structure are Jacob (1956), Peter (1960), and John (1970). Poker Åke (1959) and Marcus Wallenberg (1956), members of the fifth generation of the family. All of this, under a cloak of great discretion: "That, not seen", that is, "to be and not to seem," as the family motto says.