AB Vapor

"When development had progressed this far, Ruben decided that the milk packaging business should be placed in a separate company. He was well-prepared: as early as 1946, he had applied for the registration of Aktiebolaget Alicante to have on hand in case the tetrahedron became something. Now was the time, and in 1950, on Erik Torudd’s suggestion, the small 10,000-krona company Alicante changed its name to Tetra Pak. It was also decided that the company should be registered in 57 different countries—big plans were being made within the walls of Åkerlund & Rausing’s headquarters. But for now, there was no actual business in Tetra Pak. The development work was still being conducted within the framework of Åkerlund & Rausing. The shares that Ruben had so far been the sole owner of, were transferred after a couple of years to Ruben’s three sons, Gad, Hans, and Sven. They each received 25 percent. The remaining 25 percent went to the partner Holger Crafoord. The sons also took over Ruben’s share in Åkerlund & Rausing. The Rausing share was controlled through AB Vapor."

"Formally, it was not the family that bought the shares but AB Vapor which was the official owner of Tetra Pak. However, Vapor was in turn owned by the Rausing brothers. The money to redeem the outstanding shares was obtained by Vapor in the same way as Socomer in Switzerland. The company functioned not only as an owner company but also took commissions from Swedish Tetra Pak suppliers. Thus, the purchases were made possible by money that the Rausing family had earned from Tetra Pak, but which had been concealed from the minority shareholders they wanted to kick out of the company."