Björn Savén

"At the same time, Alfa Laval’s operations were refined to heat transfer, fluid separation, and flow management within the areas of energy, marine, food, and water. Thereafter, Alfa Laval was sold to Björn Savén’s private equity firm IndustriKapital. However, Tetra Pak retained a minority stake in the company."

"IK’s headquarters differ from EQT’s, Nordic’s and Altor’s not only because the interior design and architecture are older and more grandiose, but also because there are more “tombstones” in the meeting rooms than at any of the competitors. These “tombstones,” which is a strange name, are a kind of glass trophy that are made after a deal. They stand as monuments to historical successes. But most of those who made the deals at IK are no longer there. Of those who were present during the early days, in 2013 there was only one person left besides the founder Björn Savén. And Savén has moved back to London."

"When Björn Savén was 26 years old, his father died of a heart attack, which hit him hard. That was one of the reasons why he and his future wife Inger returned to Sweden after his graduation from Harvard. They wanted to be close to family, his mother, and sister. Here, he sought out Esselte, a growing international multibillion company that sold office supplies. Sven Wallgren was the boss there. He belonged, together with business leaders like Hans Werthén at Electrolux, to the generation that started a wave of international corporate acquisitions in the 1970s and 1980s. Sweden was on the offensive, even though currency regulations still restricted freedom."

"In 1988, financier Gustaf Douglas and then-CEO of Securitas, later billionaire Melker Schörling, secured the first private contract in elderly care with their newly founded Svensk Hemservice. During the 1990s, the company went through several mergers and was eventually sold to become part of the healthcare group Attendo, which in 2013 was owned by IK. For a few years, Uppsala economist Peter Weiderman was CEO of Svensk Hemservice, and he then caught wind of the opportunities the care market offered. In 1996, with a total investment of SEK 15 million from Björn Savén, Harald Mix, and Kim Wahl, all at IK at the time, he started the healthcare company Carema. They could not let any of IK’s funds buy the company—it was too small an investment—but neither could they turn down what they perceived as a fantastic opportunity. And it was."

"In retrospect, it has become important to determine who was first. Who wrote the first chapter in the unlikely story that began in Sweden during the second half of the 1980s? One of the first to see the potential in trading unlisted companies was Skandia’s then CFO Björn Hall, when he founded Skandia Investment – but the one who handled the company acquisitions was Christer Dahlström. The first to start his own business and make acquisitions according to the American model was Mikael Ahlström. But Björn Savén started the first fund. One of Nordic Capital’s founders, Robert Andreen, is annoyed at Hall for taking credit for starting Nordic, when Andreen claims that Skandia was just a part-owner in the beginning. Hall then responds with a smile: “But you, who hired whom?”"