Gunnar

"Acquisitions are essentially a “people game,” and Tindberg’s feel for personalities and relationships de-risked his acquisitions. He promised prospective sellers that he would help improve their businesses, and his background as an entrepreneur made him trustworthy. He stood apart from financially minded buyers in suits and ties. He was resolute in only buying businesses that met his stringent criteria: recurring-like revenue streams, high technical expertise, best-in-class products, and a potential of reaching a 10% margin. To him, these were signs of a high quality trading company. He explains to us that his belief was that “people and numbers are interconnected.” Great people tend to drive great financial performance. Gunnar’s “secret” was to find entrepreneurs sharing same core values, and to grant them freedom. This remains the north star of Indutrade’s philosophy. It is no coincidence that frugality"

"In 1989, Industrivärden made sure that any parts that were not focused on specialized industrial trading were sold off. It retained Dacke Component, a trading company of small and mission critical industrial components like valves, transmissions, filters and other similar products. Dacke was renamed Indutrade in 1990, with Gunnar at the helm."

"I had learned from Kenne Fant, a friend and CEO at SF, that Hufvudstaden wanted to divest SF but also that the question of price was owned by Gunnar. We concluded the deal subject to the DN group's approval of the rather significant price of 55 million SEK. "Even if it had cost 100 million SEK, I would have gone for it," Abbe quickly said to me as we left. Gunnar Schmidt knew how to charge, but the agreement he wrote in pencil on less than an A4 page was turned into a thick bundle by a clever gentleman at Lagerlöf's law firm. During the review, I occasionally asked Gunnar if the text interpreted his view of the matter. Gunnar then immediately told the lawyer to change the formulations. There was never the slightest miscommunication with him."