John D. Rockefeller

"When Swedish lawmakers decided to permit banks to invest in industrial companies for the first time, Ivar struck a deal with Oscar Rydbeck, a rising star at Skandinaviska Kredit A.B., known as “The Swedish Credit Bank.”11 When Rydbeck said he would be willing to take Ivar’s Kreuger & Toll shares as collateral for an investment in a new business, Ivar’s thoughts turned to his family - and to matches. Ivar’s father, Ernst August, had methodically saved enough money to buy stakes in two small match factories from their extended family’s consortium, Mönsterås Matchworks. Ivar’s brother Torsten now managed one of those factories in Kalmar, Ivar’s home town. The match business was highly competitive and not very profitable, but Ivar and the newly liberated Swedish banks agreed there was potential. Ivar saw that the match industry was in the same economic position oil, sugar, and steel had been in a few decades earlier. There were too many owners of too many factories. Competition was driving prices down so far that hardly any profit remained. Ivar knew his family, and the numerous other small factory owners, would never make much money this way. However, if these factories could be consolidated, the owner of a Swedish match monopoly could raise prices and make a fortune. Some factories in Sweden recently had combined, to form the Jönköping-Vulcan trust, but the men running the trust were conservative and slow. Ivar was sure he could dominate them. He began using loans from the Swedish Credit Bank to buy match factories throughout Sweden. During the next eight years, Ivar parlayed a few family match factories into a conglomerate. He modernized factories and expanded overseas sales. Production increased from 90,000 cases in 1914 to double that in 1916; his profits more than tripled.12 He reduced costs by purchasing the companies that made his machines, as well as companies that supplied chlorate acid potash for the tips. The hardball tactics Ivar used to take over competitors must have reminded Lee Higg’s partners of John D. Rockefeller, who used a similar approach to acquire competitors of his company Standard Oil. To get the money for these expansions, Ivar turned to Oscar Rydbeck. The Swedish markets were going through their version of a speculative frenzy during 1914-15, and Ivar was able to raise 5 million kronor from Swedish banks. During the war, when exports to Britain closed, Ivar turned to Russia, where he not only exported matches, but purchased aspen wood (the best wood for matches) and paper mills. After the war, he bought up virtually all of his competitors in Sweden, using more cash borrowed with Rydbeck’s help. He never gave up control. When he consolidated his match companies, he kept a majority of the voting shares."

"e drive to “do things,” lots of things, lay at the core of Raskob’s character. Raskob’s own family oft en wondered what made their pater familias tick. Like many of the great men of the second industrial revolution, including Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, Raskob was driven not by greed or avarice, or by the desire for adulation and power. Raskob’s drive, at least in its rawest form, seemed to be almost physical. He loved to be, literally, in motion, careening from place to place and from opportunity to opportunity"

"Trust is crucial in business life. Nobody else but John D. Rockefeller, one of the richest men in history, has repeatedly emphasized the importance of trust. A key experience for the young Rockefeller was when he noticed after founding his first company that even "older men immediately trusted me". "I owe my success in life mainly to my trust in people and my ability to inspire trust in me in other people," says Rockefeller. People who gain the trust of other people also quickly trust other people themselves."

"From John D. Rockefeller to Sam Walton (and ultimately to Mike Bloomberg, I hope), great financial success comes from starting businesses with concrete products in the real world, building jobs, creating value, and helping people."