Wallenberg sphere

"I knew nothing about Jan Stenbeck’s extensive mobile phone business in the third world, a knowledge gap I shared with most Swedish journalists at the time. The financial journalists who should have had good chances to know about them, chose not to attach great emphasis to them - which only shows that when it came to Stenbeck, ordinary values did not apply. (Imagine if Ericsson or any company from the Wallenberg sphere had started and run mobile phone companies in twenty developing countries, including Vietnam and Cambodia, during the nineties. I believe we would have read many reports about it.)"

"After Ruben’s death, several dramatic events occurred. The first was the purchase of Alfa Laval. The deal was linked to liquidity problems for the Wallenberg sphere. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the group was heavily pressured by attacks from “raiders” such as Sven-Olof Johansson. It was clear to the strategists within the sphere that the construction of shareholdings divided between two separate holding companies, Investor and Providentia, was insufficient protection against attacks. Throughout history, the Wallenberg group had protected itself against hostile takeovers through differential voting shares. However, this was no longer enough. An investor who could mobilize large amounts of capital could theoretically wrest control from the Wallenberg family. The case with Sven-Olof Johansson had been worrying, a newcomer, with the help of borrowed capital, had managed to acquire a “corner position” in Saab-Scania, pushed the stock value sharply upward, and challenged the family’s control."