Most powerful dynasties in europe

The most powerful business Dynasty in Europe.

In the heart of Europe, there is a powerful business dynasty that owns a web of companies, including AstraZeneca and the NASDAQ Stock Exchange. This clan, known as the Wallenberg family, is composed of bankers, industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats, and military officials. They employ over a million people, including almost half of Sweden's industrial workforce in the 1970s, and their empire is worth over 275 billion dollars, surpassing the likes of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bernard Arnault. Despite their immense wealth and power, they have managed to stay out of the public eye, avoiding public appearances and interviews.

 

The Andre Oscar Wallenberg, a young naval office 1873.

The picture source

Now would we say hello to the Wallenberg’s the family that owns all of Europe. That  was one of the worst Financial crises America had experience at that time.

falling cotton prices bad Harvest and inflation LED Banks to fail businesses, to go bankrupt and unemployment to Skyrocket.

it was a nightmare for American Bankers. but it was a very important lesson for a young naval officer from Sweden and his name was Andre Oscar Wallenberg.

In1837 he had a front row seat to witness the chaos in America first hand the incompetence of American Banks, and bankers gave Andre Wallenberg an idea he had clearly seen how Banks should not be run.

he wondered why he couldn't just take what he learned, back to his homeland to open up a better Bank over there. he also saw a massive opportunity Swedish Banks were missing out. on see Swedish banks at the time were archaic.

it was hard to transfer money between locations. you couldn't get a high interest rate for depositing your money. but most importantly Swedish banks at the time didn't take the money people deposited into their savings accounts to lend out to other companies.

Swedish Banks were not lending to other companies during a time when Sweden was in the midst of industrialization. Swedish railroad network was being built and Sweden's economy was skyrocketing. all these opportunities needed funding but none of the existing Banks were meeting the need,

The idea to become the most powerful banker in the Sweden

Think about just how big of an opportunity this was today. the idea of banks taking your  deposits and lending it out like crazy daily life routine work. it's why they're so rich and powerful. it's what led to the 2008 financial crisis, but back then in Sweden Banks were not participating in this financial Alchemy. when it was the best time to participate so they were leaving an insane amount of money on the table and if Andre Wallenberg could go back to Europe and establish a new modern Bank he could have the potential to become the most powerful Banker in all of Sweden

The great thing was back in then

 1800s the banking sector was very different from what it is today. Today one doesn't simply decide to go and open up a bank. today's banking sector is so regulated and it requires so much Capital that's almost impossible to do unless you either partner with an existing bank, or you're already rich and Powerful to

begin with and side note this huge barrier to entry is by Design the big Banks.

luckily for Andre Wallenberg, 200 years ago banking was the Wild West. anyone could open up a bank and start shackling people in debt. you could open up a bank as easily as you could open up a jewelry store or a doctor's clink.

so with the help of his colleagues Andre Wallenberg managed to open up the Stockholm and skill the bank. 1

856 was unlike anything Sweden has seen. before it encouraged the public average every day. People deposit their heart earned money into savings accounts, these savings accounts offered actually good interest rates, so the longer you left your money in your savings account the more interest it could earn for you.

This sounds very normal today, but back then this wasn't something that was available to the average person in Sweden. Just like today little did those customers know that the money they put in the bank wasn't being kept safe for you in a big vault in the back.

No Wallenberg would then take your money and then lend it out to other people and businesses. during the best possible time to be lending out money in Sweden during

Industrialization, and for Wallenberg it was a gold rush. it became so popular that it

quickly took over Sweden's entire banking industry. Sweden had become conquered. but not by a foreign power but a domestic one and the weapon of choice was banking.

but the Wallenberg’s didn't stop there. Their family fortune was growing at an exponential rates. family started buying majority stakes and hundreds of Swedish companies. They call it “ the liberal transformation of Swedish Society”. From Railways to factories to international trade and LLCs, there was not a major company in Sweden that the Wallenberg’s didn't have some stake in.

The Danger of allowing Banks to own major businesses and the solution

But in 1916 they ran into a problem. the Swedish government started seeing the danger of allowing Banks to own major businesses. while also getting those businesses and people in debt to them so, the Swedish government passed a law that made it nearly impossible for banks to own long-term shares of industrial businesses. but the Wallenberg’s weren't so quick to give up. so to get around this new law the Wallenberg family created (Sweden investor AB) very vague sounding holding company that was given full ownership of all the businesses. The Wallenberg’s personal investment arm and the crisis was averted. The Firm did so well that by the 1970s the Wallenberg family employed more than 40 percent of Sweden's entire industrial Workforce and owned 40 of the country's entire Stock Exchange.

Choosing One side

Now then World War II came and the Wallenberg’s were left with a decision, which side of the war they stand?

would they profit from the Allies or Hitler? So the Wallenberg decided to stand both side and Lending money to parties. In that way no matter which side won,  both sides became indebted to Wallenberg’s and Wallenberg’s always come out on top. that's why as a banker you always want to play Both Sides.

 when World War II came around on one side, they had Germany who was facing strict sanctions and the possibility of losing billions of dollars as the Allies, shut down their businesses, on the other hand they had America and Britain. who desperately needed banking services in Europe to continue fighting. so here's what they did while one Wallenberg brother dealt with the Allies in London and New York offering their Bank services to their War efforts the other brothers stationed himself in Berlin. There the Wallenberg’s offered to buy important German military supply companies like (Bosch) to prevent them from being seized or shut down by the Allie. technically it was legal to buy these companies if you intended to keep them and use them according to the law. but what the Wallenberg’s were doing was very different instead of buying and keeping these companies, they signed agreements that stated that they promised to sell the companies back to Germany as soon as Germany wanted them back in  exchange for a fat fee. of course not only did the Wallenberg family keep Germany's most important company safe from the Allies in exchange for money,

they went to extreme lengths like running black market operations, and money laundering to ensure that they could keep making money on both sides. So playing both sides became so profitable for the Wallenberg family.that more than 50 years later, they were still using the exact same Playbook the Wallenberg’s own Ericsson a multinational Telecom company, and won a certain violent organization in the Middle East that rhymes with crisis threatened to shut down one of eris's transfer routes in Iraq. Erickson simply paid the violent organization tens of millions of dollars in bribes to guarantee their safety after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and got slapped with every sanction known to man the company's Atlas Copco and SKF. Both companies the Wallenberg’s hold stakes in continued to sell crucial equipment to Russian nuclear weapons programs but now the family was faced with another existential crisis solving the problem of past wealth see although having Rich parents. may sound tempting most kids that come from Rich families are dead inside. They have no purpose no drive. that's why 9 out of 10 of the world's richest families lose their wealth by the third generation. there's a famous “ that sums us up my grandfather walked 10 miles to work every day. my father walked five, I'm driving a Cadillac, my son is in a Mercedes my grandson will be in a Ferrari, but my great-grandson will be walking again.”

Third generation curse

So the Wallenberg family had to find a way to escape the curse of the third generation. So the foreign passing down the entire Wallenberg family fortune to one or two sons.  Most of their money is kept in family run foundations while dozens of family heirs are each put in charge of different foundations and businesses that make up. their vast Empire that way no one single era has the power to single-handedly and destroy the entire family fortune, and before any of the Wallenberg family members reach a  management position they're required to actually spend time working in the company to gain real life experience. The end

Author “iftikhar”