Genre: Biography, written from second hand sources.
The rather lengthy subtitle to this book comes from the financial instruments that Ivan Kreuger created, all those fancy derivatives that have come into focus because of the current sub prime mortgage meltdown. Since the book chronicles events in the 1920's and 1930's , Kreuger can also be considered as the granddad of this generations Enron, Bernie Madoff, Allen Stanford etc.
While derivatives have got a bad rap recently, they are legitimate and important financial instruments and Kreuger by (allegedly) creating these instruments has shown that he was extremely astute if not a genius.
Partnoy potrays a case that there is no hard evidence Kreuger set out to defraud investors or banks. Partnoy builds up Kreuger as a figure who did not knowingly do anything wrong but rather ended up getting tangled in all the complex webs that he build. Far more shocking that what Kreuger did was that he could get away with it all for so long. From shockingly lax accounting for a company borrowing money from the average Joe, to shell companies over shell companies, to colossal fund transfers. Kreuger was rarely challenged over any of this.
All this makes for fascinating reading. Partnoy described having gone through a tonne of material for this book and there is certainly plenty of details in the book. Some of these details combined with Partnoy overly florid writting style combine to reduce the allure of this book. I would have preferred Partnoy to have focussed more on the facts he could glean then on interactions between various people. It is hard to believe that Partnoy found any truthful material that made him privy to the behaviours and dialogues he attributes to the characters in the book.
The subject matter of the book is great, the writing is average and often times overly dramatic. Still it makes for a fun read and is recommended.
Rating: 3 / 5, Above average, Recommended if the subject matter interests you.
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