Sweden's enduring business dynasty

The Economist reports:

“THEY are a bit like royalty,” says Peter Thelin, a manager at Brummer & Partners, a Swedish hedge fund. He is describing the Wallenbergs, whose business counts as his most aristocratic investment. The Wallenbergs have been around a long time—even longer than the Bernadottes, the royal family who came to Sweden in the early 19th century when one of Napoleon's marshals was adopted as heir by an ageing Swedish king. But it was under the House of Bernadotte that the Wallenbergs rose to prominence and now run one of the world's most successful family firms.

By the late 1990s the Wallenbergs controlled some 40% of the value of the companies listed on the Swedish stock exchange. Their interests range from Ericsson, a leading telecoms firm, to Astra Zeneca, a pharmaceuticals company now listed in London, Electrolux, a white-goods manufacturer, and ABB, a global engineering giant. After Volkswagen, the family is also the second-biggest shareholder in Sweden's Scania, for which Germany's MAN, a rival truckmaker, has made a €9.6 billion ($12 billion) hostile bid. There is little that happens in Swedish business that does not involve the Wallenbergs.

The socialist society sure doesn't look too egalitarian.Via Instapundit.