Making It in Sweden

So confining are socialist Sweden's soak-the-rich laws that trying to make it big in business is about as difficult as trying to hit a home run inside a telephone booth. Yet it can be done. The most dramatic proof is Anders Wall, 45, president of Stockholm-based Beijerinvest and the fastest-rising star in the Swedish corporate world. During the past decade, Wall, through a shrewdly calculated program of acquisitions, has built his company from a small trading firm into a conglomerate embracing 50 trading and manufacturing concerns that turn out goods as diverse as beer, rolling-mill equipment and industrial pumps. Under Wall, Beijerinvest's sales went from $25 million in 1964 to $1.04 billion last year. Last week the company reported that volume for the first half of this year hit $659 million, or 59% more than a year earlier, and profits came to $21 million, up 86%.

Wall, who began life as a poor farmer's son near the town of Uppsala, has become Sweden's highest-paid executive. He earns $340,000 a year, though taxes gobble up 80% of it. In addition, Wall controls 15% of all outstanding Beijerinvest shares, which at current market prices are worth about $3.6 million. In marked contrast to the stereotype of the dour Swede, Wall is a chipper, handsome, nattily dressed man who favors loud ties and modern art. A striking transparent torso of a woman stuffed with American $1 bills adorns his Stockholm office. Wall's key strength as an executive--a virtue that pleases even Sweden's socialists--is his almost uncanny ability to spot the flaws in ailing firms and then transform the companies into profitable ventures. Supremely confident, he has no problem living with his success and big income. Says he: "I deserve it."

Wall has reason for satisfaction. When he was 16, his father died, and Wall, while attending high school, went to work in a brick factory, hustled subscriptions for the local newspaper and later sold real estate. At 20 he enrolled in Stockholm's School of Economics, where he caught the eye of Kjell Beijer, Beijerinvest's owner, who hired him part time. Wall joined the company in 1958, and in 1964 was given chief responsibility for the firm's operations. Immediately he set out to expand the company, selling off deadwood and using the money to buy firms with fatter profit potential. In the process, he spread the company's branches throughout Europe, the U.S. and Japan.

Biggest Coup. Among many other things, Wall forged two medium-size steel firms into Sweden's largest privately owned steel and foundry company, built a small licensing operation, Crawford Door, into Europe's leading maker of overhead sliding doors, and acquired Pribo, a major food-processing and leisure-goods conglomerate. His companies greatly expanded trade with Eastern Europe, exporting manufactured goods and importing meat, fish and other raw materials. In 1974 Wall scored one of his biggest coups by swallowing up Scandinavian Trading Co., which has become one of Europe's leading independent oil firms.

Wall, convinced that his company is now diversified enough to protect it against sudden shocks in any one segment of the economy, insists that his rush for major acquisitions is over. "What remains," he says, "is some fine adjustments--sell a bit here, buy a bit there." Wall manages to soften the hectic 16-hour-a-day pace of his business life by relaxing with his family, which he calls "my breathing space." Every weekend he, his wife Ann, his son Johan, 11, and his daughter Osa, 7, escape to the family's 600-acre farm at Starfors. Ironically, the farm is one of Wall's few money-losing enterprises. But, says the executive, "it's a lot of fun, and it helps me hold on to my roots."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.