Jet Scandal Redraws Sweden’s Corporate Landscape

he cross-shareholdings that have defined Sweden’s second-biggest business empire — built around Industrivärden, a holding company which owns stakes in companies from Handelsbanken and Volvo to Ericsson and Sandvik — have now been dismantled. Handelsbanken on Wednesday sold its stake in Industrivärden, just after the other former central company in the empire — SCA — announced it would break itself up. “These are pretty historic events,” says Karl Wennberg, professor at Stockholm School of Economics and Linkoping University. But he adds: “It is also natural. It is part of a global shift from stakeholder capitalism to a more Anglo-Saxon sort of capitalism. ”The end of the cross-shareholdings between Industrivärden, Handelsbanken and SCA have all been dismantled in the past year after a corporate jet scandal that shook the businesses to their core. More than 10 chief executive and chairman posts have been changed at almost every company in the Industrivärden empire.