Wallenberg Family

Wallenberg family From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search The Wallenberg family are a prominent Swedish family renowned as bankers, industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats, and diplomats. According to Financial Times, it is the most powerful dynasty of Europe, if not the world, in terms of controlling the biggest empire by market value and strategic companies. The Wallenbergs control and are majority owners of most large Swedish industrial groups, like world leading telecommunication multinational Ericsson, Scandinavian and Baltic bank giant Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, world's biggest paper and pulp multinational Stora Enso, Wärtsilä, Electrolux, ABB, aerospace SAAB, SAS Group, world's biggest ball-bearing company SKF, Atlas Copco, pharmaceutical company Astra Zeneca, Nasdaq, Inc., Husqvarna, the Stockholm football club AIK, investment company Investor AB, the Grand Group hotel, and so on. In the 1970s, the Wallenberg family businesses employed 40% of Sweden's industrial workforce and represented 40% of the total worth of the Stockholm stock market.[1] Wallenbergs, through the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, allocate annually SEK 2 billion to science and research, which makes the Foundation one of the largest private research foundations in Europe. The most famous of the Wallenbergs, Raoul Wallenberg, a diplomat, worked in Budapest, Hungary, during World War II to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. Between July and December 1944, he issued protective passports and housed Jews, saving tens of thousands of Jewish lives.[2]