Bankers to the World

Everywhere in Sweden a traveler is likely to find smorgasbord, attractive women--and the 100-year-old Skandinaviska Bank. Ranging from a new highly computerized branch at Sundsvall in the northern timberland to a modest cottage draped with a fishing net on the island of Tjorn, Skandinaviska's 284 branches thoroughly cover the country. While assiduously courting the rural shepherds and woodsmen, it does not overlook the city folk, either at home or abroad. In the heart of Stockholm, it has for the past two years been bulldozing away hills and laying girders for an eleven-story stone-and-glass palace of money that is currently Sweden's biggest construction job. Last week the bank celebrated the festive ''roof laying" at the building, into which it will move next spring, one year ahead of schedule.

Aggressive Thrust. Skandinaviska had to build in a hurry to keep up with its growth in Sweden and around the world. The bank handles one-third of Sweden's currency exchange and finances one-half of its exports. Thrusting aggressively overseas, it has bought an interest in a Moroccan bank, recently acquired control of a bank in Geneva and joined the Bahamas-based World Banking Corp. to gain a toehold in Latin America. It backed construction of a $30 million paper plant in Portugal, and this year became the first Swedish bank since World War II to underwrite a foreign bond issue, for a Norwegian power project. All this activity has helped Skandinaviska in the past ten years to double its assets to $1.5 billion.

Though second in size to the Svenska Handelsbanken and less renowned than the Wallenbergs' Enskilda Bank (TIME, June 7, 1963), Skandinaviska has long been Sweden's foremost international bank and is widely regarded as its most modern and creative financial institution. In its earliest major deals a century ago, it raised money in Germany for Sweden's infant railroad and financed Swedish iron and timber ex ports. Skandinaviska also bankrolled the worldwide ventures of Swedish Match King Ivar Kreuger to the tune of $65 million, and his collapse in the 1930s almost brought the bank down as well.

Caution & Adventure. Skandinaviska bailed out many of Kreuger's companies in a rescue operation that won it the lasting respect--and the banking business--of such large Swedish corporations as automaking Volvo and the ball-bearing giant SKF. Says Lars-Erik Thunholm, 50, one of the bank's three managing directors: "Caution alone could not make banking a creative force. Caution must be coupled with adventure." By successfully coupling them, Skandinaviska has proved anew that one plus one often adds up to much more than two.

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