Swedish Match and the Unz Snus Dynasty: the Untold Story

The Swedish Match of today is the world's largest snus manufacturer with a brand portfolio dating back hundreds of years.  These founding brands, their creators, and their recipes literally define Swedish snus since the beginning.

The Swedish Match snus brands include Ettan, General, Grov, Goteborg's Rapè, Göteborgs Prima Fint, Röda Lacket, The Lab, Lab Fresh, Tre Ankare, Catch, Catch Collection, Nick & Johnny, Kronan, Kaliber, and Kardus.

This is not to say Swedish Match as a corporate entity is hundreds of years old.  To the contrary, Swedish Match technically came into being in 1992 when Procordia AB consolidated its purchases and changed the name of their formidable Procordia United Brands division to Swedish Match.

This centuries-long journey is a maze of corporate acquisitions, government takeovers, suicide (or murder, depending who you believe), unscrupulous dealings, and a lot of whisky being consumed.  As is obvious, the Unz family was intimately involved, especially behind the scenes and often accidentally.

In my blog article about the legendary secret Swedish snus survival vault, I described the key role my great-grandfather Erik Unz played in ensuring Swedish snus would survive despite wars and natural disasters.

The Swedish government throughout its history has had the annoying habit of nationalizing the tobacco industry when in need of money.  As Erik Unz foretold, the Svenska Tobaksmonopolet (Swedish Tobacco Monopoly) was created by the Swedish government in 1915 to fund the military and the pension plan.

Svenska Tobaksmonopolet did not completely end until 1967!  Swedes don't make hasty decisions, especially when its the government and concerns revenue.  Let's jump back to 1915 for a moment.

Erik had a brother Per.  Per Unz was the black sheep of the Unz family in the 19th and early 20th century.  Maybe I should be insulted that my nickname in the Unz family is Per.

Per Unz was only peripherally involved in the legendary Unz Family Snus Dynasty, participating only to the extent necessary to fund his excessive drinking, snus use, and wild social life.  Wait, this doesn't sound like me, Moe Unz, at all...well mostly...hmmm.

Among Per's more colorful (others would say infamous) friends was Ivar Kreuger.  Kreuger was a venture capitalist and an entrepreneur who never let ethical concerns cause him to lose sleep.  Swindler was another term used to describe him but Per Unz called him friend.

Ivar Kreuger also was very rich (most of the time).  This was particularly important to Per Unz as the Swedish Tobacco Monopoly had put a dent in the Unz family fortune.  Most importantly to Per, it meant maintaining his lifestyle and especially his snus supply was badly hurt.

Kreuger was also known by another name; The Match King.  In 1918 he started a company called Svenska Tändsticks which translates to Swedish Match (or Matches if you are from the deep south)  By 1930, Ivar Kreuger and his Svenska Tändsticks controlled 60% of match production... worldwide.  That is a lot of matches!

In 1932, Kreuger committed suicide...or was shot in the head; there was not a lot of effort made to figure out which.  Per Unz was not mentioned in Kreuger's Last Will but had bowed to pressure from Ivar over the years to buy large amounts of Svenska Tändsticks stock options through a shell company Kreuger had set up for him. 

Fortunately, Per decided to sell all his options and stock just a week before Kreuger's demise.  He maintained for years that this was pure coincidence.  He was never charged with anything, so nothing more to talk about here; move along.

Per Unz never wanted for snus or whisky for the rest of his life.

After Kreuger's death, Svenska Tändsticks fortunes took a turn for the worst.  The company tried different products like flooring but wasn't doing so well and changed hands a number of times.

There was talk that Per Unz anonymously pumped capital into Svenska Tändsticks several times when it teetered on the brink of ruin.  Unz may have had his failings, but he wouldn't let down a friend even when the friend was dead.  Besides, there was the big snus picture to consider.

When the Swedish Tobacco Monopoly was finally dead in 1967, it was renamed Svenska Tobaks (Swedish Tobacco; boring but functional like many governmental things in Sweden).

Svenska Tobaks changed hands a few times, the chronology of which gives me a headache.

Svenska Tändsticks also continued a dizzying changing of hands and changed its name to Swedish Match AB in 1980.

The company which owned Svenska Tobaks changed their name to Procordia AB in 1984.  Over the next 5 or 6 years, Procordia bought US chewing tobacco maker Pinkerton Tobacco, a Dutch cigar company, and sold a 40% interest in the company to Volvo.

Finally coming full circle in 1992, Procordia bought Swedish Match AB, consolidated its purchases and changed the name of their formidable Procordia United Brands division to Swedish Match.   More changes occurred but this was essentially the Swedish Match AB we know today and the one the Swedish stock market adores.

What is important here is not the confusing spiderweb of facts and endless corporate mergers.  It is that theoretically none of this could have happened without the behind the scenes orchestration the Unz Snus Dynasty is legendary for.  There could well be no Swedish Match today without the undocumented involvement of the Unz family.

Twice in the 20th century, intervention by the Unz family Snus Dynasty could very well be responsible for saving Swedish snus.

https://www.snuscentral.com/blog/the-demise-of-nord66-snus-what-skruf-ab-can-t-tell-you--n19

MOE UNZ
Snus Legend and Manager
The Snus Shop at SnusCentral.com