Paul Toll
Encyclopedia
Ivar Kreuger
Ivar Kreuger was a Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist. In 1908 Kreuger co-founded the construction company Kreuger & Toll Byggnads AB which specialized in new building techniques. By aggressive investments and innovative financial instruments he built a global match...
, of the construction company Kreuger & Toll
Kreuger & Toll
Kreuger & Toll was a company founded May 18, 1908 by the two Swedish engineers, Ivar Kreuger and Paul Toll, with Henrik Kreüger working as a consultant and chief engineer.-History:...
.
Paul Toll was born in the parish of Berga
Berga
Berga is the capital of the comarca of Berguedà, in Catalonia, Spain.- History :Berga derives its name from the Bergistani, an Iberian tribe that lived in the area before the Roman conquest. The Bergistani were first subdued by Hannibal in 218 BC...
in Kronoberg County
Kronoberg County
Kronoberg County is a County or län in southern Sweden. It borders the counties of Skåne, Halland, Jönköping, Kalmar and Blekinge. Its capital is the city Växjö.- Province :For History, Geography and Culture see: Småland...
, Småland. The name Toll springs from the small village Tollstad, south of Alvestra in the province of Östergötland
Östergötland
Östergötland, English exonym: East Gothland, is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland, and the Baltic Sea. In older English literature, one might also encounter the Latinized version, Ostrogothia...
, Sweden. In 1913, he married Gunhild Engwall, with whom he raised six children.
Together with Ivar Kreuger
Ivar Kreuger
Ivar Kreuger was a Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist. In 1908 Kreuger co-founded the construction company Kreuger & Toll Byggnads AB which specialized in new building techniques. By aggressive investments and innovative financial instruments he built a global match...
, Paul Toll formed the engineering and construction company Kreuger & Toll
Kreuger & Toll
Kreuger & Toll was a company founded May 18, 1908 by the two Swedish engineers, Ivar Kreuger and Paul Toll, with Henrik Kreüger working as a consultant and chief engineer.-History:...
in 1908. Toll played the main role in the construction projects while Ivar Kreuger handled the business contacts and marketing of the company. When he met Ivar Kreuger in early 1908, Ivar offered him the position of joint owner in a newly established company. Paul wrote a letter to his father Karl Toll on 23 March 1908 to give him some information about Ivar and probably to ask his father for advice on what to do, as Paul Toll was working for another company at that time: (translated to English), "After a 7-year period working as a trainee in America, engineer Kreuger, that is his name, has worked with a lot projects with concrete steel in different places around the world. He has now made me an offer to become his joint owner." This was the starting point for one of the world's most famous companies, not in the construction business but as a holding company mainly in the match industry with the name Kreuger & Toll AB that did not include the construction business.
After some years Ivar Kreuger became more focused in founding large corporations. To start with in the match-industry to save the Kreuger family match factories around Kalmar
Kalmar
Kalmar is a city in Småland in the south-east of Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. It had 62,767 inhabitants in 2010 and is the seat of Kalmar Municipality. It is also the capital of Kalmar County, which comprises 12 municipalities with a total of 233,776 inhabitants .From the thirteenth to the...
that was facing financial problems in 1912 and later in other industries. In 1917 Ivar founded the company Kreuger & Toll Construction AB, run and owned (60%) by Paul Toll. Ivar owned a small part of that company, how much is not known. Kreuger & Toll AB then became a holding company, run by Ivar Kreuger. Paul and Ivar, however kept a close contact over the years as Ivar insisted on keeping Paul as a member of the board for Kreuger & Toll AB, handling the Kreugers construction business within the subsidiary real estate company Hufvudstaden AB. The construction business grow rapidly both within and outside Sweden.
The construction company mainly worked in Scandinavia but also had a small company in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, registered in 1911, with Ludvig Nobel
Ludvig Nobel
Ludvig Immanuel Nobel was an engineer, a noted businessman and a humanitarian. One of the most prominent members of the Nobel family, he was the son of Immanuel Nobel and Alfred Nobel's older brother...
as a member of the board and the office in Sankt Petersburg. Ivar Kreuger was behind the economic work to set up the company and Paul handled the construction work. An industrial building for ASEA was set up in the city of Jaroslav
Jaroslav
Jaroslav is a common Slavic first name, composed from the elements jar meaning strong or powerful and slav meaning glory or fame. It is also the name of several places....
north east of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
with a number of other buildings. However the Russian business came to a sudden stop in 1916 due to internal company problems just before the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917 when all subsidiaries whose main company was outside Russia were forbidden to have any activities in Russia, and all foreign property was confiscated.
In 1932 when the Kreuger Crash came, most parts of the holding company went bankrupt but Kreuger & Toll Construction AB survived, but suffered from the bad reputation that the name 'Kreuger' had got. Paul then changed the company name to just Toll Construction AB and continued to work with new projects. The construction company's most famous projects, going back to early 1910, were the NK
Nordiska Kompaniet
Nordiska Kompaniet is the name of two department stores located in Stockholm and Gothenburg, in Sweden....
warehouse (1913–14), the Stockholm Olympic Stadium (1911–12) and the Södersjukhuset
Södersjukhuset
Södersjukhuset is one of the largest hospitals in Stockholm, Sweden. Constructed between 1937 and 1944, it was designed by architects Hjalmar Cederström and H. Imhäuser. Södersjukhuset has the largest emergency department in northern Europe....
hospital (1944) in Stockholm. Henrik Kreüger
Henrik Kreüger
Henrik Kreüger was born in Kalmar, Sweden and obtained his M.Sc. in civil engineering in 1904 at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm....
, Ivars Kreuger's cousin, was working as a consultant and chief engineer for the company from the start in 1908 and played a major role in the construction business success.
Paul was a member of the board for the Kreuger & Toll holding company all along until the Kreuger Crash in 1932 but did not participate much in these discussions, as he was occupied with the continuously growing construction business. To what extent Ivar was involved in the construction business beyond 1917, when the Swedish Match had been founded and the Russian subsidiary company was closed down, is not clear but he certainly had business contacts that the Kreuger & Toll Construction AB could benefit from, and Ivar and Paul often met in their free time.
Paul Toll built up a large company group of his own during the years 1917 until 1932 by acquiring other construction related companies and developing the business. By 1930 he had control over a large company group including Sand & Grus AB (including Jehander), Svenska Murbruks AB, Kasper Höglund AB, Kanal & Invallningsbolaget, Haga tegelbruk, Ölands Cement AB among others. The real estates Karlavägen 57 (Stockholm), Kommendörsgatan 16 (Stockholm), the farmland estates Husby at Munsö, Äleby at Selaön and Fållnäs in Sorunda (Stockholm) were some of his private properties. The family had their private residence at Villagatan 10 (Stockholm) just across the street where Ivar Kreuger had his apartment at Villagatan 13A & B, and a summerhouse they called "Hagen", bought in 1917, in the north eastern part of the island of Lidingö
Lidingö Municipality
Lidingö Municipality is a municipality just east of Stockholm in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Lidingö...
outside Stockholm.
Sources
- Toll, Magnus: Paul Toll 1882-1946, ingeniör-entreprenör. 1996. Swedish language. No ISBN. Private book, written by Magnus Toll, 1925–1997, youngest son of Paul Toll and his wife Gunhild, née Engwall. The booklet was distributed to family-members, i.g. all descendants of Paul Toll and his wife Gunhild.