Short description
Investor AB was founded in 1916 and is still led by the Wallenberg family. Currently, cousins Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg serve as chairman and vice-chairman of the board, respectively.
The Wallenberg family is one of the most influential business families in Europe, if not the most influential. They do not directly own shares but hold stakes in many European companies through various structures. Additionally, they often sit on boards, giving them direct influence.
Seventy percent of the portfolio consists of publicly traded companies in which they hold significant minority stakes, typically as the largest shareholder. Another 21% is held by Patricia Industries, which covers non-public companies. In this branch, they hold controlling stakes of 93% or more, with the remaining shares often in the hands of management.
The third division is EQT, an investment fund specializing in private equity. Investor AB owns 17.4% of EQT itself and also invests in funds managed by EQT. Altogether, the investment in EQT makes up 9% of the portfolio.
Why we selected Investor AB
Investor AB is primarily active in Scandinavian markets and holds interests in several very strong companies in the region. They take an active role in the management of these businesses.
Over the past 20 years, Investor AB has achieved a compound annual return of 18.2%, and over the last 10 years, this has risen to 20.1%, significantly outperforming the average return of the Swedish stock market.
All of this is accomplished with a very low debt ratio of 1.4% and at a cost lower than that of an ETF, specifically 0.08%.
Holdings are shares we ideally want to hold forever. We only sell when they are heavily overvalued. Otherwise, we try to regularly add to these holdings. Is Investor AB attractively priced today to invest further?