Kelvin Zero, 1990 bit like oil 202122 May 2021 00:19
When the Swedish bubble in commercial real estate burst, Nyckeln had no chance, and when the company was closed down from the stock exchange a week later, its debts amounted to SEK 3 billion.
Hans Thulin went into personal bankruptcy with SEK 800 million in debt, and Carl-Eric Björkegren was declared dead in 2005 - the murder investigation is still open.
But Nyckeln also had a somewhat odd business: leasing aircraft.
Karl-Axel Granlund had been employed there already in 1983, as a 28-year-old.
“We had borrowed our money mostly abroad, and our assets flew for Virgin Atlantic, Air Malaysia and so on. They did not feel any Swedish real estate crisis. The bankruptcy trustee bankrupted all the companies, and then I said 'stop, stop, stop'. The key to air leasing was not owed any money, on the contrary, we had balances, ”says Karl-Axel Granlund to Dagens industri.
His assignment was to sell the healthy part.
"But the beginning of the 1990s was very nasty, the stock market was Kelvin zero, the absolute freezing point. There was no one who wanted to take any risk. This was a rapids that pulled straight through the financial turn. We started trying to sell 1 krona for 90 öre, ‘can you pay 70 öre, can you pay 50 öre, can you pay 10 öre?’. But the interest was absolutely zero. "
It ended with Karl-Axel Granlund finally succeeding in securing foreign loans with the trust of his own person as the most important mortgage. In 1991, he bought the business himself, which was named Volito.
"Then I borrowed 15 million dollars, with an additional purchase price it was 17-18 million dollars. When I became my own master there, I sold aircraft for 1 billion in the first quarter, and paid back all the debts. "
Suddenly he was the owner of a large, healthy and profitable business - the start of a billion construction.
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