Sweden’s Most Powerful Industrial Family Gets Ready for a Fight With ‘the Butcher’

It’s a 10-minute stroll from Christer Gardell’s office overlooking leafy Humlegarden park in central Stockholm to Arsenalsgatan 8C, the headquarters of Investor AB, the finance arm of the legendary Wallenberg family. Like Investor Chairman Jacob Wallenberg, Gardell has built a strong reputation as a savvy backer of companies in need. And like Wallenberg, Gardell often targets industrial giants with roots in the Nordic region. But that’s about as far as the similarities go. While Gardell’s Cevian Capital seeks to shake up consensus-loving boardrooms across Europe, Wallenberg is an ultralong-term investor, thinking in decades and keeping a low profile.

For the second time in a year, Gardell is butting heads with the Wallenbergs, Swedish industry’s most powerful family. In October, Wallenberg supported managers at ABB Ltd. as they fought off a breakup plan from Cevian. Today, Gardell is back for another round, this time at Ericsson AB, the troubled Swedish telecommunications gear maker that’s been in Investor’s portfolio since the 1930s.