Christer Gardell - 'Icahn Of Sweden’ Elaborates

The investor whom Swedish newspapers call ``the butcher'' and former Prime Minister Goran Persson says is destroying the fabric of his nation's capitalism works out of an 1881 stone townhouse in a tree-lined street in Stockholm.

Cevian Capital AB co-founder Christer Gardell, whose office overlooks Humlegarden Park, where kings once grew their hops for beer, says he's a long-term investor trying to increase the value of companies.

Like activist investors in the U.S. and U.K., he buys enough shares of a company to gain seats on the board and then pushes for changes, such as firing directors, shedding assets and installing new managers. Gardell, 47, says his location far north in Europe gives him an edge.

``The advantage we have in Stockholm is that we've been away from the London noise, where all these investors and hedge funds are talking and end up with the same ideas and the same portfolios,'' says Gardell, wearing a single-breasted blazer, spectacles and beige slacks. ``In Stockholm, there is no one to talk to.''