Swedish news:

Ruth Westberg, Sweden's Best Young CEO. New rules for paying down debt. King of poker. 

  • Swedish poker pro Martin Jacobson won world championship title - and $10 million - in Las Vegas.
  • Young Swedish CEO
    Ruth Westberg received 2014’s award for Sweden’s Best Young CEO. At just 27 years of age, she is already the CEO of the company Concept AB in Göteborg, part of the Mölnlycke group, which manufactures custom production equipment for the food-, plastic –, automotive- and pharmaceutical industries — with 17 employees and a turnover of SEK 22 million ($2,966,700). Even as a 13-year-old, Westberg had already set herself the goal that one day she would be a CEO. “I helped start a company that is using technology, when I hardly know how to change the tires on my car. I have been compelled to commit my staff to do the job I can not. But I can engage and motivate.” Westberg in part attributes her success to leading a results-oriented, innovative company “with the help of healthy questioning."

  • Less money in Swedish pockets after Finansinspektionen, FI decides mortgage holders must sharply increase the amoritization of their loans. Image source: forskning.se
  • Paying down debt
    The Swedish Riksbank and Finansinspektionen, FI (the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority) announced on November 11 a new requirement that mortgage holders must sharply increase the amoritization of their loans. Mortgage borrowers should, according to the FI, reduce their mortgage to 50 percent of their loan. While the rules are still getting sorted out, homeowners should aim to amortize at least 2 percent annually, then by at least 1 percent annually. Financial supervisory suggestions are available for mortgage owners to calculate how much they should pay each month, with a goal for all loans — old and new — to be amortized down to 50 percent of the home's value. “We want the borrowers to repay their loans down to half of what they bought their houses or apartments,” said Martin Andersson, head of the FI. The aim is to better withstand economic shocks and stop the borrowing merry-go-round to prevent a house market crash.

  • Ruth Westberg, at age 27, elected Sweden's Best Young CEO. Source: entreprenör.se
  • King of poker
    A Swedish poker player has won the World Series of Poker championship in Las Vegas. Martin Jacobson, 27, beat out two other finalists from northern Europe as they played for a total of five hours in the last stage of the two-day finale. The win earns Jacobson the title and $10 million. Lina Olofsson, poker journalist and chairman of the Swedish Poker Federation, describes Jacobson's profit as the largest ever in Sweden. “This is as big as when the national football team finished third in 1994.” Nine players headed into the event on Nov. 10, after close to 7,000 players paid $10,000 each to participate in seven days of elimination rounds in July. The last time a Swede played in the finals was in 2006 when Erik Friberg finished eighth.