Jan Stenbeck died suddenly before his Victory Challenge syndicate could compete in the America's Cup. JULIE ASH talks to his son Hugo and finds Stenbeck's spirit sails on.
Jan Stenbeck always vowed he would be sitting in a theatre in Paris, with his beloved basset hound Lothar, watching a film on
the first day of the challenger series for the America's Cup.
The financial backer and syndicate head of Sweden's Victory Challenge knew he would be too nervous to watch the start of the Louis Vuitton series, so the best place for him would be a world away in France, immersed in a movie.
What Stenbeck, aged 59, did not realise is that tragically he would not make the movie or the challenger series. He died suddenly of a heart attack in August at the American Hospital in Paris after a brief illness - at virtually the same time as his team launched their second America's Cup yacht, SWE73, in Auckland.
Grief-stricken, the Swedish team promised to carry on and fight for the America's Cup. "This base, these boats, this team - all of these were part of Jan Stenbeck's vision. He wanted to make a competitive challenge for the America's Cup," said Victory Challenge project manager Mats Johansson. "We will enter this fantastic regatta. Every day we will do it with Jan in mind."
Today 23-year-old Hugo Stenbeck is taking his father's place at the Viaduct Basin, now part of the syndicate's management team and here to watch over the senior Stenbeck dream project.
"I am here to fulfil my father's dream and our country's dream of winning the America's Cup," says the university student who shares the same name as his grandfather and his father's elder brother.
Entrepreneur Jan Stenbeck was born in Stockholm, Sweden. The youngest of four children, his father Hugo was a prominent lawyer and businessman who co-founded the steel and forestry conglomerate Industriforvaltnings AB Kinnevik.
The academic-leaning Stenbeck completed a law degree at the University of Uppsala in Sweden before going to Harvard Business School in the United States. After graduating he worked as an investment banker in New York before launching his first business venture there, taking up one of the first three licences for mobile phones in the US and becoming the first person in the world to start a commercial mobile company. He was also a co-founder of Vodafone.
However, when his older brother, Hugo jnr, and his father died within nine months of each other, Stenbeck was needed to take care of the family business in Sweden. He did not return to Sweden, opting to stay in the United States, and a huge public fight with his two sisters erupted.
While their brother tried to fulfil his father's wish to keep the company in the family, his sisters wanted to sell their holdings. Stenbeck celebrated his win in the family tussle by booking a theatre in Stockholm which was showing John Travolta in Staying Alive - and then convincing the theatre to change the signs outside to read Jan Stenbeck Staying Alive.
But it was the media and telecommunications industry that interested Stenbeck most and over a period of years he turned his family fortune into a telecommunications empire. He was the founder and chairman of the pan-European telecom operator Tele2, the international TV and media business MTG, the global mobile operator Millicom International, global daily free newspaper giant Metro International, call centre company Transcom WorldWide, and chairman of Industriforvaltnings AB Kinnevik.
Stenbeck was the greatest entrepreneur in Sweden during the latter part of the 20th century, and also became one of the wealthiest. He hardly ever gave interviews, shunning public life.
On the other hand, he gave his country plenty, including a $25 million week-long millennium party in Stockholm, their first mobile telephone company, their first commercial TV station, their biggest daily morning paper, Metro, and the biggest- ever sporting venture in the Nordic region, Victory Challenge.
"My father always viewed himself as lower middle-class. He always looked up to people and gave them respect and never looked down on anyone," Hugo says.
Although he liked a good party, Jan Stenbeck had a reputation for being a little ruthless when it came to business. His style was to give his managers freedom, but he was quick to fire them if their ideas didn't generate profit.
"He had a hard-work management style. It may sound cheesy, but he wanted people to give 150 per cent all the time," says his son. "He gave the guys a lot of responsibility, which gave them a lot of motivation. If you produced you were like a king, if you didn't you were out. Plain and simply."
Stenbeck met his wife, Merrill, an American, in the early 1970s. They married in 1976 and had four children, Cristina, Hugo, Sophie and Max, who were all born on Long Island, New York.
Cristina, Hugo and Sophie, the three eldest, have all had summer jobs in their father's companies, but 25 year-old Cristina has become the most active in the business since her father's death.
"My dad's pride and my pride is with Sweden," says Hugo. "When there's a big hockey game and America goes up against Sweden - without a question I put my money on the Swedes and my heart on the States. We grew up in the States, but basically when school got off we were on a plane to Sweden."
With money, came a lot of time away from Stenbeck snr, but even so the family was still extremely close-knit.
"The time that he was at home he spent a lot of time with us," recalls Hugo. "I used to play ice hockey, tennis and things. We were up at 5am, had a power breakfast, then it was off three hours driving to a hockey game. Dad took me all the time, he used to be up at 3am every day anyway."
Jan Stenbeck's other great love was for basset hounds. Favourite among his last companions was Lothar. "That dog had a great life," laughs Hugo. "He spent the winter in the Caribbean and the summer in Europe."
The family also spent a lot of time on the water. "That is where we spent most of our vacation. On the water or on the snow." Hugo started in Optimist sailing when he was eight or 10, then moved his way up the ranks in the United States and Sweden.
"I have been sailing my whole life, both competitively and also cruising with my family," says Hugo. "On the water is where I am the happiest ... I have a little cabinet of trophies I haven't looked at in couple of years. But in those days it was more about having fun and meeting people."
Hugo says his father's interest in sailing goes back years. He was the proud owner of Black Knight - the 25m wooden powerboat which presided over the American loss of the America's Cup in 1983 as the New York Yacht Club committee boat.
"Black Knight came up for sale 15 or 16 years ago. My dad fell in love with the boat and jumped at the opportunity to purchase it."
Hugo is living on Black Knight in the Viaduct (look for it berthed between Le Defi Areva and GBR Challenge) while he is here - something which he admits can be a little noisy when those around him are working well into the night.
"It is a beautiful boat with a very important history. It is very important to everyone and it is great it is here with Victory."
Jan Stenbeck first ventured into the America's Cup in 1995 when he helped to back the Swedish Challenge in San Diego. He so enjoyed his first taste of America's Cup racing, he started talking about setting up his own challenge.
One of his first moves was to purchase NZL38, the boat with which Team New Zealand won the Louis Vuitton Cup in 1995. The boat was renamed Cristina, after Stenbeck's daughter, in Gothenburg in July 2000.
NZL38 is considered New Zealand's most successful America's Cup boat, winning more races than any other New Zealand yacht. It was used during most of the Louis Vuitton Cup, while NZL32 raced in the Cup match against Dennis Conner's Young America for the America's Cup.
"My father knew what he was getting into. But everything he went into has been challenge," says Hugo. "In all his companies he went in as the small man.
"The Swedes have always been great sailors and boatbuilders, whatever, but to take these Olympic and world champion sailors and turn them into a world-class team was his main concern. That turned out to be the easy part. Everyone has done a great job within the team - there are young guys, experienced guys, smart guys, tough guys. Everyone has fused, which is great, there is a lot of unity."
While Alinghi, OneWorld, Prada, Oracle and Team Dennis Conner are the favoured five going into the event, Victory Challenge has the potential to cause an upset.
Their two yachts SWE63 and SWE73 (named Orn, "the eagle", and Orm, "the serpent") were designed by German Frers jnr, who helped with Prada's boats in the last Cup.
Certainly their first boat Orn surprised many with its speed, upsetting NZL60, Team New Zealand's 2000 winning Cup boat, in a regatta earlier this year.
The team is also not short of experience in the afterguard, with former Swedish Match Tour champion Magnus Holmberg and Olympic medallist Jesper Bank.
"It's daunting everyone is out to get you and take the little keep guy down," says Hugo. "It's not going to be easy - these guys are some of the best in the world, which is very daunting for us but it makes it interesting.
"Most people view us as the new kids on the block and say it is going to take us three or four challenges to get there, where in reality this is not a stepping-stone. I think that is the mentality we are trying to keep on the base.
"The management is run similar to the management in my father's other companies - smaller, faster, cheaper."
As Hugo looks out across the Viaduct, it is easy to see how much he misses his father and how he would love him to be in Auckland right now.
But as Team New Zealand chief executive Ross Blackman said at a memorial service held for Stenbeck in Auckland: "Now Jan is in the best viewing position for the Louis Vuitton series and the America's Cup, and the crew of Victory Challenge now have a permanent 17th man."
Hugo Stenbeck, Victory Challenge (Sweden)
Team role: Management
Crew role: Part of selection committee
Age: 23
Family: Son of millionaire Jan Stenbeck, who died suddenly in August, and his wife Merrill
Cup career: This is Stenbeck jnr's first challenge
Victory Challenge team profile
nzherald.co.nz/americascup
Jan Stenbeck died suddenly before his Victory Challenge syndicate could compete in the America's Cup. JULIE ASH talks to his son Hugo and finds Stenbeck's spirit sails on.
Jan Stenbeck always vowed he would be sitting in a theatre in Paris, with his beloved basset hound Lothar, watching a film on
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