Nov 28, 2016

Business Insider Nordic 21 MIN Having become infamous during the dotcom era for his company, Xcelera's, inflated stock price and subsequent lawsuits; Swedish-Norwegian Alexander Vik is back in the spotlight again. This time for owing his father billions of Norwegian krona (NOK). This was reported by Swedish newspaper  VA Finans . Ad Alexander Vik was behind the biggest bubble of the dotcom era Vik managed to make his company, Xcelera.com, grow a whopping 74 000 percent on the stock markets. All within one year. The key was that his company was registered in the Cayman islands. This way, Xcelera didn’t have to submit their financials to the American financial authorities, the SEC, until 18 months after the close of the fiscal year. Vik would stoke the expectations of his company’s stock with an aggressive PR-campaign, which resulted in a temporarily sky-high prices. He was able to sell his stocks to companies like HP; all the while forbidding his employees to sell their own stakes. By the spring of 2000, his company was valued at around $10bn dollars, more than Swedish carmaker Volvo at that time. When the Xcelera-bubble finally came crashing down, a lot of small investors lost their money. Despite myriad lawsuits against him, Vik's defense held up, and he escaped with a sizeable fortune. Vik then continued with high-stakes deals, something that would involve taking huge loans from his father. Vik claims that the borrowing worked well right until the financial crash of 2008. After that his debts would shoot up to billions of Norwegian krona. He currently owes his father more than 3bn Norwegian krona ($350m dollars). Adding to Vik’s woes is his ongoing legal battle with Deutsche Bank. The bank claims Vik owes it 2,5 bn NOK ($290m dollars).