This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on October 1st, 2026. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.
Wallenberg was praised when it stepped into Stegra this spring. The financial dynasty was going to rescue the struggling steel giant with new billions and new expertise. Now more money is needed – again. How could Sweden’s most powerful industrial owner miss the new problems?
The question is whether anyone knows what is actually going on inside Stegra.
The budget has blown up yet again. The board is surprised, the owners are disappointed, and the CEO is fired. All this just a few months after one of Sweden’s most experienced industrial owners went through the business and put in big money.
You don’t invest billions in a company without spending millions on consultants and advisors to turn over every stone before making a decision. The whole thing seems very strange. How could they miss the magnitude of the company’s crisis – and its weak controls?
Neon yellow jackets everywhere, and plenty of shovels. We are in Boden in August 2022, and the new steel plant is about to start construction. Back then it was called H2 Green Steel, now Stegra, and CEO Henrik Henriksson is speaking to SVT:
During the fall, new information about our financing will come continuously.
He could not have guessed how right he would be.
News of funding shortfalls has become a regular theme for Stegra.
When Wallenberg came in as controlling owner in April this year, many believed that era was over. But new reports of miscalculations suggest the problems are bigger than even Sweden’s best-known industrialists could foresee.
According to the newspaper Affärsvärlden, Stegra is short roughly SEK 10 billion this time. Construction costs have once again been misjudged.
When Wallenberg and its ownership consortium came in, around SEK 15 billion in new capital was injected. That money now appears not to be enough.
Newly appointed chairman Leif Johansson does not sound pleased. He tells SvD that “the feeling of a cold shower and disappointment exists with us on the board and at the owner level too.” Especially among the newcomers, one would think, since everyone else is presumably used to the company’s money running out. In January 2025, for instance, Stegra stated it was “fully funded”, which evidently was not true.
What lies behind the miscalculation is even more worrying. Every large project can suffer unforeseen events, but Johansson points to cost items like cement, electrical cables and pipes as the culprits. He also says it is hard to find trained excavator operators in Norrbotten. None of this seems particularly unforeseeable. At least not since April, when the previous investment was made.
Marcus Wallenberg wrote at the time that “based on our thorough evaluation, we see a commercially viable path forward.” Either they foresaw new problems – which Johansson’s remarks above contradict – or fundamental parts of this project have been misjudged. Something that will now cost several billion more, and possibly bring in additional owners who dilute the existing ones. Kinnevik has already said it will not take part in any new financing, and Altor only promises to join the discussions.
CEO Henrik Henriksson has to leave the company and is replaced by board member Håkan Buskhe. He was previously CEO of Saab and of Eon in Sweden, but this assignment is something else entirely. From the outside it looks almost like a cleanup job. He is there to sort this out, but will probably hand over the baton to someone new afterward.
Coming in from outside to turn around a company in crisis is not unusual for businesses that have had a tough time. But this is still a construction site. We haven’t even begun to see the challenges of the operating business.
For a steel plant, there is remarkably little talk about steel at Stegra. No one can say today when production is expected to start. Whether state-owned LKAB will deliver ore is unresolved, though it at least seems to be looking brighter. Its CEO told SVT that Wallenberg’s arrival on the owner list “speaks for it becoming a success for the steel plant.”
For raw material deliveries to become relevant, the operation needs to be up and running. Wallenberg has billions of reasons – and its reputation as a strong industrial owner – to make sure Stegra gets there.
But when that happens, no one seems to know.
