Jan-Eric has been active in Life Sciences and Private Equity. Below is a description of his business activities and his engagement in charities.
BUSINESS BIOGRAPHY
Jan-Eric is a Swedish citizen born 1945 and living in England since 1983, first in London and then in Devon since 2007. He has a Master of Engineering from Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden and a degree in Business Administration from Uppsala University. He worked at the Stockholm School of Economics and Business between 1968 and 1970 and was acting Professor in Business Administration 1970.
He was head of the management consultancy division of Statskonsult AB (1971 – 75), executive vice President of AB Atomenergi (a nuclear energy research and consultancy company) (1975 – 78), President of Masonite AB (forestry and building materials) (1978 – 82), director and executive chairman of Skrinet AB (public investment company; Stockholm Stock Exchange) (1979-83), director of Independent Leasing AB (public leasing company, Stockholm Stock Exchange) (1979 – 82), director and chairman of Munksjö AB (public pulp and paper company; Stockholm Stock Exchange) (1980 – 85), director of Indigo AB (public aviation leasing company; NASDAQ) (1996 – 99), chairman of Hemocue AB (private management buy-out, medical diagnostic company) (1988 – 1994), chairman of Jomed (public, Swiss Stock Exchange) (1998- 2003), director of Vasogen Inc. (public Canadian company) a life science company developing immune modulation therapies and a director of Volito AB (private Swedish investment group).
He has also been on the board of several smaller companies like Shilling Banco Ltd (a UK property company), Opulentia SA (property group; Luxembourg), Stril AB (a medical sterilisation company based in Sweden) and several business units of Perstorp AB (public, Sweden) and Phairson Plc (privately held UK company), a biotechnology company. He was a non-executive director of the Northern Region of Svenska Handelsbanken, Scandiafelt AB (public, Swedish, production and sales of machine felt), Gusum AB (public, Swedish, metal industry) and Norrlandsfonden (government body for funding and supporting companies in northern Sweden).
Jan-Eric moved to England in 1983 after the years as President of Masonite and Chairman of Skrinet. He formed a private equity group together with two English partners, Mr David Wheeler and Lord Wimborne. The group mainly invested in Singapore and Hong Kong (equipment rental and financial services). He was also a director and shareholder of Ermitage Ltd, an offshore fund management group with offices in London, Bermuda and Jersey and was later instrumental in negotiating the sale of Ermitage to a South African banking group. In 1988 he organised the management buy-out of HemoCue AB from Pharmacia and became its chairman. HemoCue was sold in 1992 to Mallinckrodt Medical Inc. and Jan-Eric remained as director until 1994. He was managing director of Chapman Industries (public, UK paper envelope and packaging company) in 1989 during its restructuring and remained vice chairman until 1991.
He then established a medical technology and biotechnology investment group (QueQuoin Holdings Ltd, QQH) together with two Swedish partners. He was the chairman of QueQuoin Holdings between 1993 and 2009. He was the chairman of Egalet A/S (Danish, drug delivery technologies and pain management) between 1995 and 2005 and chairman of Enkam Pharmaceuticals A/S (Danish, biotechnology, CNS disorders) between 2000 and 2005. He was chairman of Tigran Technologies AB (public Swedish company, medical technology) and a director of Merchant Venture Investments SA (a management buy-out group domiciled in Luxembourg). He joined the board of Inn or Out (UK catering industry) as chairman in 2010 until the company was sold in 2013.
He was chairman of MVI Equity AB and its parent company, MVSC AB, a private equity group active in the Nordic countries, between 2011 and 2017 and was a director of the first investment fund created by the group, MVI Fund I, from its foundation until 2018. He joined the board of Isofol Medical AB between 2012 and 2018 as its executive chairman and took the company public on the Swedish Stock Exchange in 2017. Isofol is in a late stage development of a drug for colorectal cancer which has an ongoing study in Phase III.
Jan-Eric lives with his wife Jennifer and their son (born 2008) and their daughter (born 2002) at Knightstone Manor in Devon (see Knightstone on this website). He has four children from an earlier marriage, all of them now living in England.
He is a passionate sailor and photographer. He bought his first sailing yacht in 1973 and has sailed ever since. In 1983 he became part owner of a Swan 651, Exactitude, and in 1988 he let build a 79 foot sloop, Swedish Caprice. Between 1988 and 2004 her sailed as an average of 3 months a year on board Swedish Caprice all around the globe. In 2005 Jennifer and Jan-Eric launched their 180 foot ketch, Adèle. They sailed for two years around the world on Adèle (see separate tab, Adèle, on this website) and he later published a book about their adventures, Exploring with Adèle. Since then, he has published a further two photographic books, one about the Colorado Plateau and one about his son (see Books and Articles on this website).
He was active as a Trustee of the Swedish Church in Great Britain and Ireland between 2008 and 2017 and from 2017 he is a director of the Swedish Benevolent Trust, which works closely together with the Swedish Church. He is also vice chair of the Council of Lutheran Churches in Great Britain (director since 2009 and vice chair since 2017) and has together with his wife and another Swedish family a charity supporting scholars and students in the Philippines (since 1992). See separate item on this website about St. Hannibal Foundation.