Peter Wallenberg, who helped build a global conglomerate out of his family’s closely held businesses, a dynasty that was often referred to as a Swedish version of the Rockefellers, died on Monday at his home on the island of Varmdo, in Stockholm County. He was 88.  His death was reported by his family’s foundation. The cause was not released.  For years, starting in 1982, Mr. Wallenberg was chairman of Investor, a company whose various holdings once amounted to roughly 40 percent of shares traded on the Stockholm stock exchange. Its portfolio included stakes in Ericsson, Electrolux, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Astra, Scania, Saab, Gambro — just about any Swedish company known to Americans.  Outside Sweden, the Wallenberg name typically conjures Raoul Wallenberg, the World War II humanitarian credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jews who was a distant family relative. In Sweden, Wallenberg is synonymous with an industrial and financial empire founded by Peter Wallenberg’s great-grandfather, Andre Oscar Wallenberg, starting with the bank that he opened in 1856.  The Wallenbergs vastly expanded their stature and wealth under the leadership of Peter Wallenberg’s father, Marcus Wallenberg Jr., a former diplomat and tennis star, who controlled the family fortune with a combination of charisma and iron will for decades.  He often said that Peter lacked the smarts and vision to run the company, and Peter was sent for three years to Montclair, N.J., where he sold portable compressors. Marcus intended his older son, Marc, to inherit the company. But Marc committed suicide in 1971, and Peter outmaneuvered the one-time chief executive of Volvo, Pehr Gyllenhammar, whom Marcus regarded as yet another candidate better suited as a successor.  “Nobody would have thought Peter would take on the role and be successful,” P. O. Edin, a Swedish economist, told The New York Times in 1996.  Peter Wallenberg was born on May 29, 1926, in Stockholm. He was married and divorced three times. Information on survivors was not immediately available.  As a businessman, Peter Wallenberg proved formidable. He was portly, and often described as disheveled, though always in well-tailored clothes. He was tireless and more than capable of adapting to a business environment that was increasingly focused on international megamergers. He was chairman until 1997. His son Jacob is the current chairman.  For years, the family’s motto had been “Esse, non videri,” Latin for “To be, not to be seen,” reflecting a quiet, almost provincial approach to deal-making. But by the 1990s, there was a limit to how much Investor could grow without venturing beyond Sweden’s borders.  Under Mr. Wallenberg’s guidance, Investor stepped directly into foreign markets. In April 1996, for instance, it sold 50 percent of Scania, a truck manufacturer, on the London, Stockholm and New York exchanges in what was then one of the world’s largest initial public offerings, raising $2.7 billion.
Mr. Wallenberg was the unlikely successor to lead his family’s business, expanding it far beyond Sweden’s big companies to become an international force.