Otto August Malm (25 July 1838 – 25 November 1898) was one of the most famous shipping magnates in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

in the 19th century, and at the time of his death, the richest man in Finland.

Life

Malm inherited a large fortune after his father

Peter Malm Peter Malm (22 September 1800 – 7 August 1868) was a major ship owner and merchant in Grand Duchy of Finland in the 19th century, and the father of Otto A. Malm. Life Born in Jakobstad, Malm moved to Turku, Finland for his studies. He wor ...

, and further expanded it through many successful entrepreneurial activities. Despite being the younger of two brothers, Malm took over the management of the family business when his father died in 1868, as the older brother was deaf and deemed not fit to manage the family trading and shipping business. Malm studied commerce at the commercial school in

Rostock Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, c ...

(

Mecklenburg Mecklenburg (; nds, label=Low German, Mękel(n)borg ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schwerin ...

) between 1854–1855. After having worked abroad in England and France, he returned home to work with his father. As of 1863, Malm started to again expand the fleet of sailing ships which had been severely reduced as a consequence of the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

, and at its peak in 1874, it consisted of 8 ships. In the same year, the last large sailing ship was built in Jakobstad, the

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

Vanadis. However, Malm had the foresight to divest into other business ventures such as the tobacco and forestry industry, before the increased competition from steam ships started to diminish the commercial viability of cargo sailing ships. Malm was a dominating figure in the political life of his hometown, and also a major philanthropist. Having been married for barely a year, his pregnant wife drowned when the ship Österbotten sank after a fire on 20 August 1874. He chose never to marry again, and being without heirs, he donated large parts of his fortune to his native town

Jakobstad Jakobstad (; fi, Pietarsaari) is a town and municipality in Ostrobothnia, Finland. The town has a population of () and covers a land area of . The population density is . Neighboring municipalities are Larsmo, Pedersöre, and Nykarleby. The ci ...

. Among other things, these donations went to the building of a school and the main hospital in Jakobstad (Malmska Sjukhuset). In order to secure an extension of the railroad network to Jakobstad, Malm financed half of the costs for this railroad extension, while the Finnish state paid for the other half. Malm was also responsible for the first telephone installation in Jakobstad in 1882. One telephone was installed in his residence (Malmska gården), while the other was installed in the office building at his sawmill on Stockholmen. After his death in 1898, the era of commercial sailing ships come to an end in Jakobstad, when the last sailing ships Vanadis and Europa were sold in 1899. When Malm died, he was considered to have the largest fortune in Finland, valued at 11 million

Finnish mark The markka ( fi, markka; sv, mark; sign: Mk; ISO code: FIM, typically known outside Finland as the Finnish mark) was the currency of Finland from 1860 until 28 February 2002, when it ceased to be legal tender. The mark was divided into 100 pe ...

. Although difficult to estimate, this would likely be the equivalent of several hundreds of millions of

Euros The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . T ...

today.

References

1838 births 1898 deaths People from Jakobstad People from Vaasa Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Swedish-speaking Finns 19th-century Finnish businesspeople {{finland-bio-stub