Stig Anderson

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Stig 'Stikkan' Erik Leopold Anderson (née Andersson) (January 25, 1931 – September 12, 1997) was the manager of ABBA and the founder of the Polar Music record label. Before this time he was a teacher. In 1989 he made a donation for the Polar Music Prize. Anderson founded the Polar Music Prize, Sweden Music (1960), Polar Music (1963) and other companies.

Anderson is internationally famous as being the manager of the Swedish musical group ABBA. First time in the late sixties he was the manager and producer of Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, later also Anni-Frid Lyngstad (1972) and finally in 1976 also Agnetha Fältskog (until December 1975 she was still bound to CUPOL/CBS Records under a contract). He wrote some lyrics of the first ABBA songs. Anderson was the dominant figure behind ABBA, which represented commercial interests for him and his business partners inconsiderately.

He was partner and administrator at the same time, he also managed the investments of funds and the enormous financial incomes of Polar Music and ABBA. It was finally in the mid-'80s that considerable part of the ABBA's fortune was lost by missmanagement, bad investments, high demands for tax and the raisings of credit. Co-operation between the ABBA members Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus with Stig Anderson was terminated to a large extent finally, when in the context of the argument with this financial disaster it turned out that Anderson also took, for many years, a percentages of profits at a value of 4.5 million euros. A complaint against Stig Anderson, one submitted to the Stockholm district courts by Agnetha Fältskog's company "Agnetha Fältskog Productions AB" and Benny Andersson's company "Mono Music AB", as well as a Björn Ulvaeus' rights holding Dutch company, in the end this action was terminated.

In 1990 Stig Anderson sold Polar Music with nearly all utilisation and license rights and the registered ABBA mark for an unknown sum of money to Polygram. Previously, he licenced ABBA and the solo releases to various labels the world over as a way to earn more royalties. He later started a new label, Anderson Records, which released Frida's comeback in 1996.

Stig Anderson was married to Gudrun Anderson and has from this marriage a daughter (Marie, b. 1957), who is married to the Swedish singer Tomas Ledin, as well as a younger son (b.1966).

He died in summer of 1997 at the age of 66. from a heart attack.