Who: Norwegian entrepreneur who now runs Sebastian Holdings, a buyout firm

House: Winthrop

Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden

Current Residence: Monte Carlo, Monaco

Spotlight: “He was very effective at thinking of ways to raise money,” according to former teammate Leslie Greis, who played golf with Vik at Harvard. “We went armed with these 8-by-10 color photographs to all the tailgates at home Harvard football games and sold them to partially inebriated alums at exorbitant prices.” For the unfortunates who invested in Vik’s technology holdings company, Xcelera, the anecdote will sound surprisingly familiar. Xcelera’s share price rose from a low of $3.25 in 1999 to $139.50 (not including stock splits) by 2000 due in large part to Internet stock-fueled investor inebriation. It now trades over-the-counter for $0.33 a share. How does one create such a phenomenon? Easy. Buy a little known Cayman island holding company called The Scandanavia Company, change its name into something flashier, sell off the real estate in its portfolio, use the cash flow to invest in Internet start-up Mirror Image, whose products compete with Akamai, the company whose IPO posted the fourth largest first day gain EVER, and cha-ching, you and your brothers are worth $2.9 billion. Of course, the Internet bust hurt Vik as well. Now his net worth is rumored to be in the hundreds of millions rather than billions.

Friends: His brothers Gustav and Erik, also business partners, helped him acquire Xcelera and run Mirror Image. His brother Gustav still runs Mirror Image as CEO and serves as director, secretary, and treasurer of Xcelera.

Enemies: His investors, who are suing him for $250 million amidst allegations of misappropriation of funds, manipulation of stock offerings, and distribution of misleading information. The class-action suit is still pending; a similar $450 million suit against him has already been dismissed.

Passions: Several for this athletic, globe-trotting Norwegian citizen. He was a two-time Ivy League golf champion, and according to friends, plays scratch (with no handicap). He also enjoys heli-skiing, though someone should suggest he now avoid Monashee Mountains in British Columbia…

Living Dangerously: …where he nearly died in 1997 after being buried in an avalanche. Two other skiers perished. Vik was not breathing and had no pulse when he was found. Emergency medical personnel managed to revive him.

Zillowed: Now he spends more time at home, or more specifically, at one of his many homes. Vik owns a small $1.15 million house in Princeton, NJ, a $4 million two-bedroom apartment in the opulent Time Warner Center in New York City, and the crown jewel, a $11 million eight-bedroom house in Greenwich, CT.

*Billionaire Builds Wealth At Internet Speed [Forbes]
*Vik, Harvard Golf Champ, Drives Bid to Chip Away Vivendi Assets [Bloomberg]
*Time Warner Center - Wired New York Forum [WiredNY]
*Avalanche Incident [ACAS]
*VIVENDI REJECTS $50B BID [NYPost]
*Xcelera Denouement [Motley Fool (subscription)]
*XLACF -- Xcelera, Inc. [Pink Sheets]
*Xcelera Incorporated [Xcelera]