No, the world’s best stock share is not Warren Buffett’s legendary investment company Berkshire Hathaway – it’s a Swedish bank.

How would you have liked if your great grandparent invested 10 dollar in Svenska Handelsbanken when the Swedish bank was first listed and turned it into almost 20 million dollars today? 

According to business daily Dagens Industri’s stock market expert and author of several stock picking books, Björn Wilke, Handelsbanken is the best stock in the world. Since it was first listed at the Stockholm stock exchange in 1900 it has gained unimaginable 1.9 million percent. That equals 10 percent a year – dividend not included.

“The historical development of the stock doesn’t say much about the future. But from the 70s till now the bank’s strategy has been the same”, Björn Wilke told The Swedish Wire about the rather conservative bank. “The model has been the same; sometimes it’s been modern and sometimes out-of-date”.

The history of the bank goes back to 1871 when a number of prominent companies and individuals in Stockholm's business world founded Stockholms Handelsbank, which changed name in 1914 to Svenska Handelsbanken after a major acquisition.

Warren Buffett’s legendary investment company Berkshire Hathaway is sometimes - however wrong - said to be the world’s best stock as it has gained 362,300 percent since Buffett’s take-over in 1964.

Also American General Electric has been good to the owners. The stock gained 843,000 percent from 1900 to the peak of 2007.

With the help of researchers at the London Business School, who studied stock exchanges across the world from 1900, Björn Wilke made a short-list of potential companies worthy the title.

Stockholm stock exchange, today part of Nasdaq OMX Group, was up to 2005 the world’s best growing exchange, the study showed, and still has performed better than the world's largest stock markets. A large number of stock exchanges disappeared during World War II.

“I’m waiting impatiently for someone to present a stock that has performed better during the same long period”, Björn Wilke said.

Since the turn of the year Handelsbanken has rose more than 45 percent. During the last six month the stock price is up more than 75 percent.