The Swedish issuing companies operated in a zone that today is known as shadow banking. The project "Shadow Banking in Sweden - Experiences from the early 19th Century" will study the emergence, operations and rapid exit of the Swedish issuing companies from the financial playing field in connection with the financial crash of 1922. Issuing companies were formed in the form of ordinary limited companies in 1914-1918 with the aim of promoting Swedish industry and increasing cooperation between industry and the financial sector. Their task was to channel a large deposit surplus into new productive investments and to create new, untested combinations based on the existing resources of Swedish industry. The issuing companies were initially very successful and quickly became an important part of shaping the strong optimism for the future of the 1910s. For posterity, however, the underwriting industry that disappeared with the crisis of the 1920s has perhaps come to be associated mostly with speculation. In light of today's European situation with an increased focus on regulation, what lessons can be drawn from the rise and fall of the Swedish issuing companies with the 1920s crisis? It may be interesting to consider the similarities between the IPOs and today's private equity firms. Could it also have been the case that one of the major Swedish financial innovations of the early 20th century, the issuing companies, was in fact one of the first victims of the 1920s crisis and not, as they have often been described until today, one of its causes?