Åhléns
Åhléns , formerly Åhlén & Holm , is Sweden's largest chain of department stores . The company is owned by Axel Johnson AB , which in turn is owned by Antonia Johnson .
history
Åhlén & Holm was initially a mail order company in Insjön in Dalarna, Sweden . The company was founded in 1899 by Johan Petter Åhlén and Erik Holm. The first product was a picture of the Swedish king which was sold over 100,000 times. Åhlén & Holm flourished and moved to Stockholm in 1915, where Johan Petter Åhlén had a seven-storey building with 10,000 m² of retail space built on Ringvägen in the Södermalm district . After a study trip to the USA, Åhlén decided to start a chain of department stores, the Tempo department stores, with uniform, low prices. The first house of this type was opened in Stockholm in 1932 at Östermalmstorg . Johan Petter Åhlén died in 1939.
Later, in 1960, the company ended its involvement in mailing and concentrated entirely on the Tempo chain. In 1964 the Parade department store was opened in the city of Stockholm, the architect was the renowned company Backström & Reinius . In 1970, the Tempo department store chain merged with its competitors EPA . The noble department store Nordiska Kompaniet , NK, was also part of the group for a short time (1976–1983).
In 1985 all department stores were converted to Åhléns and since 1988 Åhléns has been part of Axel Johnson AB . In 1997, Åhléns had 97 department stores in Sweden, making it Sweden's largest and only department store chain with the structure and range of the “classic” department store.
The attack in Stockholm on April 7, 2017 caused damage in one of the department stores.
