Fred. Olsen & Co.
| Fred. Olsen & Co. | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1848 |
| Seat |
Oslo , Norway
|
| management | Anette S. Olsen |
| Branch | shipping |
| Website | www.fredolsen.no |
Fred. Olsen & Co. is a shipping company headquartered in Oslo , Norway . The company states 1848 as the year it was founded. Today it is run by the fifth generation of the Olsen family.
history
In 1848 the eldest of three brothers (Frederik Christian, 1815–1875, Petter, 1821–1899, and Andreas Olsen, 1823–1893; all of them captains at a young age) acquired the first two ships. Petter bought his first ship in 1852 and at the time of his death had 16 ships, several investments and operated offices in Hvitsten , his hometown on the Oslofjord in the Vestby district . The brothers' goods traffic was so extensive that a customs post was set up there.
Thomas Fredrik Olsen and his sons
Petter's son Thomas Fredrik (Fred.), 1857–1933, who gave the company its current name, was already a captain at the age of 23 and soon expanded the business into a large international shipping company. In 1897 he ordered the first steamboat for his fleet, in 1914 he owned the first motor ship under the Norwegian flag, Brazil . The visionary entrepreneur had relocated the company headquarters to Oslo as early as 1898, bought up four competitors between 1900 and 1912 and also established transatlantic regular services, especially after the west coast of the USA was also inexpensive to reach via the Panama Canal from 1914.
Rudolf Fredrik Olsen (1882–1951)
Thomas Fredrik's son Rudolf worked in the company from 1914, which his father joined Fred in 1916 . Olsen & Co. redesigned. In 1921 the shipping company Otto Thoresen was taken over, with which Olsen's activities in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands began, although 23 of the 44 ships had been lost in the First World War. Rudolf was the driving force behind the family's commitment to aviation: one of Norway's earliest airlines was Fred. Olsen and Bergenske A / S (DNL) (1933), from which Fred. Olsen Flyselskap was born; In 1946 they participated in the founding of the SAS .
Thomas Fredrik Olsen (1897–1969)
In 1922 the second son, Thomas, joined the company. From 1929, after taking over another competitor, Fred ran. Olsen & Co. also to German ports. The first tanker in the fleet, Borgny , was also built in the same year. In addition, three passenger ships were launched in the interwar period. After "old Fred." Was already well known to Thor Heyerdahl's parents, Thomas made friends with the young researcher and adventurer and was just as helpful to him in many ways as his son (Thomas) Fredrik (* 1929) was after him.
From 1940
With the occupation of Norway by the Wehrmacht , the entire merchant fleet, insofar as it had not fallen into enemy hands, was made available to the Allies . The Olsen fleet was managed by Thomas during the war. 28 ships, half of the stock, were lost, which meant that many new ships were required in the post-war years, which modernized the fleet. After Rudolf Olsen died in 1951 and Thomas became increasingly ill, his son Frederik joined the company in 1955, until he handed over management to his daughter Anette S. Olsen in 1994.
Company of the Fred. Olsen group
Fred. Olsen & Co. acts as the holding company of the Olsen family; most of the investments are held through the listed holding companies Bonheur . On May 5, 2016, the former second holding company Ganger Rolf ASA merged with Bonheur ASA, and Ganger Rolf was subsequently liquidated.
The Olsen Group is active in the areas of cruises and ferries (with Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines and Fred. Olsen Express , among others ), tankers (First Olsen Tanker), offshore oil (with the two listed companies Dolphin Drilling (formerly Fred. Olsen Energy) and Olsen Production), offshore wind energy (Olsen Windcarrier), renewable energies (Olsen Renewables), as well as hotel, media and real estate.
Trivia
Thomas Olsen belonged to the friends of the Thor Heyerdahls family . He initially supported Heyerdahl, who was stuck in Canada in 1940 and did not have a work permit, financially and later, during Heyerdahl's war in the USA, left wife Liv, who was left behind in the United States, to live very generously with her two children in his villa.
When Heyerdahl became interested in the Güímar pyramids in 1990 , Fred bought. Olsen & Co., which has been predominant in ferry traffic in the Canary Islands for some time, the area released as building land and thus made scientific excavations possible. The “ethnographic park”, created from 1998, is used for tourism by Pirámides de Güímar, SAU, “A Fred. Olsen Company ”.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Management
- ↑ a b History (English)
- ↑ www.ganger-rolf.com
- ↑ Business Structure
- ^ Shawn Tully: The crazy, true-life adventures of Norway's most radical billionaire. In: Fortune . March 7, 2015, accessed August 22, 2016 .
- ↑ Pirámides de Güímar ( Memento from March 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (German)