Hilmar Reksten
Hilmar August Reksten (born October 29, 1897 in Bergen ; † July 1, 1980 ibid) was a Norwegian shipowner and entrepreneur.
Life
Reksten was born in the Nordnes district of Bergen in 1897 as the eldest of three siblings of the stoker (and later marine engineer) Erik Reksten and his wife Helene Monsen Søndervåg. From 1917 to 1919 he worked, initially on a voluntary basis, in a local shipping company. He then began studying economics in Cologne, which was financially supported by the shipping company Hans Westfal-Larsen. After graduation in 1924, he returned to Norway. In 1929 Reksten founded his shipping company Skibs A / S Trajan , whose first ship, a 1347-ton cargo steamer built in Ecorse in 1915 , was also named Trajan . His father, who had been unemployed for over a year (in the wake of the global economic crisis ), worked as an engineer on the ship. By the beginning of the Second World War, the shipping fleet had grown to six ships. During the war Reksten was involved in the Norwegian shipping association Nortraship , but was not undisputed there.
In the post-war years, Reksten initially rebuilt his fleet, which had been decimated by the war, and expanded his company by the 1970s to become the third largest Norwegian shipping company - tank shipping played a special role. Thanks to his flexible corporate policy, which is geared towards the spot market and short-term charters, Reksten was often able to rent out a relatively large number of ships at very high charter rates at short notice and reap correspondingly large profits. On the other hand, his shipping empire came to the brink of bankruptcy several times in times of poor shipping business.
In 1973 Rekstens shipping company was at the height of the fleet growth and he himself was considered the richest Norwegian when the oil crisis caused the tanker market to collapse. In 1973, Reksten was able to save himself over time, initially with his own means and thanks to the meanwhile increasing tanker rates, in 1976 bankruptcy could only be averted with state aid and in 1979 he (meanwhile suffering from cancer) was only charged on one of eight counts in a tax evasion case found guilty. After his death in 1980, however, Reksten was declared bankrupt post mortem ; This was followed by a ten-year legal tug-of-war over parts of the private assets that had disappeared.
Reksten was first married to Bjørg Elisabeth (until her death in August 1939), with whom he had five children. From 1952 until his death he was married to Carol Montgomery and they had a daughter, Grace Reksten, who later became the sole heir.
Individual evidence
- ^ Lloyd's Register 1931/32
- ↑ Like a will-o'-the-wisp in Der Spiegel No. 7/1986 of February 10, 1986
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Reksten, Hilmar |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Reksten, Hilmar August (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Norwegian shipowner |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 29, 1897 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mountains |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 1, 1980 |
| Place of death | Mountains |