Long traditions of industrial development

Aker’s history dates back to 1841, when its first mechanical workshop was established on the banks of the Aker River in Norway’s capital.

Nature has shaped Norway, its industry, and people. Proximity to the sea and exploitation of natural resources have been key to over three centuries of industrial development and have shaped Aker’s earliest commercial roots. Aker is “Made by Norway.”

In the beginning, Aker’s workshop crews manufactured components for machinery and equipment. Aker’s initial clients were the iron and non-ferrous metals industries and shipping. In the heydays of the steam engine, Aker supplied companies used in the timber, wood, and pulp industry, the coal industry, hydropower plants, fisheries, and shipping.

In rebuilding the country after the Second World War (1939-1945), constructive cooperation between Aker employees‘ elected representatives, skilled workers, and management developed. The legendary union leader Ragnar Kalheim, who worked at Aker mek. Verksted (Nyland Vest) from 1949 until his death in 1974, pioneered these efforts. A socialist, Mr. Kalheim was a driver for an innovative wage agreement that committed workshop union members to increase productivity in return for the right to negotiate labor’s share of profits. This was a groundbreaking initiative in Norwegian industry.

Close interaction between employees, corporate owners, and society at large continues to characterize Aker and the industrial companies in which Aker is the leading owner.

Powerful tradition: This is the gavel Aker’s board chairman uses to summon attention and seal decisions. The gavel conveys active ownership and long traditions. The gavel is a commemorative gift from the Danish machinery and ship builder Burmeister & Wain — one of the world’s pioneer developers of diesel engines. The stand on which the gavel rests carries this inscription: “1912 – 6 June 1962 - Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the completion of the first licensing agreement with Akers Mek. Verksted”

 From first oil on the Norwegian continental shelf 
In the late 1960s, Aker’s businesses refocused on the emerging North Sea oil and gas industry. Aker was part of Norway’s great oil adventure when the very first oil was struck and produced on the Norwegian continental shelf.

In 1987, Aker merged with Norcem, a Norway-based international cement and construction materials group that also had significant offshore-industry activities. The cement and construction materials business was later spun off into a separate company, and sold in 1999.

Røkke at the helm
 Since the mid-1990s, entrepreneur and industrialist Kjell Inge Røkke has been Aker’s main shareholder and a driving force in the company’s development. Mr. Røkke launched his business career in 1982 in the United States when, as a young Northwest Coast fisherman, he purchased a 69-foot trawler. From this modest beginning, Røkke built a leading global fisheries business based on harvesting and ocean-going processing of white fish. Success in this field enabled him to invest in other businesses, mainly in the United States and Norway.

In 1994, Røkke consolidated his business activities in a Norwegian-US group, Resource Group International, Inc. RGI’s operations were organized into five business areas: fisheries, industry, distribution, real estate, and projects/financing. In 1996, RGI purchased enough Aker shares to become Aker’s largest shareholder; the two companies subsequently merged.

Garnering oil and gas expertise 
In 2000, Aker acquired a significant shareholding in the Kværner industrial group through its Aker Maritime subsidiary. This marked the start of a restructuring of Norway’s offshore oil and gas supplier industry, and Aker was at the helm.

Kværner, established in 1853 in Oslo, developed similarly to Aker, based on Norwegian natural resources. In its early days, Kværner was a leading supplier of turbines for Norwegian hydropower projects and equipment to the wood processing industry. Later, Kværner expanded into shipbuilding, ships’ equipment, LNG (liquefied natural gas) carriers, and offshore oil and gas activities in Norway and internationally.

In the fall of 2001, Kværner experienced an acute liquidity crisis. A comprehensive rescue effort in the winter of 2001–2002 — in which Aker and other Kværner shareholders, customers, creditors, and employees all played important roles — enabled Kværner to survive, with Aker as its largest shareholder.


 

Stamp of quality: Aker Mek. Verksted A/S (AmV), a Norwegian industrial pioneer, has roots dating back to 1841.

 
 Transactions... and listing 
Aker was relisted on the Oslo Stock Exchange in the fall of 2004, following a series of transactions. Values were secured through the establishment of streamlined and focused industrial companies, and via the sale of companies, shares, and other assets.

Aker Kværner was established and demerged as a focused, exchange-listed company. Important Norwegian oil and gas industry capabilities were unified in an industrial group that had the worldwide energy and process industry as a market for its products, technologies, and solutions.

Aker and Kværner’s shipyards were merged into Aker Yards — Europe’s largest shipyard group — and exchange-listed. Aker’s fisheries activities were reorganized under Aker Seafoods, and a restructuring of Aker Material Handling was completed.

Companies launched and sold 
Following the large, complex transactions in 2004, a new phase of industrialization began that saw the launch of several companies in the years 2005-2007: Aker Drilling, Aker BioMarine, Aker Floating Production, Aker Exploration, Aker Oilfield Services, and Aker Clean Carbon.

In 2007, Aker’s shareholdings in Aker Yards and Aker Material Handling were sold. Further, Aker’s ownership interest in Aker Kværner (renamed Aker Solutions in 2008) was transferred to Aker Holding. This transaction enabled Aker to free up significant capital and contributed to anchoring ownership of Aker Solutions in Norway. Aker sold 40 percent of Aker Holding shares to the Norwegian Government and the two Wallenberg companies SAAB and Investor AB.

Teammates Røkke and Eriksen 
With the new Aker Group President and CEO, Øyvind Eriksen, taking charge as of January 2009, and Aker’s main shareholder, Kjell Inge Røkke returning to a more central position than in years, Aker is charting a new course.

During 2009, Aker was streamlined as an industrial investment company that plays an active role in structural processes and the execution of industrial transactions, mergers, and acquisitions.

Aker’s industrial investments are concentrated on the ownership interests in Aker Solutions, Aker Drilling, Aker Clean Carbon, Det norske oljeselskap, and Aker BioMarine. The 2009 merger between Aker Exploration and Det norske resulted in Aker becoming the largest owner in Norway’s second-largest oil company. Financial share investments are managed by the Aker-controlled company Converto Capital Management.

Key to success: The key to Aker’s first cash box dates from the 1800s

(Photos: Jo Michael)