Holmen

"The sons were named Ragnar and Torsten, and at the next generational shift, the two began building an investment company with a broad focus, where the wholesale business became one of the assets. They foresightedly bought shares in companies that were part of the growing Swedish basic industry, such as the mining company Gränges and the forestry company Holmen, but also refining businesses such as Bulten, which still produces bolts for the automotive industry today, the electrical engineering company Asea (ABB), and Sweden’s lithographic printing company, which later became Esselte. The new investment company was named Ratos, built from the first letters of Ragnar and Torsten’s names. In 1954, the company was listed on the stock exchange; this was a way to allow individual family members to sell shares without affecting the business. The family secured control by forming the Söderberg foundations, with 27.1 percent of the votes in the company. An additional 46.4 percent was still owned by the family in 2012."

"The sons were named Ragnar and Torsten, and at the next generational shift, the two began building an investment company with a broad focus, where the wholesale business became one of the assets. They foresightedly bought shares in companies that were part of the growing Swedish basic industry, such as the mining company Gränges and the forestry company Holmen, but also refining businesses such as Bulten, which still produces bolts for the automotive industry today, the electrical engineering company Asea (ABB), and Sweden’s lithographic printing company, which later became Esselte. The new investment company was named Ratos, built from the first letters of Ragnar and Torsten’s names. In 1954, the company was listed on the stock exchange; this was a way to allow individual family members to sell shares without affecting the business. The family secured control by forming the Söderberg foundations, with 27.1 percent of the votes in the company. An additional 46.4 percent was still owned by the family in 2012."

"But we absolutely should not think of Holmen as a subsidiary because this would certainly be wrong from all possible angles. We should not sit on the board due to the conflict of interest between the customer perspective and the ownership perspective. I got the okay from Abbe and quickly bought us up. This led to talks with Holmen about the past and the future. We established an informal connection where Abbe also participated. Our good relationship became important when Holmen made its successful investment in Braviken, the large paper mill outside Norrköping. It would have been difficult to carry out if the two largest owners had been at odds with each other."

"But I had followed Karl Erik Önnesjö's and Holmen's giant Braviken project outside Norrköping and spent many hours with him in the blasting stone for the future plant. His detailed lectures about the project and the industry's driving forces made me realize that the job as a forest industry CEO would never suit my disposition, even though I was deeply impressed and pleased to have been a small part in making Holmen's risk-taking a success. This insight into limitations was partly new to me and an important step. Gradually, my understanding grew that there were CEO jobs I would never be able to handle. My strength didn't lie in production details or detailed control of processes. From that was born the focus on "relative competence," which for me means that you can't be good at everything, but good enough at a few important things to do a good job."