Norway

"Early on we were predominantly European, with two thirds of our profits coming from this large, sophisticated market. Germany, Belgium, Norway and France led the way. We struggled with competitiveness in Italy and withdrew. The UK has been a disappointment. Skills are not what they were, energy is expensive, unions have been aggressive (unlike Germany, where the unions focus on encouraging employers to invest for future growth), although to be fair they have been much more constructive and willing to engage in proper discussions about the genuine health of our businesses over the last ten years, and the government has been uninterested or lacklustre at best. America has been resurgent on the back of world-beating energy costs and frankly fine management. Whereas Europe has slowly squeezed the life from much of its manufacturing base with carbon taxes, complex legislation, high labour and social costs, America has gone into overdrive."

"The resignation didn’t last long, however. Instead, Godtfred went to Norway, where he had a contact, and established production there for the Norwegian market. The foreign expansion was not planned. It purely stemmed from a necessity to create more sales, so the new factory investments could be covered."

"When the "Arctic Trawler" went over to Seattle, Kjell Inge was on board. Kari stayed back home in Norway. They had agreed that Kjell Inge should go over first and check out the conditions. There wasn't much free time to speak of either, and that suited Røkke and the other Norwegian young men just fine. They didn't earn anything on land, and since all of them were interested in earning money in the form of percentages of the catch, they wanted to be at sea as much as possible. And should they be so unlucky to spend a few weeks on land in Seattle, Røkke knew what to do. He tried to earn some extra dollars then too."

"In Gresvig, however, Røkke and Gjelsten were not interested in extracting the gold any longer. It was much more interesting to sell the gold mine onwards. With Austad in the boss’s chair, the company had turned around and was doing well, now a sale was on the horizon. The job went to Dag Fasmer Wittusen and his team. They listed Gresvig on the stock exchange and put out a small share offering for public sale. "All of Norway" wanted to buy into Kjell Inge Røkke's successful company. Shares for 90 million kroner were released in the first round, and they were sold out 17 times!"

"Suddenly, John Fredriksen was without both equity and loans, and with new builds worth nearly four billion kroner on the slipways. After working around the clock for 30 years, the soon-to-be 47-year-old John Fredriksen was on the brink of disaster. The entire shipping world would relish, especially the established shipping families in Norway who had never accepted the newcomer. The way back would be long, perhaps impossible."

"In Golar, one could fine-tune operations and be creative with financing, but the main figures were set when tied up in contracts over two decades. It's almost like a banking business. Neither Fredriksen nor Trøim are suited for that. Something needs to happen all the time, and Golar is after all in a market that is expected to grow significantly for a long time. World gas production is increasing strongly, we know this not least in Norway, and with high oil prices, gas is very competitive. Everyone expects the USA to cover a larger part of its energy needs with natural gas, Japan will replace nuclear power with natural gas, and in Asia generally, the energy need seems insatiable. Someone has to transport all the gas from the production fields to the market. The conclusion was clear for Fredriksen: ordering more ships."

"The main strand of the claim that made up this issue was that an enormous sum invested by UK and Dutch savers would now have to be paid back by the Icelandic taxpayer. It was an incendiary idea, which, by virtue of being repeated, became an accepted truth. In fact, for the Icelandic taxpayer to have to foot the bill, Landsbanki’s assets would have had to have been worthless or to have fallen at least 50 per cent. Neither was ever the case. Landsbanki did not go bankrupt because it had lost its assets. It had simply not been able to change Icelandic krona for foreign currency. It was a liquidity crisis, rather than any fraud or malfeasance, that forced it to stop. Furthermore, no one had previously suggested that the Icelandic state was responsible for debts of a commercial enterprise, so it was extraordinary to do so now. The problem was some ambiguity over the responsibilities in such situations of EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) vis-à-vis EU member states."