RGI

"How could Røkke replace the boss at Helly Hansen? "It wasn't that difficult. There was just one man who needed to talk to two people," says someone closely connected. The outcome was that RGI bought half of Helly Hansen for 125 million, and at the same time made a transfer agreement between the directors. For an appropriate severance pay in the million class, they agreed to switch jobs. Thus, the systematic Gyrd Skråning went to Askim, while Johnny Austad took over Helly Hansen in Moss. And when RGI shortly thereafter completely sold out of Gresvig, Gyrd Skråning disappeared off the sidelines for RGI's part."

"It is in real estate that Kjell Inge Røkke has performed his toughest stunts, and it is here he has used some of the toughest methods. Method number one has been to buy up the debt of crisis-stricken companies and then pressure the management and owners to beg for mercy. When you sit with large loans and do not have money to pay interest, then you do not have much to say. With the merger with Avantor, Røkke's foreign properties were separated out so that they were not included in the deal. Thus, Ken Uptain continued to manage the luxurious Grand Harbor project in Florida and the less lucrative Lynnwood shopping center in Seattle for RGI. At the beginning of the 90s, Uptain represented one of the real veterans in Røkke's business life. They had known each other since the first party in 1984 and had been partners in many hundreds of apartments. Moreover, it was Uptain who came up with the name that would become Røkke's: The Resource Group, which eventually became RGI. Now, he was a bit sidelined as Jan Petter Storetvedt emerged as the new real estate comet within the group."

"However, Jens P. Heyerdahl is a crafty fox, and he set tough conditions to join the Røkke race. If Orkla were to join, Kjell Inge Røkke and Bjørn Rune Gjelsten had to commit to spending all their time at RGI. At the same time, they had to promise not to engage in private business on the side. If the Orkla boss was going to be a passenger, then he demanded that the two bosses be firmly tied to the driver's seat."

"The two friends from Molde were filthy rich. That was now. But they also sat on a cash box of several billion kroner. Now they had a unique opportunity to seriously implement RGI's business idea of entering companies with poor management, restructuring them, achieving new growth, and then selling the companies at a great profit. On the Oslo Stock Exchange, there were many such companies. Now RGI had the strength to attack one of the giants."

"But what he did wasn’t too terribly foolish, to put it that way. Because the crisis taught Røkke to fill up the cash register ahead of possible bad weather. In autumn 1995, money poured into RGI's coffers. First they spun off Norway Seafoods and brought in 720 million kroner there. And since then, RGI sold new shares for a total of 800 million kroner."