Helly Hansen History
Earlier company descriptions, brand line-ups, store counts and photographs from the history of Helly Hansen, kept for historical reference.
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The Company Description of Its Time
Helly Hansen begins at sea, and its filing never lets the reader forget it. Founded in Norway in 1877, the company continues to develop professional-grade gear that helps people stay and feel alive, in its own phrase. Helly Juell Hansen had been at sea since the age of 14, and in 1877, at the age of 35, he and his wife Maren Margarethe began producing oilskin jackets, trousers, sou'westers and tarpaulins, made from coarse linen soaked in linseed oil. Over the first five years they sold around 10,000 pieces. In 1878 the company won a diploma for excellence at the Paris Expo, and began exporting its products - a working seaman's waterproof, validated within a year on an international stage.
What Helly Hansen Makes, and Who Came to Own It
The specialities list reads like a cold-weather wardrobe system rather than a catalogue: ski jackets, parkas, down jackets, rainwear, hiking apparel, shell jackets, sailing jackets, base layers, cold weather pants, fleece clothing and outerwear. The company designs and manufactures winter apparel for men, women and children, and the routes on this page lead to its men's and women's brand pages in the clothes guide, where the ranges are covered audience by audience. The historical record's photograph of Helly Hansen coats and skiwear is carried by reference in the gallery on the history page, as the directory originally presented it.
Ownership is filed as a short dated chain, and this rebuild keeps it as a chain rather than a current claim. In October 2006 Investcorp sold its interest in Helly Hansen to Altor Equity Partners. In 2012 Altor sold a 75 percent stake to the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. In 2015 the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan increased its position, acquiring Altor's remaining stock in the business. The filing ends there, in 2015, and no later ownership is asserted on this page. For a company whose products are bought on trust in dangerous weather, that restraint is appropriate: the directory records what was recorded, and the official site records what is current.
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