Buyers for everything
“My own business began the following day. At that time, Hamburg was a wonderful trading city, which offered businessmen of my type unlimited potential. There were plenty of buyers for everything and for exports to every country in the world, not to mention the excellent shipping facilities.”
“I had found my niche”
“It did not take long before I met a man in Hamburg, a Japanese called Mr. Nagasaki, an agent for Mitsui & Co in Japan. He needed pulp and appointed me as his supplier. I had found my niche: pulp for transatlantic export. It was then relatively easy to find out which transatlantic countries had paper mills and make contact with them.”
Rapid sales expansion
Sales expanded rapidly, and, as early as 1904, Elof Hansson opened his first branch office in London. When World War I broke out, he moved his business from Hamburg to Gothenburg in order to be able to continue transatlantic trade.
With help from his sons and skilled employees, Elof Hansson succeeded in keeping the business operating during the economic crises of the 1930s and led the firm into a new phase of expansion in the post-World War II period.
Owned by the Elof Hansson Foundation
After Elof Hansson’s death in 1955, one of his sons, Sven Hansson, took over and guided the company through a period marked by consolidation and further development. In 1972, the youngest son, Bo-Elof Hansson, became president.
Over the years, Bo-Elof Hansson successively donated the majority of his shares to a public service foundation called the Elof Hansson Foundation. In 1992, he retired as president in order to fully concentrate on his work as a member of the boards of Elof Hansson AB and the Elof Hansson Foundation. The same year, Thomas Pettersson was appointed president of Elof Hansson AB.