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It all began in Hamburg 1897

Elof Hansson was a merchant who began operations in Hamburg, Germany, in 1897. This is how he described the start:

The foundation of the company had been prepared by obtaining a Gewerbeschein from the Senate in Hamburg, dated November 20th 1896. Up to June 30th 1897, I was employed at F.A. Neubauer in Hamburg.”

“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.”

“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.”

Elof Hansson 1910

Moved to Gothenburg

Sales expanded rapidly and in 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.

The company continued it operations through the economic crises of the 1930s and the World War II. A new phase of expansion started in the post-war period, which laid the foundation for today’s Elof Hansson Group.

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, Elof Hansson´s youngest son, Bo-Elof Hansson, became president.

Over the years, Bo-Elof Hansson successively donated the majority of his shares to a foundation, the Elof Hanssons Stiftelse. 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.