ÖoB (former Överskottsbolaget) is a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

discount store A discount store or discounter offers a retail format in which products are sold at prices that are in principle lower than an actual or supposed "full retail price". Discounters rely on bulk purchasing and efficient distribution to keep down cost ...

, owned by the Runsvengruppen. It sells non-perishable food and drink, health & beauty products,

homeware Home accessories are furniture items which are easy to replace and easy to move, and include almost any items that are not strictly functionally necessary in a decorated space. These accessories include such items as curtains, sofa sets, cushions, t ...

s, DIY products and garden equipment. It has over 100 stores nationwide.

History

Runsvengruppen

The company was founded in 1948 by Rune Svensson when he opened a village shop in Mariedamm (

Askersund Municipality Askersund Municipality (''Askersunds kommun'') is a municipality in Örebro County in central Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Askersund. The present municipality was created in 1971, when the former ''City of Askersund'' was merged wit ...

) which he created a direct sales channel and later expanded to a store in the nearby town of

Skänninge Skänninge () is a locality situated in Mjölby Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 3,140 inhabitants in 2010. It lies about 10 km north of the municipal seat Mjölby. Before the local government reform in 1971 the ''City of Skä ...

in 1957. Due to difficulties with suppliers at home in Sweden, he started sourcing goods from China and Eastern Europe for his stores. This created his chain of Bonusvaruhusen. He later passed on his chain to his son Oskar in 1977. In 1992, Runsvengruppen bought Överskottsbolaget with its nine stores, and later changed the retail name for all stores of the group to Överskottsbolaget (English translation: ''The surplus company'') or ÖoB for short. The seemingly superfluous ''o'' between ''Ö'' and ''B'' was added as ''ÖB'' is short for Överbefälhavare, or Commander-in-chief, and is thus prohibited for use as a company name.

Överskottsbolaget

Överskottsbolaget first came about in 1960, when the

Swedish army The Swedish Army ( sv, svenska armén) is the land force of the Swedish Armed Forces. History Svea Life Guards dates back to the year 1521, when the men of Dalarna chose 16 young able men as body guards for the insurgent nobleman Gustav Vas ...

quartermasters Quartermaster is a military term, the meaning of which depends on the country and service. In land armies, a quartermaster is generally a relatively senior soldier who supervises stores or barracks and distributes supplies and provisions. In m ...

(Försvarets Fabriksverk, FFV) started selling

surplus Surplus may refer to: * Economic surplus, one of various supplementary values * Excess supply, a situation in which the quantity of a good or service supplied is more than the quantity demanded, and the price is above the equilibrium level determ ...

items, hence the name (''överskott'' means surplus) from the Swedish army directly to the public. FFV was privatised in 1991. In 2018, Norwegian Europris took a 20% stake in the company's share capital.Europris ASA Annual Report 2019

References

External links

ÖoB’s homepage
*
ÖoB’s Facebook page

Runsvengruppen's homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Overskottsbolaget Retail companies of Sweden Discount stores Companies based in Östergötland County Swedish companies established in 1948 Retail companies established in 1948