Odd Reitan (born 11 September 1951) is a Norwegian

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

businessman. He was born in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

. He is co-owner and CEO of the Reitan AS.

Early life

Reitan is the son of "single-store grocers", Ole Reitan and Margit Aarhaug.

Career

Reitan established his first shop in Trondheim in 1972, in cooperation with his father. In 1979 he established the grocery chain store

REMA 1000 REMA 1000 (Bokmål: Rema tusen) is a multinational no-frills soft-discount grocery chain owned entirely by the Reitan Group (Reitangruppen). REMA is a short for ' (Reitan Food), referring to Odd Reitan (founder of the company). ''1000'' refer ...

, which came to be a great success. By 1990 every village in Norway with more than 10,000 inhabitants had a Rema 1000 shop. During the 1990s the chain expanded in Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. Reitan played keyboard in the music group Four Jets in the 1960s.

2012 book

He and his 2012 book, ''Hvis jeg var president'' ("If I was president"), was the subject of an editorial in ''

Klassekampen ''Klassekampen'' ( en, The Class Struggle) is a Norwegian daily newspaper. It describes itself as "the newspaper of the Left." The paper's net circulation is 34,000 (2021), and it has around 111,000 daily readers on paper (160,000 on Saturdays). ...

''. The editorial highlighted his idea of him governing Norway without being elected by popular vote. His idea is that he could be appointed by Norway's king. The editorial described these ideas as "undemocratic dirt".

Philanthropy

In 2013 he awarded

Norwegian kroner The krone (, abbreviation: kr (also NKr for distinction); code: NOK), plural ''kroner'', is currency of the Kingdom of Norway (including Svalbard). Traditionally known as the Norwegian crown in English. It is nominally subdivided into 100 ''øre ...

2 million to Anlov Mathiesen (chief editor of ''=Oslo''), saying that Mathiesen's work contributes to "increased self-respect for the vendors of the

street magazine Street newspapers (or street papers) are newspapers or magazines sold by homeless or poor individuals and produced mainly to support these populations. Most such newspapers primarily provide coverage about homelessness and poverty-related issu ...

s."

Personal life

In 1972, he married Marit Arntsen (born 1952). They have the two sons, Ole Robert Reitan (born 1971), and Magnus Reitan. In June 2018, he married Hilde Undlien in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. They had been in a relationship since 2012. He resides in Trondheim.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reitan, Odd 1951 births Living people People from Trondheim Norwegian merchants Norwegian billionaires