Storebrand is a

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

company in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. By volume, the company's main activities are related to

life insurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...

and pension savings. However, the company also has major divisions working on

investment Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing i ...

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

and, until 1999 and again since 2006, P&C insurance products. Through its acquisition of Swedish SPP from Handelsbanken in 2007, Storebrand gained a sizable division dedicated to the Swedish market for life insurance. The company's headquarters are located in

Lysaker Lysaker is an area in Bærum Municipality, Viken County, Norway. Lysaker is the easternmost part of Bærum and borders Oslo proper. Lysaker was initially a farming community, later becoming a residential area. Today it is primarily known as a bu ...

in the municipality of Bærum, just outside

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

. Storebrand is a public company listed on the

Oslo Stock Exchange Oslo Stock Exchange ( no, Oslo Børs) (OSE: OSLO) is a stock exchange within the Nordic countries and offers Norway’s only regulated markets for securities trading today. The stock exchange offers a full product range including equities, deriv ...

. The company

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

is Odd Arild Grefstad. Storebrand issues an annual report for companies engaging in socially responsible investments.

History

The company traces its roots back to 1767 when Den almindelige Brand-Forsikrings-Anstalt, later Norges Brannkasse, was formed. In 1982 Storebrand merged with its competitor, insurance company

Norden Norden is a Scandinavian and German word, directly translated as "the North". It may refer to: Places England * Norden, Basingstoke, a ward of Basingstoke and Deane * Norden, Dorset, a hamlet near Corfe Castle * Norden, Greater Manchester, a vil ...

, to form the Storebrand-Norden group. The company changed its name to AS Storebrand in 1986. In 1991 Storebrand merged with the companies under the

UNI Forsikring UNI Forsikring was an insurance group based in Norway. It was founded in 1984 as a cooperation between life insurance company Norske Folk and general insurance company Norges Brannkasse. It was decided to restructure the two parties as public co ...

trademark (Norges Brannkasse and

Norske Folk Norske Folk was a life insurance company based in Norway. It was founded in 1917. In 1984 it started a cooperation with Norges Brannkasse named UNI Forsikring. In 1989 Norske Folk was redesigned into a public company A public company is a co ...

), to become UNI Storebrand. Later attempts to acquire Swedish insurance company

Skandia Skandia is a financial services corporation in Sweden. History Skandia started out as a Swedish insurance company in 1855. Today the brand operates in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Skandia also operates an internet bank called Skandiab ...

, together with Danish company Hafnia and Finnish company

Pohjola Pohjola (; from 'base, bottom', but used in derived forms like ''pohjois-'' to mean 'north' + ''-'' 'place'), sometimes just Pohja (), is a mythical place, location in Finnish mythology. It is one of the two main polarities in the Finnish nationa ...

, to form a large Nordic insurance company under Norwegian leadership, failed in 1992. This caused the share prices of UNI Storebrand to plummet and the government took control of the company. In 1993 the company successfully managed to restructure its debt and was again made available for trading on the Oslo Stock Exchange. In 1996 the company changed its name to Storebrand ASA, and was granted governmental concession to operate banking services through its fully owned subsidiary Storebrand Bank. The following year, attempts to merge with

Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse, branded domestically as Kreditkassen or K-Bank and internationally as Christiania Bank was a Norwegian bank that existed between 1848 and 2000 when it merged with MeritaNordbanken and became Nordea. The bank had ...

, now part of

Nordea Nordea Bank Abp, commonly referred to as Nordea, is a European financial services group operating in northern Europe and based in Helsinki, Finland. The name is a blend of the words "Nordic" and "idea". The bank is the result of the successive m ...

, failed as Storebrand did not achieve the necessary ⅔ majority for the merger from its shareholders. 63,38 percent voted for. In 1999 Storebrand merged its P&C insurance division with similar divisions of Skandia and Pohjola to form

If P&C Insurance If P&C Insurance Company Ltd. is a property and casualty insurance company with approximately 3.8 million customers in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. In 2013, the group had gross premiums written of SE ...

, in which Storebrand retained an ownership share of 33 percent. The shares were later sold, a natural consequence of Storebrand starting a new P&C insurance division to become a competitor of If, while If also became a competitor of Storebrand by selling health insurance and certain pension plans.

References

External links

Official site in EnglishStorebrand Norwegian website
{{Coord, 59, 54, 41.7, N, 10, 37, 50.1, E, type:landmark, display=title Financial services companies established in 1767 Banks of Norway Insurance companies of Norway Financial services companies of Norway 1767 establishments in Norway Companies based in Oslo Companies listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange

History

See also

References

External links