Industry Heavy equipment Headquarters Gothenburg, Sweden | Area served Worldwide | |
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Type Publicly traded Aktiebolag Traded as Nasdaq Stockholm: VOLV B Founded 1927; 90 years ago (1927) Key people Carl-Henric Svanberg (Chairman)
Martin Lundstedt (President and CEO) Stock price VOLV-B (STO) SEK 128.10 -0.40 (-0.31%)4 Apr, 5:29 PM GMT+2 - Disclaimer CEO Martin Lundstedt (22 Oct 2015–) Subsidiaries Volvo Trucks, Mack Trucks Founders Gustaf Larson, Assar Gabrielsson Profiles | ||
The Volvo Group (Swedish: Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo) (stylised as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing company headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distribution and sale of trucks, buses and construction equipment, Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems and financial services. Although the two firms are still often conflated, Volvo Cars, also based in Gothenburg, is owned by Geely Holding Group a Chinese multinational automotive manufacturing company and has been a totally separate company since it was sold to the Ford Motor Company in 1999. The companies still share the Volvo logo and co-operate in running the Volvo Museum.
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Volvo was established in 1915 as a subsidiary of SKF, the ball bearing manufacturer; however the Volvo Group and Volvo Cars consider themselves to have been officially founded on 14 April 1927, when the first car, the Volvo ÖV 4 series, affectionately known as "Jakob", rolled out of the factory in Hisingen, Gothenburg. The building remains (57°42′50″N 11°55′19″E).
Volvo means "I roll" in Latin, conjugated from "volvere", in reference to ball bearings. The brand name Volvo was originally registered as a trademark in May 1911 with the intention to be used for a new series of SKF ball bearings. This idea was only used for a short period and SKF decided to simply use "SKF" as the trademark for all its bearing products.
In 1924, Assar Gabrielsson, an SKF sales manager, and a KTH Royal Institute of Technology educated engineer Gustav Larson, the two founders, decided to start construction of a Swedish car. Their vision was to build cars that could withstand the rigors of the country's rough roads and cold temperatures.
AB Volvo began activities on 10 August 1926. After one year of preparations involving the production of ten prototypes the firm was ready to commence the car-manufacturing business within the SKF group. AB Volvo was introduced at the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1935 and SKF then decided to sell its shares in the company. Volvo was delisted from NASDAQ in June 2007, but remains listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.
History
The Volvo Group has its origin in 1927, when the first Volvo car rolled off the production line at the factory in Gothenburg. Only 280 cars were built that year. The first truck, the "Series 1", debuted in January 1928, as an immediate success and attracted attention outside the country. In 1930, Volvo sold 639 cars, and the export of trucks to Europe started soon after; the cars did not become well-known outside Sweden until after World War II.
Pentaverken, who had manufactured engines for Volvo, was acquired in 1935, providing a secure supply of engines and entry into the marine engine market.
The first bus, named B1, was launched in 1934, and aircraft engines were added to the growing range of products at the beginning of the 1940s. In 1963, Volvo opened the Volvo Halifax Assembly plant, the first assembly plant in the company's history outside of Sweden in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
In 1991, Volvo Group participated in joint venture with Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors and the Dutch at the former DAF plant in Born, Netherlands. The operation, branded NedCar, began producing the first generation Mitsubishi Carisma alongside the Volvo S40/V40 in 1996.
In 1999, the European Union blocked a merger with Scania AB. In January of that same year, Volvo Group sold its car division Volvo Car Corporation to Ford Motor Company for $6.45 billion. The division was placed within Ford's Premier Automotive Group alongside Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin. Volvo engineering resources and components would be used in various Ford, Land Rover and Aston Martin products, with the second generation Land Rover Freelander designed on the same platform as the second generation Volvo S80. The Volvo T5 petrol engine was used in the Ford Focus ST and RS performance models, and Volvo's satellite navigation system was used on certain Aston Martin Vanquish, DB9 and V8 Vantage models. In November 1999, Volvo Group purchased a 5% stake in Mitsubishi Motors.
Ford sold the Volvo Car Corporation in 2010 to Geely Automobile of China for $1.8 billion. The move followed Ford's 2007 sale of Aston Martin, and 2008 sale of Jaguar Land Rover. Volvo Group sold its stake in Mitsubishi Motors back to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in 2001.
Renault Véhicules Industriels (which included Mack Trucks, but not Renault's stake in Irisbus) was sold to Volvo during January 2001, and Volvo renamed it Renault Trucks in 2002. Renault became AB Volvo's biggest shareholder with a 19.9% stake (in shares and voting rights) as part of the deal. Renault increased its shareholding to 21.7% by 2010.
AB Volvo acquired 13% of the shares in the Japanese truck manufacturer UD Trucks (the former Nissan Diesel) from Nissan Motor Co Ltd (part of the Renault-Nissan Alliance) during 2006, becoming a major shareholder. Volvo Group took complete ownership of Nissan Diesel in 2007 to extend its presence in the Asian Pacific market.
Renault sold 14.9% of their stake in AB Volvo in October 2010 (comprising 14.9% of the share capital and 3.8% of the voting rights) for €3.02bn. This share sale left Renault with around 17.5% of Volvo's voting rights. Renault sold their remaining shares in December 2012 (comprising 6.5% of the share capital and 17.2% of the voting rights at the time of transaction) for €1.6bn, leaving Swedish industrial investment group Aktiebolaget Industrivärden as the largest shareholder, with 6.2% of the share capital and 18.7% of the voting rights.
Business
Volvo Group's operations include:
Trademark
Volvo Trademark Holding AB is equally owned by AB Volvo and Volvo Car Corporation.
The main activity of the company is to own, maintain, protect and preserve the Volvo trademarks (including Volvo, the Volvo device marks (grille slash & iron mark) Volvo Aero and Volvo Penta) on behalf of its owners and to license these rights to its owners. The day-to-day work is focused upon maintaining the global portfolio of trademark registrations and to extend sufficiently the scope of the registered protection for the Volvo trademarks.
The main business is also to act against unauthorised registration and use (including counterfeiting) of trademarks identical or similar to the Volvo trademarks on a global basis.