The foundation
The importance of understanding history to better navigate the future
The Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundations were established in 1947 by Consul General Axel Ax:son Johnson and his wife Margaret. Today, the foundations are Nordstjernan’s largest owners, with 99 percent of the voting rights and 86 percent of the capital in the company. This ownership form guarantees continuity and stability for Nordstjernan.
The princpali owner (with 85% of the capital and 5 percent of the voting righs), the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit, has promoted research within areas such as statecraft, geopolitics and religion – to better understand people’s actions of choice and its history. The research is focused on Humanities and Social Sciences. By gaining a deeper understanding of the past, we can improve our culture, avoid repeating past mistakes and develop a better society for the future. The Foundation is based on a number of convictions, such as societies’ and people’s right of free thought, free research and formation of opinion.
The Foundation has three pillars of its operation, the first being research and education, the second is a publishing arm and the third pillar is seminars. Whilst research many times stays within the walls of universities, the Foundation has an objective to help reaching out with important research that can help shape a better tomorrow.
Next to the Foundation for Public Benefit, the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, the family foundation, holds 2 percent of the capital and 95 percent of the voting rights in the company, and serves as a long-term owner of Nordstjernan and support the descendants of Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson.
Nordstjernan’s purpose is to safeguard the longevity of the Foundation as owner and to be a custodian of 130 years of industrial heritage. Through the Foundation, information and development are promoted, largely by cultivating new knowledge and publishing research results. In this way, Nordstjernan and its owners combine the best of two worlds – a profit-generating business and a non-profit foundation.
Our history
Entrepreneurship over generations
Nordstjernan was born in 1890 and was early on renowned for its shipping company, internationally known as the Johnson Line, with its blue and yellow flag which still is the Nordstjernan logotype.
Nordstjernan has over the years pioneered in areas such as stainless steel production to IT. Not only has Nordstjernan re-shaped the Swedish business landscape and been an industry building legend, the company has also re-defined everyday lives for private individuals by the passenger ships to the U.S. or by making coffee accessible on a large scale in Sweden in the early 1900s – mundane but yet vital to many of us.
Nordstjernan is a story of global entrepreneurship, created over five generations.
Nordstjernan is a story of global entrepreneurship, created over five generations. Hundreds of companies have been owned and later sold. A history of expansion, entering different lines of businesses, going global, experiencing setbacks and dire financial challenges, finding ways back by rethinking and executing on new strategies. The history and experiences have been instrumental in developing Nordstjernan as an appreciated and successful owner of flesh-and-blood.
Deep dive into a fuller history on our Nordstjernan heritage website.
The Ax:son Johnson family companies
The Ax:son Johnson family has for over more than 150 years played an integral part of shaping the Swedish industry and business landscape. During many years entities were interwined but in the 1900s they separated into what today is two companies: the Foundation-owned Nordstjernan and the privately held Axel Johnson Group (previously known as A.Johnson &co). Whilst being one family, there are no business relationships between the two companies.