Companies
Notable companies in Finland include Nokia, the former market leader in mobile telephony; Stora Enso, the largest paper manufacturer in the world; Neste Oil, an oil refining and marketing company; UPM-Kymmene, the third largest paper manufacturer in the world; Aker Finnyards, the manufacturer of the world's largest cruise ships (such as Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas); Rovio Mobile, video game developer most notable for creating Angry Birds; KONE, a manufacturer of elevators and escalators; Wärtsilä, a producer of power plants and ship engines; and Finnair, the largest Helsinki-Vantaa based international airline. Finland has sophisticated financial markets comparable to UK in efficiency. Though foreign investment is as not high as some other European countries, the largest foreign-headquartered companies included names such as ABB, Tellabs, Carlsberg, and Siemens.
Around 70-80% of the equity quoted on the Helsinki Stock Exchange is owned by foreign-registered entities. The larger companies get most of their revenue from abroad, and the majority of their employees work outside the country. Cross-shareholding has been abolished and there is a trend towards an Anglo-Saxon style of corporate governance. However, only around 15% of residents had invested in stock market, compared to 20% in France, and 50% in the US.
Between 2000-2003, early stage venture capital investments relative to GDP were 8.5 percent against 4 percent in the EU and 11.5 in the US. Later stage investments fell to the EU median. Invest in Finland and other programs attempt to attract investment. In 2000 FDI from Finland to overseas was 20 billion euro and from overseas to Finland 7 billion euro. Acquisitions and mergers have internationalized business in Finland.
Although some privatization has been gradually done, there are still several state-owned companies of importance. The government keeps them as strategic assets or because they are natural monopoly. These include e.g. Neste Oil, VR Group (rail), Finnair, VTT (research) and Itella (mail). Depending on the strategic importance, the government may hold either 100%, 51% or less than 50% stock. Most of these have been transformed into regular limited companies, but some are quasi-governmental (liikelaitos), with debt backed by the state, as in the case of VTT.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Finland
Famous quotes containing the word companies:
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—Gloria Steinem (20th century)
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—Sugar Rautbord, U.S. socialite fund-raiser and self-described “trash” novelist. As quoted in The Great Divide, book 2, section 7, by Studs Terkel (1988)
“The recent attempt to secure a charter from the State of North Dakota for a lottery company, the pending effort to obtain from the State of Louisiana a renewal of the charter of the Louisiana State Lottery, and the establishment of one or more lottery companies at Mexican towns near our border, have served the good purpose of calling public attention to an evil of vast proportions.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)