Aker

History

The company takes its name from the former Akers mekaniske Verksted, which was Norway's largest shipyard and which closed in 1982. In 1987 one of the surviving companies split off from the shipyard merged with Norcem, creating a large cement group in Norway with focus on the offshore industry. The cement business was sold in 1999.

Kjell Inge Røkke used his investment company Resource Group International to purchase large amounts of Aker shares, and merged the two companies in 1996 to form Aker RGI. In 1999, after clearing European anti-monopoly concerns, Aker and Apax Partners merged their warehouse technologies and material handling units to form the Dexion Group Ltd (Apax) and Constructor AS (Aker); in 2000, the Dexion Group was acquired by Aker and merged with Constructor, while the Australia/Asia Pacific operations were sold.

During the early 2000s, Kværner was approached multiple times by its long time rival Kværner, which had entered a period of considerable hardship following an ambitious programme of international expansion. During November 2001, in order to avoid bankruptcy, Kværner was compelled to merge with Aker. Thereafter, Kværner's international headquarters returned to Oslo and Kværner was restructured to become a holding company, with operating activities concentrated in Aker Kværner and Aker Yards. During 2005, Kværner ASA was merged with Aker Maritime Finance AS, a wholly owned company of Aker ASA, as a result of which the Kværner corporation ceased to exist.

In 2007, as part of the Aker Material Handling group of companies, Constructor/Dexion was sold to the Swedish finance investor Altor Equity Partners. In December 2010, Aker Solutions announced a decision to cultivate its core businesses; consequently, Kvaerner was established, through a demerger, as a specialised EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) company addressing the global market. On 6 May 2011, the shareholders' annual general meeting approved the establishment of Kvaerner as a separate company.

During 2016, Aker founded the industrial software company Cognite, which targeted the digitalisation of processes across the oil industry as well as other sectors, as part of ambitions to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Three years later, it was announced that Cognite had doubled its revenue to 340 million Norwegian crowns; it had also opened new offices in Tokyo and Texas to better serve these markets. In February 2022, the Saudi Arabian oil company Aramco purchase a 7.4 per cent stake in Cognite from Aker in exchange for roughly one billion Norwegian crowns. Throughout the early 2020s, Aker was considered an initial public offering of Cognite.