Private company

ICA AB

Logo: ™/®ICA Gruppen AB, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons⁴

Swedish retail franchise

ICA Gruppen AB (Swedish pronunciation:; "ICA Group"), founded as Inköpscentralernas aktiebolag (lit. 'the Purchasing Centres' Corporation'), is a Swedish retailer franchise with a focus on food and health. The group also owns a bank, real estate division and a pharmacy chain. The company was started in 1938, based on a business model which was introduced by Hakonbolagen in 1917.² Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

1938Founded¹

Industryretail¹
HeadquartersSolna Municipality¹
Websitewww.ica.se
Legal formaktiebolag¹
LEI549300UIGQLG7IEEXN98³
StatusActive³
LEI statusLapsed (not renewed)³
Registered addressBox 4075, 169 04 Solna, Sweden³
Registered withSwedish Companies Registration Office, 556582-1559³

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ICA Gruppen AB (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈîːka]; "ICA Group"), founded as Inköpscentralernas aktiebolag (lit. 'the Purchasing Centres' Corporation'), is a Swedish retailer franchise with a focus on food and health. The group also owns a bank, real estate division and a pharmacy chain. The company was started in 1938, based on a business model which was introduced by Hakonbolagen in 1917. Most of its operations are based in Sweden and the Baltic countries.²

Corporate structure

ICA AB is part of a group headed by ICA. 11 entities, 2 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

ICA Solna, Sweden
- ICA AB Solna, Sweden
  - ICA Norway Subsidiary · Oslo, Norway
    - Matkroken Subsidiary · Solna, Sweden
    - Rimi Norway Subsidiary · Oslo
  - Apotek Hjärtat AB Subsidiary · 100% · Solna, Sweden
  - Rimi Baltic AB Subsidiary · Sweden
- ICA Banken Solna, Sweden
  - ICA Försäkring AB Solna, Sweden
- ICA Fastigheter Holding AB Subsidiary · Västerås, Sweden
- ICA Impact Invest 1 AB Subsidiary · Solna, Sweden

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

Statoil

Until the mid-1990s, Statoil and ICA jointly operated Statoil Detaljhandel AB (Statoil Retail Ltd) which ran approximately 1,300 petrol stations in Scandinavia, many branded under the name ICA Express. ICA has since sold its 50 percent share of the business back to Statoil and the ICA name was removed from the petrol stations during 2007.

Denmark

ICA previously had a 50 percent stake in the ISO chain of supermarkets in the Copenhagen region, Denmark. In 2004, ICA sold its entire holding in ISO.

Netto Sweden

The Swedish operation of Danish supermarket chain Netto was founded in 2002 as a joint venture between Dansk Supermarked and ICA. The joint venture was named Netto Marknad AB. At the end of 2006, ICA announced it was pulling out of the joint venture, reducing its stake from 50 to 5 percent. Twenty-one of the Netto stores in the Stockholm and Västmanland regions were transferred to ICA's ownership and rebranded to ICA's own formats or closed during 2007.

Norway

ICA Norge AS ran about 600 stores in Norway as of 2009. Store sales were at approximately 21 billion SEK (excluding VAT). Formerly known as Hakongruppen and owned by Stein Erik Hagen, it operated solely RIMI discount stores until ICA bought the chain, and transformed many of the stores to the ICA brand. ICA Norway was divided into four different stores:

Matkroken

ICA Nær (closed 2014)

ICA Supermarked (closed 2015/2016)

ICA Maxi (closed 2012)

Read the full text

RIMI (a chain of food stores)

In 2014 ICA Norge was sold to Coop Norge and all stores, except for the Matkroken chain, were rebranded into Coop stores, mainly Coop Extra and Coop Prix. 93 stores had to be sold to competitors due to demands from the Norwegian Competition Authority.

Hemtex

In 2009, the Swedish home textile retail chain Hemtex became a partly owned subsidiary of ICA Gruppen (Hakon Invest). In 2015, ICA Gruppen acquired the remaining shares of Hemtex and it became a wholly owned subsidiary. In 2019, Hemtex was sold to Norwegian home textile chain Kid ASA.

From Wikipedia’s article on ICA Gruppen, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁵

Subsidiaries and ownership

Subsidiaries

ICA Banken
ICA Norway
Rimi Baltic AB

Parent company (GLEIF)

ICA³

From Wikidata.¹ Ownership links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); each one cites its LEI record.

Acquisitions

2003Acquired ICA Norway¹
1991Acquired Viking Coffee¹

Controversies and legal

ICA meat repackaging controversy

In December 2007, a meat repackaging fraud scheme was revealed when a whistleblower spoke to Sveriges Television's flagship investigative programme Uppdrag granskning. Hans Hallén, a former quality control manager for the supermarket chain, revealed that the company was aware that meat was being illegally repackaged as early as 2003. Hallén, who monitored ICA stores in southern Sweden 2003–2005, said he informed the company's managers of the practices. According to Hallén, many stores engaged in practices such as repackaging meat to change the expiry date.