When Orkla purchased Elkem in 2005, one of Norway’s five largest companies bought one of Norway’s twenty largest.2 A Norwegian company with a strong footing in Sweden bought another Norwegian company with an equally strong Swedish footing,
but there the similarity ends. Orkla, a conglomerate with strong sales in food and branded consumer goods that prided itself
on being “a moderately diversified company”, bought an outright metallurgical company and thus became even more diversified.
This paper is based on two recent books: Sogner, K. (2003). Skaperkraft. Elkem gjennom 100 år 1904–2004, Oslo: Messel forlag and Bergh, T., Espeli, H. and Sogner, K. Brytningstider. Storselskapet Orkla 1654–2004, Oslo: Orion forlag. My colleagues Trond Bergh and Harald Espeli wrote about the period from 1974 to the present.