kopco history

In 1887 the Wallenbergs ousted company president Fränckel, who had been criticized for lax management, and replaced him with Oscar Lamm, a mining engineer.

Gunnar Jacobsson, who oversaw the development of this division, became the president of Nya Atlas in 1909, succeeding Lamm.

By 1920, profits were practically nonexistent; during the next four years the company ran up heavy losses as the diesel engine business in particular suffered setbacks.

In the early postwar years, Wehtje decided that the company's manufacturing of diesel engines could not continue, and in 1948 the diesel engine division was sold to Nydqvist & Holm.

In 1957 Wehtje retired at the age of 60, having seen sales increase from SKr 20 million to SKr 315 million, the number of subsidiaries triple to 24, and the workforce expand from 1,500 to 6,000.

Atlas Copco suffered another setback in profits in 1986 due to unexpected foreign exchange losses.

Starting in 1987, Atlas Copco began acquiring other companies to build up its market position, particularly concentrating on widening the product line in the Atlas Copco Tools division, which was headed by Michael Treschow.

He reacted with a massive restructuring, cutting the workforce by 30 percent, with the number of employees bottoming out at 18,104 in 1994.