History

Johan Karlström, son of the Mayor of Karlstad, starts to build Stjärn’s trip hammers, and settles at the same time on land owned by the nobility situated where the river Uvån meets lake Rådasjön and which from then on was given the name of Uddeholm, one of Värmland’s largest farms at the time.

Bengt Gustaf Geijer from Bosjön was out riding one day and immediately saw the potential in the farm and the company, which for some years after Karlström’s death in 1691 had more or less fallen into disrepair due to difficult times. At first Geijer lease Uddeholm’s farm and hammers.

Geijer and his new wife Lovisa Sofia Tranea buy the manor house as well as the woods, the waterfalls and the hammers. In the same year he also founds the company Uddeholms Bolag (Uddeholm’s Company). Over the next 20 years, he and his wife build Uddeholm into one of the bigger iron producers in Sweden. Several blast furnaces and hammers are set up: Stjärnfors, Geijersholm, Gustavsfors, Uvanå, Uddeholmshyttan and Traneberg, and others.

Bengt Gustaf Geijer dies, but before his death he writes a will which guarantees that the company will be kept together within the family even after his death and therefore cannot be split up among the many heirs. Lovisa Sofia Tranea becomes Sweden’s first ever female business executives.

Jonas Waern joins Uddeholm’s Company. He was the first person in more than 100 years who was not a Geijer and, in light of the existing will, this obviously caused a problem, although this was quickly resolved by Waern marrying one of the Geijer girls. Waern was a pioneer who promoted large-scale production and streamlining. He saw the possibility of using hydropower to develop the industry and was among those who laid the foundation for the new industrial Sweden and therefore also today’s modern Uddeholm.

Waern lets one of the young engineers working for the company, EG Danielsson, take the boat to America to market Uddeholm and company’s product range. Danielsson returned a year later with several contracts with new customers. We can still thank him today for putting Uddeholm’s name on the map outside Europe. In 1855 EG Danielsson became the managing director of Uddeholm.

Uddeholm had been owned by the Geijer family for more than 150 years. But now the ownership structure changes and Uddeholm becomes a public share company. This step strengthens the economy, attracts investors and the company continues to develop.

And after several years of construction, the blast furnace pipe is filled for the first time at the new ironworks in Hagfors. Over the years this was to become the heart of Uddeholm’s steel operations. Managing director EG Danielsson not only sets up this new Hagfors ironworks which came to replace the many small hammers and blast furnaces, he also establishes a railway, NKIJ-banan, as a way of modernizing transport and the opportunity of exporting both forestry products and iron and steel.

The Bessemer process was invented by Englishman Sir Henry Bessemer and patented in 1856. The first Bessemer blowing was done in Hagfors on July 30th, 1880 and it was used for production as recently as May 1965. Since then, the plant has remained untouched. With the Bessemer furnace, it was possible to produce steel with a lower carbon content, and that produced a steel with much better toughness.

Uddeholm has a foundry built at the new factory in Hagfors which is now growing rapidly. A 2.5 tonne steam hammer would ensure the iron and steel were forged into rods of the required hardness. This laid the foundation for today’s forging centre for tool steel from Uddeholm.

And during the following years work intensifies on building up Uddeholm’s unique international sales organisation around the globe. Sales offices are opening up in the US, Germany, UK, etc.

ASSAB, Associated Swedish Steel AB, is formed from the four cooperating Swedish steel producers Uddeholm, Fagersta Bruks AB, Hellefors Jernverks AB and Sandvikens Jernverks AB with the aim of jointly exploiting the opportunities to develop business in Asia east of Burma, Africa and in Latin America. 1976 changes in the ownership structure, and ASSAB becomes a subsidiary of Uddeholm.

The companies merge and form the joint company Böhler-Uddeholm AG. All that is left of the former conglomerate Uddeholm is tool steel in Hagfors and the cold-rolled belts in Munkfors.

The Austrian steel group voestalpine AG makes a bid for the whole of Böhler-Uddeholm AG which later forms a completely new fifth division – Special Steel – in voestalpine.

After two years of careful planning and hard work a second forging press is inaugurated by King Karl XIV Gustav of Sweden.

Uddeholm celebrates 350 years of customer success, development and strong local commitment. The celebration took place over 5 days with invited customers, sales companies, employees and the public.

Sustainability has long been an important key factor for Uddeholm. We strive for a world leading production standard that allows us to thrive together with our customers, colleagues and the environment. In the middle of December, 2021, we will run a week long trial of producing climate neutral tool steel to show that the impossible is possible. Not tomorrow, but today.