The Norwegian owner Morten E. Astrup stepped in as an involuntary major shareholder when the venerable mail-order company from Borås went through a crisis in 2024. After the lenders took over the business, a lot has happened behind the scenes.
The mountain of debt has been reduced to 800 million Swedish krona and the focus is now on a listing on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.
The recently rejected bid valued the entire company at 1.5 billion Swedish krona, which corresponds to a price tag of 76.5 Swedish krona per share.
But management and the board have a completely different price tag in mind. For a deal to become relevant, expectations are instead pointing to a valuation of around 2 billion Swedish krona.
It is an industrial player bidding 76.5 krona per share but we see great potential and if you compare with similar companies the valuation should be over 100 krona, says Morten E. Astrup to Breakit.
Margins and Future
Together with the CEO Hans Ohlsson, the Norwegian billionaire, who through companies owns almost 25 percent of the e-commerce company, has steered the ship around. During the year 2025, the company reported a turnover of 3.5 billion Swedish krona and an adjusted operating profit of 219 million Swedish krona.
Now, the focus is directed towards the stock exchange. To continue refining profitability, the focus is on streamlining processes and building an organization that is prepared for the future.
Before we came in, the focus was on survival, now management can put all their energy into the business, then things happen. We see incredible potential to increase margins, not least through rationalization with the help of AI, says Morten E. Astrup.