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RUNE ANDERSSON
How Mellby Gård
was built
Mellby Gård AB was founded as an agricultural company
in 1986 when Rune Andersson took over Mellby Gård
farm, a few kilometres to the north-east of Sösdala in the
municipality of Hässleholm.
“We started up a separate company to run the farm: this is the
actual, original Mellby Gård AB. Nothing dramatic happened within
the company over the next three years, except for the continuation of
agricultural activities, which were based on both animals and grain.”
Rune Andersson bought Getinge AB with Carl Bennet in 1989.
CO-OWNER OF ANDERSSON & BENNET
“The transaction was conducted by the newly formed company
Andersson & Bennet AB. Mellby Gård AB owned half the company,
while Carl owned the other half. After that, the two of us worked
together at Andersson & Bennet AB, and we took over a number of
companies and their subsidiaries over an eight-year period.”
The company bought half of Älvsbyhus, for instance, and the
Johansson family owned the other half. It also bought out Söderberg
& Haak, two companies that still form part of Mellby Gård. Bewator
and Svanströms were two other companies that were taken over by
Andersson & Bennet.
“Andersson & Bennet grew nicely until 1997, when Carl Bennet
wanted to leave the operational work at Getinge to focus on his
chairmanship. We decided together to split Andersson & Bennet
between us and had all our holdings valued. To put it simply, Carl was
given all the shares in Getinge AB, while Mellby Gård got everything
else.”
Mellby Gård took on sole responsibility for a number of companies
as a result and needed to build up its own administration. Monika
Olsson had already been taken on, and Sten Libell and Rolf Andersson
– who were both employed by Andersson & Bennet – joined her at
Mellby Gård. Anders Bülow was taken on a few years later, and he went
on to become a key person in the further development of Mellby Gård.
START ANEW OR TAKE OVER FOR PERPETUAL
OWNERSHIP
Since then, Mellby Gård has gone on taking over or starting new
companies with its sights set on one of Rune’s most important building
blocks: owning and running the companies so that they can go on
being developed further.
“We’ve managed to work according to the principle of perpetual
ownership, with just a few exceptions. There have always been specific,
structural reasons for our decisions on the few occasions when we’ve
sold companies. We don’t normally sell to financial investors or private
equity firms, but to industrial investors who are taking over a business
with a view to growing it.”
One example of this is the office equipment company Svanströms,
which Mellby Gård owned and run for around 14 years and sold in 2011.
“The market was moving towards more international customers, and
we couldn’t give them a full service because we only had a presence in
Sweden. So we made the decision to sell the company to Office Depot,
one of the world’s biggest stakeholders in that market.”
Mellby Gård hasn’t really performed any kind of active analysis into
what kind of companies it wanted to take over. Most of its acquisitions
have largely been coincidental.
“Most commonly, somebody has got in touch with me. I was
contacted either by people who wanted to start from scratch – like in
the case of Feralco, for example, when a former manager at Kemira got
in touch with me – or when a new owner or co-owner was needed, like
when the Johansson family got in touch when they wanted to buy out
Älvsbyhus.”
IF ONE SECTOR IS AFFECTED, THEN SO IS EVERYBODY
“In my experience of the business community, I found out that if
one sector is adversely affected, so all companies in that sector are
usually affected as well. That’s why it’s been vital not to have too many
companies working in the same sector. Holdings shouldn’t co-vary
in the economic cycle, and now I look back I can see we’ve actually
managed that balance well.
“It’s also crucial to strike a balance between companies that import
and companies that export. I decided early on to focus on operating
companies, primarily industrial companies, and one or more trading
companies such as Söderberg & Haak to act as a counterweight. Then
came Kappahl, which has grown to become one of our biggest holdings.
“Our aim is to own over 90% of our companies, if we can afford it, at
least we’d like to be the majority owner. When it comes to corporate
governance, Mellby Gård’s principle is always to want the chair, and
sometimes to have an additional seat on the board as well.”
A SUCCESSFUL GENERATIONAL SHIFT
“The generational shift at Mellby Gård began in 2013, when Johan took
over the role of CEO. That’s when the management team I was working
with also began to wind down, and now Johan has built up a new team
of people of his own generation. I think Johan has coped brilliantly
with the generational shift!
“As regards the future, Mellby Gård will have no debts as of the end
of the year despite investing rather intensively for a number of years.
We’ve also sold Flowbird which means that we’ll have plenty to spend
on for various types of investments. I think this gives us a sense of
reassurance in these troubled times.
“First off, we’ll be making investments in our subsidiaries and then
making new investments in Mellby Gård, which is a much bigger and
strategic issue. And an unexpected opportunity may crop up tomorrow
– as has been the case throughout all the years of Mellby Gård – and we
need to be on our toes and assess quickly whether the opportunity is
attractive to us and whether we should act on it.”
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