KWH Group

KWH Group Ltd
Native name
Finnish: KWH-yhtymä Oy
Swedish: KWH-koncernen Ab
Company typePrivate
IndustryConglomerate
Founded1929 (1929)
HeadquartersVaasa, Finland
Key people
Björn Höglund, Chairman
Kjell Antus, President
Stefan Sjöberg (Mirka)
Joakim Laxåback (KWH Logistics)
Mika Halvorsen (KWH Freeze)
Marko Nylund (Prevex)
ProductsAbrasives,
logistics services,
real estate holdings,
plastic plumbing products
Revenue625 million euros (2024)[1]
63.1 million euro (2024)[1]
Number of employees
2,586 (2024)
Websitewww.kwhgroup.com/en/

KWH Group Ltd (in Finnish: KWH-yhtymä Oy, in Swedish: KWH-koncernen Ab)[2][3] is a Finnish family-owned company based in Ostrobothnia. It manufactures and markets abrasives, and plastic products (water traps) and provides forwarding and logistics services, including cold storage of food.[4] It is headquartered in Vaasa, Finland.[3]

The company was formed in 1984 when Oy Keppo Ab, founded by Emil Höglund, bought the shares of Oy Wiik & Höglund Ab, founded by Höglund and Edvin Wiik in 1929.[5] In 2024 KWH Group was the 122nd largest Finnish company in turnover [6] and the 78th largest employer.[7]

History

Wiik & Höglund 1929–1983

Emil Höglund and Edvin Wiik were both in the timber business. Emil Höglund worked as a clerk and Edvin Wiik worked as an independent buyer of timber for the Hellnäs sawmills. As the sawmill was expected to foreclose, both were faced with unemployment. Discussing their options, they decided to establish their own company, Wiik & Höglund, which was founded on 28 August 1929. The company was to engage in trade in round timber, pit props and pulpwood. Wiik acted as a buyer, and Höglund, having studied at a commercial college and spent some time in England in 1928, was responsible for sales and bookkeeping.

Though they had a prosperous first year in business the company also faced periodic difficulties, for example during the Depression years of 1930–1933. However, in the late 1930s, the company expanded fast, and became one of the major round timber exporters in Finland, with Emil Höglund travelling as a salesman to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Britain. By 1939, Wiik & Höglund was the biggest timber exporter in Finland, accounting for 26% of the country's total lumber exports and some 20% of pulpwood exports.[8] The company was the world's largest fox and mink fur producer in the 1960s and 1970s, producing approximately 10% of all Finnish mink furs, equivalent to 2% of world production in 1973.[9]

Their commercial success allowed them to make investments outside their own company operations, and in 1937 they become a major shareholder in the Jakobstads Cellulosa Ab pulp company (majority owned by Oy Wilh. Schauman Ab), and in 1939 they took a significant stake in the Vasa Rederi Ab shipping company, later buying up the entire stock. Their holding in Jakobstads Cellulosa Ab also increased, and in the 1960s Wiik & Höglund and Keppo jointly held 15% of Oy Wilh. Schauman Ab, making them the biggest private shareholder.

During the war years, Wiik & Höglund exports were virtually halted, and other products were produced to compensate for the loss of exports. Firewood and woodchips now became the most important products, and were mainly purchased by the German and Finnish armies, as well as Finnish State authorities.

After the war, exports of round timber started up again and the company's previous customers in West Germany, France and the Netherlands again became the biggest trading partners. Profitability was good and profits were re-invested into fixed assets, mainly forest. The most important investment came in autumn 1951, when the plastics company Holmsund AB in Umeå, Sweden, one of Wiik & Höglund's customers, offered them the sole manufacturing rights in Finland.[5][10] The production started in Vaasa in 1951, and moved to new premises in 1952, where KWH Group's and Uponor's joint venture plastic pipe plant, Uponor Infra Ltd, is still located today.

Wiik & Höglund made major investments and acquisitions to expand their plastics business. In 1954, the Vaasa firm Lars Berts was purchased, and in 1955 the first plastic pipes were produced. Wiik & Höglund was also the first company in Finland to make expanded polystyrene sheets, which were marketed under the brand name Styrox, a name that is synonymous today in Finland with all products made of this raw material. Establishing a niche in plastic pipe manufacturing, the company was the first in the world to manufacture a 600 mm (24 in) diameter pipe in 1964, thereby gaining international recognition.[10]

Other companies that were acquired were Forss & Govenius and Nars, both from Jakobstad, which have developed into KWH Plast.[11] In 1969, Wiik & Höglund and Oy Finlayson Ab jointly purchased a rival polyethylene pipe company Muovitehdas Oy in Ulvila, becoming a Wiik & Höglund subsidiary in 1986 during a restructuring of the pipe business.[5]

In the 1970s, Wiik & Höglund embarked on several large international projects, later to be formed into the WH Pipe International division. Pipe projects in Brazil, Iraq, South Korea and Thailand increased the company's familiarity with these markets. Restructuring and concentration on certain products continued in the 1980s, while the company continued to expand abroad. Factories making polyethylene pipes were set up in Denmark, Thailand, Canada, and in 1990 in Malaysia and Portugal. Industrial piping was added to the production programme when Oy Muotekno Ab, Oy Sul-Mu Ab, Laurolon Oy, Plastilon Oy and the French company Sipap Pipe Systems S.A. joined the Group. As a result of restructuring in the Group, the complete pipe manufacturing was transferred to KWH Pipe, which today is a part of Uponor Infra Ltd, a joint venture between Uponor's and KWH Group's infrastructure businesses.[12]

Oy Keppo Ab 1954–1983

Keppo Mansion in winter.

In 1937, Emil Höglund began a fur farming and became the financier and principal owner of a mink farm established in Petsmo. In 1943, Karl Johan Tidström joined as the second owner, and by 1953, the farm had become the largest in Finland.[13][14]

In 1954, Höglund and Tidström bought the Keppo mansion and founded Keppo Ltd (Oy Keppo Ab in Finnish).[13][14] The world’s largest mink farm was built on the estate's land. Fur production peaked in the 1970s, when approximately 130,000 fox skins and 480,000 mink skins were produced annually at the farms owned by Keppo.[9]

In 1963, Oy Keppo Ab acquired the abrasives company Mirka, which had relocated from Helsinki to Jeppo.[13][15] In 1966, it purchased land belonging to Oravaisten Verkatehdas Oy[15] clothing factory and acquired a refrigerated ship MS Keppo[16] to transport mink feed.[13]

KWH Group 1984–present

KWH Group was formed in 1984, when Oy Keppo Ab purchased the remaining half of Oy Wiik & Höglund Ab's shares that it did not already own, from the Wiik family. Oy Keppo Ab had already purchased half of the company from the Höglund family in 1981.

The conglomerate was restructured in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and several divestitures were made, most notable the selling of approximately 13,000 hectares of forest and the share holdings in Oy Wilh. Schauman Ab, as well as the gradual selling of all activities related to the mink and fox farming business.

According to the new strategy, the Group's resources were to be focused on developing its core operations, which were defined as KWH Pipe, KWH Plast and KWH Mirka. All other aspects of the operations were gathered together within KWH Invest. In the beginning, KWH Pipe received the lion's share of new investments. A new production facility was opened in 1990 in Portugal,[17] output in Canada was doubled and new and expanded production facilities were opened in Malaysia and Thailand, while operations in India began in 1992 in the form of a joint venture. Additional investments were made in Sweden, Poland and Germany. However, due to changing market conditions, the operations in China, Germany, the US and India have since closed. KWH Pipe is part of Uponor Infra since 2013.[18]

A second area of investment was KWH Mirka (Mirka since 2016),[19] working in manufacturing and marketing of abrasives, polishing compounds, and sanding machines for e.g. manufacture of composite parts, automotive refinishing (ART) and production, metal processing, and furniture production. In volume terms, Mirka is one of the five biggest operators globally in the coated abrasives sector.[20]

In 1984, KWH Group becomes a co-owner of a water trap manufacturer Prevex that later in 2003 became a fully owned subsidiary.[21]

KWH Group used to own 44.7% Uponor Infra Ltd (different plastic pipe systems), but sold its share to Uponor Oyj in 2023.[22]

Organisation

The KWH Group consists of four independent divisions[4]

  • Mirka Ltd, a manufacturer of abrasive products
  • KWH Logistics, comprising KWH Logistics Group and its subsidiaries, e.g. Oy M. Rauanheimo Ab, Stevena Oy and Oy Galea Shipping Ab
  • Oy KWH Freeze Ab, a provider of frozen food storage services
  • KWH Invest, which manages strategic shareholdings and industrial real estate, and includes Oy Prevex Ab, a manufacturer of water traps.


References and footnotes

  1. ^ a b "Annual review 2024". KWH Group. 12 January 2026. Retrieved 12 January 2026.
  2. ^ "KWH-koncernen Ab". Kauppalehti (in Finnish). Retrieved 16 October 2023.
  3. ^ a b "YTJ Tietopalvelu". tietopalvelu.ytj.fi. Retrieved 3 February 2026.
  4. ^ a b "First page". KWH Group. 10 December 2025. Retrieved 3 February 2026.
  5. ^ a b c Leinamo, Kari (2006). Valmistettu Vaasassa - Neljä vuosisataa teollisuutta (in Finnish). Vaasa: The University of Vaasa. pp. 119, 120. ISBN 952-5559-14-9.
  6. ^ Talouselämä (2 June 2025). "TE500". Talouselämä (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 January 2026.
  7. ^ Saarinen, Mirjami; Felt, Erkka (7 September 2025). "Talouselämä selvitti: Tässä ovat Suomen 100 suurinta työnantajaa". Talouselämä (in Finnish). Retrieved 3 February 2026.
  8. ^ Holger., Wester (1979). Wiik & Höglund 1929-1979. Stjernschantz, Göran., Swanljung, Harry., (Litoset). Vaasa: Wiik & Höglund. ISBN 9519924124. OCLC 57866991.
  9. ^ a b KWH Group Ltd: The history of KWH Group
  10. ^ a b Wester, Holger and Stjernschantz, Göran: Wiik & Höglund 1929-1979 (ISBN 9519930310)
  11. ^ Wester, Holger and KWH Plast: Från vaxduk till plastfolier - KWH plast 1943-1993 (ISBN 952905114X)
  12. ^ KWH Group Ltd: The history of KWH Group 1929-2004
  13. ^ a b c d "Etusivu". kansallisbiografia.fi. Retrieved 10 February 2026.
  14. ^ a b Wester, Holger: Keppo – Gården och dess folk (ISBN 9525496023)
  15. ^ a b "Oravaisten Verkatehdas Oy — Historia". www.porssitieto.fi. Retrieved 10 February 2026.
  16. ^ "m/s KEPPO". www.merimieskuvia.net. Retrieved 10 February 2026.
  17. ^ Research and Market Plastics - Global Outlook 2006
  18. ^ "KWH Group Annual Review 2016" (PDF). Retrieved 3 October 2017.
  19. ^ Nordman, Kurt: Keihäänkärkiä - Kolmetoista kertomusta suomalaisesta huipputekniikasta (ISBN 9519090304)
  20. ^ Maida, Jesse (27 December 2016). "Top 5 Vendors in the Coated Abrasives Market from 2017 to 2021: Technavio". businesswire.com. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  21. ^ "The history of Prevex". www.prevex.com. 17 May 2022. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  22. ^ "KWH-yhtymä myy osuutensa Uponor Infrasta". Yle (in Finnish). Retrieved 26 March 2025.
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