GN Store Nord A/S is a Danish manufacturer of hearing aids (GN ReSound/GN Hearing) and headsets (Jabra (GN Audio)). GN Store Nord A/S is listed on NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen (ISIN code DK0010272632).
History
The Great Northern Telegraph Company
The company was founded as The Great Northern Telegraph Company (Det Store Nordiske Telegrafselskab A/S) in Denmark in June 1869. It was set up as a merger of three recently established telegraph companies initiated by Danish industrial mogul Carl Frederik Tietgen. The aim of the firm was to create a worldwide telegraph company.
The starting point of The Great Northern Telegraph Company (now GN Store Nord) was a concession agreement, which C.F. Tietgen made with the Russian Tzar in 1869. The agreement gave The Great Northern Telegraph Company exclusive rights – and obligations – to establish and run a telegraph line in Russia. This represented a great pioneer task for the company in establishing connections from Europe to the Far East. The Russian authorities ran the actual construction work in Russia. They had already set up a telegraph line in parts of Siberia but were looking for a business partner to cover China and Japan before continuing the Russian line all the way east to Vladivostok. Thus, The Great Northern Telegraph Company was given the responsibility to establish and run its own telegraph line in Asia and additionally assist the Russians with operations, maintenance, technical assistance, and education. In the following years, the telegraph line expanded massively – both in Europe and in Asia. First, Oslo, London and Paris were covered. Later, operations took place along the coast of China ranging from Hong Kong to Shanghai and further into Japan, where the first telegraph station opened in Nagasaki in 1897. In addition to the telegraph line, telegraph stations and offices opened at several locations.
In 1897, negotiations began about a potential connection going from Scotland to the United States through the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. In 1906, the cable was established, although without the final connection to the United States, which had to wait for almost 60 years to become a reality. When the transatlantic connection was finally established, however, it represented a remarkable expansion, which significantly facilitated communication between people around the world.
The beginning of the 20th century was characterized by several wars and disputes, which affected the company's operations. World War I and largely the Russian Revolution changed the map of Europe, but this only meant an increase in demand for telegraphy. Thus, the company succeeded in prolonging its concession agreement in 1921, signed by Lenin. The 1920s, and the early 1930s represented great decades for The Great Northern Telegraph Company as it had managed to acquire a reputation as being one of the leading international telecommunication companies in the world. The late 1930s, however, presented great challenges as competition from wireless telegraphy was becoming increasingly severe. In addition, World War II caused great damage to the telegraph lines around the world, which meant that in 1945 the company had only two lines left; the England-Faroes-Iceland line and the Sweden-Finland line. Although broken lines were repaired and re-established after the war, the company had to acknowledge that an era was over.
Thus, the new strategy was to focus on a broader segment by investing in various companies across sectors. This strategy was initiated in 1939 with the investment in the battery factory Hellesens. Over the following decades, The Great Northern Telegraph Company balanced between investing in the telecommunications industry and other industries. On the industry side, it invested in companies such as Lauritz Knudsen, which produced electrical goods, and in 1947, the radiotelephone production company Storno (a contraction of Store Nordiske (Great Northern)) was founded. Other acquisitions were Telematic, which produced telephones, Elmi, which produced measuring equipment, and Danavox, which produced hearing aids.
