Elisa (company)

"HPY" redirects here. For the airport, see Baytown Airport.
Elisa Oyj
Julkinen osakeyhtiö (OMX: ELI1V)
Industry Telecommunications
Founded 1882
Headquarters Helsinki, Finland
Area served
 Estonia,
Finland
Key people
 Risto Siilasmaa (Chairman), Veli-Matti Mattila (President and CEO)
Products Retail and wholesale fixed-line and mobile telecommunications services, internet services
Revenue €1.463 billion (2010)[1]
€268.0 million (2010)[1]
Profit €149.7 million (2010)[1]
Total assets €1.972 billion (end 2010)[1]
Total equity €832.9 million (end 2010)[1]
Number of employees
 3,480 (average, 2010)[1]
Website www.elisa.com

Elisa Oyj is a Finnish telecommunications company founded in 1882. It was called HPY until July 2000.

As of 2007, Elisa Oyj employed about 3,000 people and its revenue was about €1.57 billion. The mobile operations of Elisa were previously known as Radiolinja; Elisa has a cooperation agreement with Vodafone for mobile telephony.

History

Elisa was originally established as a telephone cooperative called the Helsinki Telephone Association (Finnish: Helsingin puhelinyhdistys, HPY).[2] HPY began serving customers on June 6, 1882, by connecting 56 phone numbers; by 1884 the number of yearly calls surpassed one million.

HPY started expanding during the 1930s by merging with smaller cooperative telephone operators. The company reached its current geographical operating field in 1958. The original form of incorporation, a mutual association, was changed to a legal cooperative ("Helsingin puhelinosuuskunta") in 1995. The cooperative was finally demutualized in 2000.

Elisa launched the first commercial GSM service in 1991 and the world's first commercial UMTS900 network on November 8, 2007.

Investment company Novator Partners acquired a 10.4% stake in Elisa in 2005 through a share swap when Elisa bought the smaller operator Saunalahti, which had been mostly owned by Novator. Novator tried to revamp Elisa in December 2007, but was opposed by Finnish institutions such as Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company. In October 2008, during the Icelandic financial crisis, Novator sold its entire stake in Elisa to Varma for 194 million euros (US$266 million), a price of €11.20 per share.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "Annual Results 2010". Elisa. Retrieved 12 February 2011.
  2. ↑ "History". Elisa.com - Elisa in English. Elisa. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  3. ↑ Suoninen, Sakari; Virki, Tarmo (2008-10-13). "UPDATE 2-Novator sells Elisa stake for 194 mln euros". Reuters. Retrieved 2009-02-15.

External links