Founded in 1997, Havila Holding is a family-owned investment company that is parent to a number of subsidiaries operating in various business sectors. Havila Holding is co-owned by Per Sævik and his children Njål Sævik, Hege Sævik Rabben and Vegard Sævik. Together, they make up the company’s board of directors.

Havila Holding administers what has been created over generations, refines and creates new value, establishes rewarding jobs and builds communities.

For progress and prosperity.

Value from the sea

One day at school. The next day out at sea, fishing. Per Sævik earned his first wages working on a fishing boat at the age of 12. Eventually, he had enough money to buy his first boat. Fish more. Make more.

This is the origin of Havila Holding. Per was the third eldest of nine children. His father was a fisherman, skipper and ship owner. The family lived on the very edge of Norway’s west coast in Sunnmøre, where bare rock pushes up from thin soil, fierce storms lash the land and the fishing is always unpredictable. It makes you strong – and teaches you to see new opportunities.

Fishing, and the rich herring catches of the 1950s, gave the family the capital it needed to expand the business. In the 1970s, Per and his family bought a purse seiner. In 1981, he ventured into the oil sector with the company Sævik Supply. By the time it was acquired by the US company Trico Marine in 1997, Sævik Supply had grown into Norway’s second largest offshore shipping company.

THE GOOD GOLD

1997 saw the start of a new chapter. Havila Supply. The name is drawn from the First Book of Moses: Genesis. There it mentions a country near the Garden of Eden, called Havila. It is the land where the gold is good. Njål Sævik, the eldest son of founder Per Sævik, joined the new company’s management team, and the name reflects an ambition to generate good gold, not gold that destroys families or family relations.

“You don’t build a country with sales gains alone,” Per Sævik has said. He wants to create new business activity with a long-term perspective. Create new value. In more fields. For progress and prosperity.

The company’s logo is a mooring bolt. The image conveys the idea of secure attachment, but also of casting off. It signals the start of new adventures. New opportunities. And in the centre of the eyebolt, there is a circle of gold. The good gold.

At the start of 1998, the Sævik name disappeared from the organisation chart, and the group’s parent company was renamed Havila, Havila Holding.

The sea has never been an obstacle for those living on windswept islets. The sea is a source of food, prosperity and opportunity. The sea is the future.

Companies

EXPLOring new fields

For a brief period in the late 1990s, the Sævik family owned the Simek shipyard in Flekkefjord. In 2000, Havila returned to the shipbuilding industry through its acquisition of the Kværner Leirvik shipyard, which was renamed Havyard Leirvik. The Havyard Group was thereby established.

Havila Supply was acquired by France’s Groupe Bourbon in May 2003. Just a few months later, on 31 July 2003, Havila Shipping ASA was registered. It would become a new ship-owning enterprise.

Havila’s first investment in tourism came the following year. Collaboration with an offshore shipping company in the Faeroes opened the company’s eyes to the potential of this island group in the North Atlantic, and Havila Holding together with local partners acquired a stake in Hafnia Hotel in the capital, Torshavn.

In 2005, Havila Shipping ASA was listed on the stock exchange, and Havyard Group, which had until then focused solely on shipbuilding, acquired a ship design firm. This was the start of what would become a listed maritime technology group.

In 2007, ship and property investments were brought together in Havila Ariel, which was listed on the stock exchange a year later. Some years later still, however, the Sævik family bought out the remaining shareholders and had the company delisted from the stock exchange. Havila Ariel then became the family’s own property investment company.

The establishment of new companies and many new jobs prompted the construction of new a headquarters. In 2008, group companies moved into the new Havila Building. Its glass facades reflect the sea and the boats sailing past, while its sharp corner juts forward like a bow eagerly cleaving the waves. Exploring new fields. Ready for new opportunities.

TRANSPORT AND Tourism

In the 2010s, Havila turned its attention to transport and tourism.

The Havila Group started transporting passengers and cargo in 2011, through its stake in Smyril Line, which sails between the Faeroes and several European countries, and – not least – through its investment in the Norwegian ferry company Fjord1.

Since Fosnavåg is the Havila Group’s home town, it was only natural that the company should play a part in the joint effort by local businesses to enhance the community through the construction of the Sunnmørsbadet bathing complex, hotel and concert venue. The Thon Hotel Fosnavåg opened in 2014. The Sævik family is convinced that travel and tourism is a business area where it can create new activity and rewarding jobs.

I 2014, Havyard Group was also listed on the stock exchange.

Havila Holding was established after the sale of Sævik Supply, the forerunner of both Havila Supply and Havila Shipping. These offshore shipping companies, which were built up by the Sævik family, helped to turn the tiny coastal town of Fosnavåg into Norway’s leading offshore shipping hub. The collapse in oil prices in the mid-2010s caused severe disruption and forced many offshore shipping companies to refinance their operations. Ships were laid up and ships were sold. But although Havila Shipping was also affected, its leaders also saw this as an opportunity. In 2017, therefore, Havila invested in Volstad Maritime to reinforce its engagement in offshore vessels.

In the same year, Havila Holding bought the Hotell Ivar Aasen in Ørsta and acquired all the shares in the ferry company Fjord1, which was subsequently floated on the stock exchange. Through Fjord1, Havila also became a shareholder in The Fjords, Fjord Tours and Widerøe.

In 2018, Havila expanded its focus on tourism with the purchase of Hotel Raftevold in Hornindal. In doing so, the company had established an axis of travel and tourism from the mountains to the fjords. The company Havila Hotels was founded. And in the Faeroes, the construction of a new hotel in Torshavn got underway.

Hotell Geiranger became part of Havila Hotels at the start 2020, and was renamed Havila Hotel Geiranger.

Havila focuses on travel and tourism. On land, at sea and in the air.

A NEW COASTAL venture

In 2018, Havila Holding was granted a licence to operate four ships on the celebrated coastal sailing route between Bergen and Kirkenes. The contract involves the construction of four brand-new cruise ships and the establishment of a new organisation with 20–30 administrative staff and 500–600 maritime staff. Once again, Havila is creating new activity, for progress and prosperity. This time through the company Havila Kystruten/Havila Voyages.