History of AB Wilh. Becker In 1864 a young German Carl Wilhelm Becker, age 26, decided to settle down in Stockholm. He was was both a chemist and an entrepreneur and had been travelling throughout Scandinavia and Russia as a sales representative for various German trading companies and factories. Whilst travelling he had come to know Sweden very well and, amongst many other things, he had discovered the absence of competition within the paint trade in Sweden. He decided to start a business in Stockholm together with a partner, Ferdinand Leidig, and Becker & Leidig Co. was subsequently established in 1865.     Initially the business was run from their apartment, living on the second floor with their shop below. One year later Carl Wilhelm returned to Flensburg in Germany to marry Maria Louise Wilhelmine Döll and Ferdinand Leidig left the partnership.       In 1868 the company changed its name to Wilh Becker Co.   In 1874 Wilhelm Becker began production of his own. The first factory employed 5 people, producing paint and varnish. Wilh Becker Co. thus became the first company involved in both producing, wholesale trade and retail sales.             In 1901 Becker hired a pharmacist, Karl Kjellander to run the retail business, which at that point consisted of three shops. At one time Beckers had as many as 64 shops of which 34 were located in Stockholm. In 1988 the last shop was sold. Today the shops are owned by private retailers.         In 1902 production was moved to Lövholmen, on the outskirts of Stockholm. Partly due to the fact that expansion in midtown was not possible and partly because production was not entirely safe and therefore better sited away from the city centre. The new site was conveniently situated on the coast, which made transportation by sea much easier. The office remained at the original site another 15 years but then also moved along to Lövholmen. In the same year a new Managing Director was hired, Hermann Gentele, and Wilhelm Becker retired.   On 21st June 1906 the company was transformed into a limited liability company, known as AB Wilh Becker.   In 1912 the sale of artist paint began.   In 1913 the pharmacies lost their monopoly of selling drugs, chemicals and prescription free medicines. This decision opened up new markets for the paint retail industry.     The head office was moved to Lövholmen, the factory site, in 1916 and a new production facility for bandages was created to meet the increased demand caused by the world war.   In 1929 Beckers aquired AB M Hansen and Fernis AB Ferbo, thus initiating a period of aquisitions and mergers that led to the Becker Group of today. A rights issue was initiated in 1936 aimed at strengthening the ties betwen Beckers and other retailers. Between 1952 and 1954 Becker began selling and winding up their businesses not directly related to paint production and therefore were no longer involved in bandage production or wholesale of chemicals. 1958 AB Wilh Becker was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. 1961 Becker aquired its first foreign subsidiary. Expansion outside Sweden accelerated during the 1970s.   1967 the rainbow was introduced as the company logo. Since the 1970s the Becker Group has expanded throughout the world by means of aquisitions, mergers and joint-ventures. In the process of concentrating its business some companies have been sold as well. In our Group Presentation you will find a description of a modern industrial group with the world as its market.   A unique company library AB Wilh. Becker's company library at Lövholmen in Stockholm started its activities in 1943.   In 1943 Stig Bergman, M.A. the then manager of the chemical laboratory, took the initiative of creating a company library for Becker's. The emphasis was on technical literature for the paint business. A librarian was employed to build up the library. Books and magazines, which had been spread among various work places, were catalogued and a card catalogue was established. The reference service was formulated in collaboration with the librarian and the staff. The purpose was for the staff to obtain assistance in following developments in the business.   Coverage of new literature thus fell to the librarian's lot. To assist, there was among other things the reference publication Review of Current Literature relating to the Paint, Colour and Varnish Industries, which the technicians could make use of. An important improvement in the reference service was made when engineer Olov Wennerholm was engaged by Becker's library. He had previously been active as a documentalist at Arvid Lindgren & Co., the paint company. Olov Wennerholm made summaries of literature adapted to the needs of the company. He also carried out literature searches and monitored patents. Changes in the library service have taken place over the years. It is now many years since the library made its own summary cards. In the middle of the 1980s literature searches started to be made in databases on line. Ulf Bulow, documentalist and patents engineer, carried out these literature searches for the company's technicians.     In 1998 an archive-database was established in collaboration with Centrum för Näringslivshistoria (The Society for Historical Business Archives in Stockholm). The archive-database covers advertisment, colour charts and company history.         Becker's picture library at Stockholms Företagsminnen comprises more than 7000 pictures, ranging in time from the nineteenth century and onwards. It can be divided in various categories:   Logotypes Product pictures and advertising matter Factory pictures, exteriors and interiors Shop pictures, exteriors and interiors Laboratories The greater part of the pictorial material is in black and white and in good condition. It has been registered and listed by Företagsminnen and is stored in such a way that the quality of the pictures is preserved. Centrum för Näringslivshistoria (The Society for Historical Business Archives in Stockholm) was founded in 1974, on the initiative                                    "The art of glazing and    gilding" - a rarity from    1799. of, among others, the City of Stockholm and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. The association preserves and presents Stockholm's industrial history and acts as a service body in matters of document handling. Företagsminnen now has about 190 companies as members, historical archives with more than 1400 companies represented and a picture library of more than 1.6 million photographs. You can visit The Society for Historical Business Archives in Stockholm (Företagsminnen) at www.naringslivshistoria.se