The Danish Industrial Foundations

Industrial foundations are foundations that own companies. Typically, they combine charitable and business goals. This book is about industrial foundation ownership of business companies and what we can learn about it from the Danish evidence. It is about how foundation ownership is ruled, taxed and governed, what role it plays in the Danish economy, and how industrial foundation-owned companies perform. The book is the result of a large collaborative research project, led by the author, on industrial foundations.

Some global companies such as IKEA, Robert Bosch or the Tata Group are foundation-owned, but nowhere are they as numerous as in Denmark. Three of the four largest Danish companies – the pharma company Novo Nordisk, the shipping company A.P. Møller-Mærsk, and the Carlsberg brewery – are all foundation-owned.