90 Strong Years

Kemira celebrated its 90th birthday at the end of March 2010. The company started as The State Sulphuric Acid and Superphosphate Plants of Finland in 1920. In those days famine was threatening the country and the government saw that one of the most urgent actions needed was to increase harvests by producing and utilizing chemical fertilizers.

Thirteen years later the plants were established as a limited company which, for the next 35 years, operated under Finland’s Ministry of Agriculture and then under the Ministry for Trade and Industry.

In the 1960s, the company began its exporting activities. Growth was acquired through mergers and acquisitions. During this decade, Kemira’s knowhow in water chemistry and its portfolio of related products started to build up.

In 1971, the company changed its name to Kemira Oy (Ltd in Finnish) and a year onward, it acquired the paint company Tikkurila Oy. In the late 1970s, the company already had almost 7,000 employees.

Export grew fast across the 1970s, and the first foreign acquisition was made in 1982: a small British company named L&K Fertilisers. A rapid era of internationalization began. Starting in Europe, it continued on all other continents. One of the most significant events of the 1990s was the company’s listing on the Helsinki Stock Exchange in 1994. In recent years, Kemira has focused its activities and sold several parts of its business, fertilizer production among others.

In 2008, water chemistry became the bedrock of Kemira’s strategy. The company’s segments – Paper, Municipal & Industrial and Oil & Mining – now rely on the product and water chemistry expertise that began to build up in the 1960s, and which was later fortified through research and development, as well as numerous acquisitions in the new millennium.

The Kemira of today focuses on serving customers that operate in water-intensive industries, providing them with water quality and quantity solutions. Kemira now has production facilities in 40 countries and employs approximately  5,000 people globally.