Corporate History
Until 2000 Elisa was a telephone cooperative known as Helsingin puhelinyhdistys (HPY). 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.
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. On October 13, 2008, during the Icelandic financial crisis, it was announced that Novator had sold its entire stake in Elisa to Varma for 194 million euros (US$266 million), a price of €11.20/share.
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