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Our history
Kynningsrud history
Kynningsrud’s history began in the post-war year 1946. Master builder Bjarne Kynningsrud founded the business, which over the years would develop into today’s Kynningsrud with the business areas Cranes, Property development, Construction, Residential development and Finance.
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After the war, the country was to be built and in addition to the construction business, Bjarne also established a machine contracting business. His wife Solveig was a good supporter in the 50s and 60s. In 1967, the first crane was purchased. Bjarne passed away in 1970 and the eldest son Harald, only in his early twenties, took over the local business in Halden. He has been at the forefront of development ever since and chose to focus on mobile cranes, assembly of concrete elements and piling/spunting. This involved investment in a larger geographical area in the Eastern Norway region. In 1977, Harald established Bj. Kynningsrud AS, today Kynningsrud AS with its business areas as mentioned above.
Bj. Kynningsrud AS grew rapidly through acquisitions and organic growth from the 70s, and the market area was expanded to cover Norway and Sweden. In 1997, Kynningsrud established its own factory for the production of concrete elements in Uddevalla in Sweden. With Fredrikstad and Uddevalla as a starting point, great opportunities opened up in a large market. This was the start of Kynningsrud Prefab, which worked towards both the Norwegian and Swedish markets. Since 1 April 2020, Kynningsrud Prefab is owned by Nordic Precast Group/HeidelbergCement.
In 1994, Kynningsrud bought Norfund in Trondheim. This was an important strategic investment and the market share increased to approx. 35%. Based in Fredrikstad and Trondheim, the whole of Norway opened up as a market for Foundations. In 2000, Veidekke became the main shareholder in the foundation business, and today GEO fundamentering & bergboring AS, formerly Kynningsrud Fundamentering, is owned 100% by Veidekke.
2001, property development Kynningsrud Eiendom and Kynningsrud Kommersiellt became a new business area of Kynningsrud, through investments in existing properties and property development projects. In Norway, Kynningsrud Eiendom mainly operates in Eastern Norway, and in Sweden, Kynningsrud Kommersiellt has defined its investment area within the triangle Gothenburg-Stockholm-Malmö.
The ball continues to roll, and Kynningsrud is constantly developing its core businesses. In 2018, the group started up its construction contractor business "Kynningsrud Bygg" in Sweden. Kynningsrud Bygg quickly developed into a significant player in the market, and has built several types of buildings all over Sweden. As a general contractor, we build mainly for expanding customers.
Our goal as a residential developer is to develop society and help more people get a new home - always with the customer's needs in focus. On our own and in collaboration with other actors, we develop properties and create housing projects for sale. The market area is Gothenburg with surroundings.
The mobile crane business has been growing steadily since the 1970s. In 1998, the characteristic green color was introduced, which was to prove to be a great success in the market. In 2000, Kynningsrud bought the largest crane operating company of western Sweden, Kran-Elve. This was the starting point for the investments in Sweden, and delivered good growth opportunities. In the spring of 2022, Nordic Crane established in Denmark. Today, Nordic Crane is Scandinavia's leading total supplier of all types of lifting and transport of heavy structures, and offers project solutions from a to z.
Kynningsrud wants to take the lead when it comes to environmental sustainability within the building and construction industry. A transition from fossil energy to renewable energy sources is neccesary. We have invested in the world's first all-electric mobile crane, we have powered mobile tower cranes and implement the measures we can to reduce the environmental footprint of our machines. We know that reusing and recycling building materials and interiors is important to protect the environment when rehabilitating buildings, and we want to be a driving force for new buildings to be built as environmentally friendly as possible.
