History
STARTING FROM 1687
For over 400 years, we’ve been part of building Finnish society, where our roots lie. Our responsibility is to ensure this entrepreneurial journey continues, creating value for the family, our partners and society as a whole along the way.
FROM 1687
Although the Ehrnrooth name is today almost synonymous with trade and industry, representatives of the family excelled, historically, above all as militaries and civil servants. There has been a long line of high-ranking officers and in total seven generals in the family since the turn of the seventeenth century, when the family, originating from today’s northern Germany, first moved to Finland. In 1687 the family was ennobled with the name Ehrnrooth for loyal service to the Swedish Crown. While many served in the armies of Sweden and once Finland had become a part of Russia, in the Imperial Army, others partook in the growing government administration of the autonomous Grand Duchy, actively participating in moulding what soon would become an independent republic.
By the end of the nineteenth century industrialisation and modernisation presented new opportunities and an increasing number of the family’s representatives paved new paths within business and trade. It was now that the family started making especially significant headway within trade and industry, with family members having significant roles in the development of a broad range of industrial and financial enterprises.
We remain committed to fulfilling our responsibility by pursuing our passion for investing
What differentiated the Ehrnrooths from the start was that their business interests did not revolve around one family-controlled firm. Rather they were engaged through investments, managerial roles, and private relationships in a multitude of rising enterprises. Broad societal connections, already manifested as servants of the state in the centuries past, were now put to use in the new context.
Since then, diverse interests, longevity, astute risk management, a capacity to access and accept new knowledge, as well as broad networks have kept members of the family in prominence within trade and industry in the region for the last 150 years.
Casimir Ehrnrooth 1931-2015, the C of CEFO, was in many aspects the epitome of the family’s wide-ranging investment interests, devoting his career to board work and corporate investments. Casimir Ehrnrooth’s career was springboarded from the lumber and paper industry Kaukas, UPM-Kymmene and in the 1990s he was among other things a leading force in the restructuring of the Union Bank of Finland -later Nordea- and was chairman of the board of Nokia during the beginning of its heydays.
Like in the past, the Ehrnrooth family’s business interests today do not revolve around one single firm. There are hence several businesses and investment entities that are linked to members of the Ehrnrooth family which are independent of CEFO.
