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Subject: 
Re: LEGO owned by Mattel?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general
Date: 
Sat, 21 Apr 2012 17:17:38 GMT
Viewed: 
17566 times
  
In lugnet.general, David Laswell wrote:
   In lugnet.general, Ahui Herrera wrote:
   I’ve been out of the LEGO loop for a while but I’m 100% sure that this article has it wrong. Right?

As Bob already noted, by the time I got to the article, it had already been corrected. However, I believe there was a teeny nugget of truth in there. At the time, I recall hearing some noise about either Hasbro or Mattel making an attempt to acquire The LEGO Group. I don’t know what it involved, but it apparently didn’t get anywhere. My current understanding is that The LEGO Company is wholy owned by a parent company that various members of the founding family own stock in. There has never been an IPO for either The LEGO Company or the parent company that owns it, which means the ONLY way to attempt a takeover of the LEGO brand would be to somehow buy up a controlling interest from Ole Kirk’s descendents. And pull it off without any of the other family members finding out, since I’m sure any shares that did go up for grabs would result in a bidding war to keep it in the family.

Right you are David... it would not be possible to buy TLG without having a majority stake in KIRKBI, the family owned holding company for TLG...

http://www.kirkbi.com/da-DK/ABOUT-US/Business-Areas,-Vision---Values.aspx

The principal owners if KIRKBI are the 2 children of Godtfred Kirk Christiansen (son of LEGO founder Ole Kirk Christiansen). They are Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen (KKK), and his older sister Gunhild Christiansen Johansen. Kjeld’s different last name spelling stems from a typo on his birth certificate... and he kept it that way. Last I heard their elderly widowed mother (Godtfred’s wife) was still alive as well, but the children have the principal shares.

There are 2 billionaire families in Denmark (according to Forbes)... the family that owns LEGO, and the family that owns the MAERSK shipping company.

Cheers, Gary Istok



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: LEGO owned by Mattel?
 
(...) Well, there would be two options there. One would be to gain control of KIRKBI and use that ownership to force a sale of TLG. The other would be to buy TLG outright from KIRKBI...but I'd watch where you stand after pulling that off, since the (...) (12 years ago, 24-Apr-12, to lugnet.general, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: LEGO owned by Mattel?
 
(...) As Bob already noted, by the time I got to the article, it had already been corrected. However, I believe there was a teeny nugget of truth in there. At the time, I recall hearing some noise about either Hasbro or Mattel making an attempt to (...) (12 years ago, 17-Apr-12, to lugnet.general, FTX)

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