.
Kockums during the 19th century During the 1820s the Kockums family established themselves as
businesspeople in
Malmö. Frans Henrik Kockum built a large fortune through an investment in tobacco production. Thanks to this he was able to purchase a large part of land 1838 south of Malmö, and between 1840 and 1841 he erected a forge and a mechanical workshop which initially primarily manufactured farming equipment, stoves,
portable engines,
incubators,
spittoons, and various other castings. From 1859 they even constructed railway carriages. This workshop was situated near the current area of
Davidshall. In the year 1866, the company went public and changed their name to Kockums Mekaniska Werkstad. The first railway carriage was delivered in 1859, the first
sleeper car 1877, the first
Bogie carriage in 1885, and the first
dining car in 1896. Kockum bought
Kallinge kvarn (near
Ronneby) along with two business partners in the year 1849. They built a copper refinery. Kockum's business partners were bought out of the country in 1852, and the company continued to expand during the next century. in 1858, the production changed from copper refinery to being an iron mill. This company continued to grow until it eventually became
Kockums Jernverks AB, in 1875. The company had its foundations in
Blekinge and
Småland.
Structural change In the years preceding the
First World War, the Kockum-owned companies underwent a structural change.
Kockums Mekaniska Verkstad AB shifted focus to primarily constructing
ships, railway carriages, and
bridges. Kockums Jernverk och Emaljerverk (with primary operations in
Kallinge and
Ronneby) specialized in steel and steel products,
galvanizing, and
enameling. The shipyard and bridge production expanded heavily during the
post-war period. During the years 1899 - 1913 a total of 16 new ships were constructed, six of which for the
Swedish Navy. Namely the coastal battleships Tapperheten and Manligheten, the
destroyers
Wale, Munin, Vidar, Ragnar, as well as the steam ferry
Malmö. Following that the shipyard had continued success, delivering the
coastal battleships Gustav V, the destroyers
Ehrensköld and
Klas Horn, the
icebreaker Ymer, some 25
submarines, and several
motor torpedo boats. A large amount of
tankers were also built starting in 1927. Production of
bridges,
cranes, sugar refinery machinery, and
steam engines continued. The time after 1999 was rife with conflicts between Kockums' only Swedish customer, the
Defence Materiel Administration (FMV), and Kockums' German owners. The Swedish view was that the technical advancements made in collaboration between Kockums and FMV ought to be used to create a new generation of submarine for lucrative export: the
A26 submarine. On the German side, the A26 project was said to be regarded as a high-risk project that could lead to uncontrollably growing costs. Superficially, the major source of conflict seemed to be that neither ThyssenKrupp nor FMV would accept carrying unforeseen development costs. As several technical innovations to be implemented in the A26 were kept in
classified status at the FMV, ThyssenKrupp argued that the implied costs were too difficult to predict. This deadlock persisted for months until the FMV decided to cancel the order of the A26 submarines. Globally, the conflict also concerned its general business strategy. ThyssenKrupp insisted that Kockums ought to discontinue large submarine construction and to focus on the development of small submarines. Meanwhile, anonymous sources from inside Kockums claimed that ThyssenKrupp's goal in acquiring Kockums was never to reach synergies with HDW, but only to eliminate its main competitor. In the search for a partner to develop the next generation of submarines, the FMV approached the SAAB Group. During autumn 2013, Saab tried to reach an agreement to buy Kockums from ThyssenKrupp. ThyssenKrupp demanded to keep its monopoly position in the A26 deal, which Saab refused to accept, causing the negotiations to fail. Saab responded by approaching Kockums' engineers, offering them employment at Saab Naval Systems. Thyssen Krupp tried in vain to keep its engineers at Kockums, proposing an extra month's salary. According to a spokesperson for FMV, this is the first time they have had to forcefully repossess equipment. == Exports ==