The first act that Polar Music signed was the
Hootenanny Singers featuring
Björn Ulvaeus. Polar eventually gained prosperity producing Ulvaeus' next group, international superstars
ABBA. As a small Scandinavian company based in Sweden, Polar could not afford to set up operations worldwide and was ABBA's record company only in the Scandinavian countries. Therefore, ABBA's recordings were licensed to different record companies in each country, but usually to companies that had international operations, meaning they could effectively compete with each other to acquire the licenses in more countries if they proved successful in their own. The licenses gave the companies a few allowances to issue certain tracks as singles that Polar had not, or to modify single (and occasionally album) artwork. The licenses were for three years at a time, meaning that between 1989 and 1992 they all expired. This enabled
PolyGram to release
Gold: Greatest Hits to major success around the world. Polar Music is currently distributed by
Universal Music Group the same year after he sold the label to
PolyGram. ==Polar Music artists==