About Helly Hansen

Helly Hansen operates in two business areas, Helly Hansen Sport and Helly Hansen Pro.

Helly Hansen Sport is the largest division, supplying branded technical apparel and footwear for outdoor sports.  The Helly Hansen Pro manufactures and distributes survival suits for the oil & gas industry, as well as serves the professional apparel markets with work wear.

Headquartered in Moss (Norway) and founded in Norway in 1877, the company operates across Europe, North America and Asia. Helly Hansen’s products are sold through general sports retailers, specialty retailers and dedicated Helly Hansen stores.

The strategic agenda for Helly Hansen included reorganizing the company into two divisions, which included merging the work wear business unit with Special Products division to create HH Pro, and hence focusing the sport and retail business in the new HH Sport division.

HH Sport has a strong global brand and market position, but was at the time of the acquisition not profitable. The business case is based on first improving profitability, through organisational optimisation, operational improvements and lowering the cost base, and then focusing on growth.

HH Pro is today a very profitable company and the business case is based on growing the business, both organically and through add-on acquisitions.