Kirkbi
Kirkbi A/S (Kirkbi) is a Danish investment management company headquartered in Billund, Denmark that serves as a family office to manage the fortune of the Kristiansen family, the current owners of the Lego Group. It owns 75% of The Lego Group, 47.5% of Merlin Entertainments and BrainPop. Kirkbi has additional offices in Copenhagen as well as Baar in Switzerland. Background Kirkbi was established on 1 April 1995, as a family office for the Kristiansen family, who are owners of the Lego Group. Its primary function is safeguarding the Lego brand and providing a creative platform for children. It also functions as the custodian of the Kristiansen family's wealth. It appoints one person from each generation as its active owner. After the death of Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, his son Kjeld took over. Kirkbi also serves as an investment company for the Kristiansen family. Its investment activities can be split between core capital and thematic capital. Core capital includes real ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Lego Group
Lego A/S, also known as the Lego Group, is a Danish construction toy production company based in Billund. It manufactures Lego-branded toys, consisting mostly of interlocking ABS plastic and rubber bricks. The Lego Group has also built several amusement parks around the world, each known as Legoland, and operates numerous retail stores. The name ''Lego'' is derived from the Danish phrase , meaning "play well". The company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen. In the first half of 2015, the Lego Group became the world's largest toy company by revenue, with sales amounting to , surpassing Mattel, which had in sales. As of 2025, the company is owned by the Kristiansen family via their family office, investment firm Kirkbi. History The Lego company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter whose primary business of producing household goods had suffered due to the Great Depression. Initially producing wooden toys, the company later developed a syst ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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BrainPop
BrainPop (stylized as BrainPOP) is a group of educational websites founded in 1999 by Avraham Kadar, M.D. and Chanan Kadmon, based in New York City.The Certificate of Incorporation of Brainpop.com, LLC was filed with the Secretary of State of the State of Delaware on December 31, 1999Search Brainpop.com, LLC, Department of State: Division of Corporations, State of Delaware, accessed March 29, 2016 the websites host over 1,000 short animated movies for students in grades K–8 (ages 5 to 14), together with quizzes and related materials, covering the subjects of science, social studies, English, math, engineering and technology, health, arts and music. In 2022, Kirkbi A/S, the private investment and holding company that owns a controlling stake in Lego, acquired BrainPop. BrainPop is used in schools and by homeschoolers in the US and several other countries, where it offers videos in local languages that are designed for students in those countries. The site is available by subs ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Merlin Entertainments
Merlin Entertainments Limited is a global entertainment company based in London, England, which operates a number of theme park resorts and other visitor attractions. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until November 2019, when it was acquired by a consortium that includes Kirkbi A/S (the investment arm of the Kristiansen family, which controls the Lego Group). History In December 1998, Nick Varney, Andrew Carr and the senior management team of Vardon Attractions (Vardon plc) completed a management buyout of the company to form Merlin Entertainments Group Ltd., with the backing of the private equity firm Apax Partners. Apax sold the company in 2004 to another financial investor, Hermes Private Equity. In May 2005, the company was acquired from Hermes by a division of The Blackstone Group, which later started a major expansion. Between 2005-2010, Merlin acquired the Legoland parks, Gardaland, The Tussauds Group, Cypress Gardens, and various attractions from Villag ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Falck (emergency Services Company)
Falck Aktieselskab, A/S is a Danish multinational corporation with activities in most areas of Europe and representation on five continents. It has four business areas: healthcare, assistance, Safety service, safety services and emergency assistance. The firm has 25,000 employees in 26 countries. The company's current CEO is :da:Jakob Riis (direktør), Jakob Riis. History The company was founded in 1906 by Sophus Falck after he witnessed and volunteered at a fire at the Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1884. The lack of organization made a big impression on him, and motivated the creation of Falck later on in 1906. His mission was to help others in emergency situations. Today, Falck operates in 26 countries and on six continents. By 1956, the firm was a nationwide operator with 100 rescue stations in Denmark, and the company expanded seven years later by acquiring the shares of the Zonen rescue service, their main Danish road assistance competitor. In 1988, Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thomas Kirk Kristiansen
Thomas Kirk Kristiansen (born 18 February 1979) is a Danish fourth-generation owner of The Lego Group. Together with his father Kjeld, and sisters Agnete and Sofie, they split ownership of a 75% stake in the company. Among the children of Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Thomas is the one who takes the most active part in managing the company. In 2007, he joined the board of directors of the LEGO Foundation. In 2016, Thomas Kristiansen became deputy chairman of the company, and in 2020 he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors. On May 1, 2023, his father passed the title of Chairman of Kirkbi and the Lego Group to Thomas. Thomas is married to the tournament rider Signe Kirk Kristiansen with whom he has a daughter. Thomas Kristiansen made the 2023 ''Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and edit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Legoland
Legoland (, trademarked in uppercase as LEGOLAND) is a chain of family amusement parks focusing on the Lego building toy brand. They are owned and operated by the British theme park company Merlin Entertainments, which shares a common owner ( Kirkbi A/S) with the Lego Group. The Legoland Billund Resort opened in Billund, Denmark, in 1968, followed by the Legoland Windsor Resort in Windsor, United Kingdom, in 1996. Further parks opened in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates (Dubai), the United States (California, Florida, and New York), and a Legoland Water Park at Gardaland in Castelnuovo del Garda, Italy throughout the 21st century. Parks in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, and Shenzhen} are currently under construction. Attractions The parks are marketed to families with children between ages 2–12, and most attractions are geared towards younger children. Attractions consist primarily of outdoor flat rides, dark rides, interactive pl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Family Office
A family office is a privately held company that handles investment management and wealth management for a wealthy family, generally one with at least $50–100 million in investable assets, with the goal being to effectively grow and transfer wealth across generations. The company's financial capital is the family's own wealth. Family offices also may handle tasks such as managing household staff, making travel arrangements, property management, day-to-day accounting and payroll activities, management of legal affairs, family management services, family governance, financial and investor education, coordination of philanthropy and private foundations, and succession planning. A family office can cost over $1 million a year to operate, so the family's net worth usually exceeds $50–100 million in investable assets. Some family offices accept investments from people who are not members of the owning family. Some firms that cater to multiple clients offer personality psycholog ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Armacell
Armacell is a manufacturer and supplier of industrial foams and flexible insulation materials, based in Luxembourg. It has over 3,372 employees and 25 production plants in 20 countries. History Armacell was the insulator manufacturing division of Armstrong World Industries, until a management buyout in June 2000. Founder Thomas Armstrong created the division in 1899, when Armstrong World Industries, started producing insulated corkboard and brick. In 1954, the division experienced success after launching Armaflex, a flexible technical insulator for pipe connections. In 1960, Armstrong World Industries laid the foundation for Armstrong Kork GmbH in Germany to produce flooring. The company opened its first distribution office in Düsseldorf as part of their expansion in Europe. This became the foundation of Armstrong's European headquarters. A new factory was erected in Münster in 1967, to handle increasing demand for Armaflex. The 1973 oil crisis led to innovations i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Renewable Energy
Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind power, and hydropower. Bioenergy and geothermal power are also significant in some countries. Some also consider Nuclear power proposed as renewable energy, nuclear power a renewable power source, although this is controversial, as nuclear energy requires mining uranium, a nonrenewable resource. Renewable energy installations can be large or small and are suited for both urban and rural areas. Renewable energy is often deployed together with further electrification. This has several benefits: electricity can heat pump, move heat and Electric vehicle, vehicles efficiently and is clean at the point of consumption. Variable renewable energy sources are those that have a fluctuating nature, such as wind power and solar power. In contrast, ''contro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Privately Held Company
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose Stock, shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in their respective listed markets. Instead, the Private equity, company's stock is offered, owned, traded or exchanged privately, also known as "over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter". Related terms are unlisted organisation, unquoted company and private equity. Private companies are often less well-known than their public company, publicly traded counterparts but still have major importance in the world's economy. For example, in 2008, the 441 list of largest private non-governmental companies by revenue, largest private companies in the United States accounted for $1.8 trillion in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to ''Forbes''. In general, all companies that are not owned by the government are classified as private enterprises. This definition encompasses both publ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |