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History of the company/bank and archive description for Fokus Bank ASA
History of the
company/bank:		 Fokus Bank ASA is a regional commercial bank operating with a local profile in areas where the Bank has a strong position by virtue of its size and traditions. The Bank emphasises long-term customer relationships through offering its customers a broad range of products and services, including fund management, broker services and insurance. The Bank has 70 sales offices from Flekkefjord in the South to Tromso in the North and has approximately 1,000 employees.
The head office is located in Trondheim. The CEO and Managing Director is Mr. Bjarne Borgersen.
Fokus Bank is the fifth largest bank in Norway measured by total assets. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. At the year-end, the Bank had 7,320 shareholders, of whom 7,198 Norwegian and 122 from abroad. Measured in number of shares the Norwegian and the foreign shareholders own 52.51 per cent and 47.49 per cent respectively.

Fokus Bank was founded on the 1st October 1987 when Buskerudbanken A/S, Bondernes Bank A/S, Forretningsbanken A/S and Vestlandsbanken L/L merged. Further mergers have brought in Tromsbanken A.S. in 1990, Rogalandsbanken A/S in 1991 and Samvirkebanken A/S in 1993. All these banks have long traditions as independent banks, and have been operating in their regions for generations.
Fokus Bank has performed a substantial restructuring following the 1991 Accounts showing a loss of more than NOK 2 billion. The restructuring included substantial cost reductions and a concentration of the operation to the regions where the Bank had a strong market position.
Fokus Bank was fully privatised in October 1995 as the first of the banks taken over by the Government during the banking industry crisis in the early nineties. The sale of the shares in Fokus Bank was over-subscribed ten times.
Archive description At least for a part of the holdings of the archive does exist a systemized inventory and catalogues. It holds several written histories from former banks.
The special collections do have only a limited scope.
Company records are also deposited at local offices of the bank.
Publications At the present time two full time employed historians are writing the bankīs history - from itīs different roots until now - supervised by Prof. Edgar Hovland, University of Bergen, Norway.
Conditions of use The archive is accessible to researchers to a limited degree. Since the material is physically divided in many local archives, it is a matter of capacity from the bankīs side to be be able to handle inquiries from researchers. As far as possible, accessibility to the archive will be given.

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