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Investment AB Latour (publ)
Latour is a Swedish investment company that owns a mix of wholly owned industrial businesses and stakes in listed companies, making money from their profits and dividends.
Latour is a Swedish investment company, but it is not a fund or a passive index tracker. It buys and holds businesses for the long run, and it runs many of them itself. You can think of it as a patient owner that collects good companies the way some people collect rare books — except these companies make real products and real money.
The company works in two ways. First, it owns a group of industrial businesses outright — operations that design and sell proprietary brand products internationally, often in niche areas like fastening systems, measurement tools, and specialized equipment. Latour controls these businesses directly and earns money from their profits. Second, it holds significant stakes in listed companies on the Stockholm exchange, including stakes in firms like Assa Abloy and Securitas, and it earns dividends and value from those holdings. So the money comes from two streams: the profits of businesses it runs and the dividends and gains from businesses it partly owns. Why do the founders and managers of small industrial firms sell to Latour rather than to a private equity fund? Because Latour offers something rare: permanent ownership. It does not flip companies after a few years to repay debt. It holds them, reinvests in them, and lets them grow for decades. That reputation gives Latour a first look at good deals and lets it buy quality businesses at fair prices.
The company is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, and its history goes back to 1946, when it grew out of a trading and industrial group. Over the decades it shifted from trading into long-term ownership, and it has compounded value steadily by reinvesting profits rather than paying out everything to shareholders. That quiet, unglamorous approach — buy good businesses, keep them, and let the cash roll in — is the whole strategy, and it has worked well for a very long time.
Saved answer · last researched 12 Nov 2026