Saab Kockums
Saab Kockums AB is a shipyard headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, owned by the Swedish defence company Saab Group. Saab Kockums AB is further operational in Muskö, Docksta, and Karlskrona. While having a history of civil vessel construction, Kockums' most renowned activity is the fabrication of military corvettes and submarines. Kockums worked with Northrop Grumman and Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) to offer a Visby-class corvette derivative in the American Focused Mission Vessel Study, a precursor to the Littoral Combat Ship program. It competed with several other concepts, including Norway's Skjold class (part of a Raytheon led group). During the 1820s the Kockums family established themselves as businesspeople in Malmö. Frans Henrik Kockum built a large fortune through an investment in tobacco production. Thanks to this he was able to purchase a large part of land 1838 south of Malmö, and between 1840 and 1841 he erected a forge and a mechanical workshop which initially primarily manufactured farming equipment, stoves, portable engines, incubators, spittoons, and various other castings. From 1859 they even constructed railway carriages. This workshop was situated near the current area of Davidshall. In the year 1866, the company went public and changed their name to Kockums Mekaniska Werkstad. The first railway carriage was delivered in 1859, the first sleeper car 1877, the first Bogie carriage in 1885, and the first dining car in 1896. Kockum bought Kallinge kvarn (near Ronneby) along with two business partners in the year 1849. They built a copper refinery. Kockum's business partners were bought out of the country in 1852, and the company continued to expand during the next century. in 1858, the production changed from copper refinery to being an iron mill. This company continued to grow until it eventually became Kockums Jernverks AB, in 1875. The company had its foundations in Blekinge and Småland. In the years preceding the First World War, the Kockum-owned companies underwent a structural change.