page_title: Kone
section_title: Alliances and acquisitions
hierarchical_section_title: Kone / History / Alliances and acquisitions
caption_attribution_description: English: KONE UltraRope in elevator shaft
context_page_description: KONE Oyj, founded in 1910 and headquartered in Espoo near Helsinki, Finland, is an international engineering and service company employing some 55,000 personnel across 60 countries worldwide. In addition, KONE builds and services moving walkways, automatic doors and gates, escalators and elevators. The company provides local service for builders, developers, building owners, designers and architects in 1,000 offices in over 50 countries.
  Since 1924, KONE has been controlled by one of Finland's wealthiest families, the Herlin family. After Harald Herlin purchased the company in 1924, he served as its Chairman until 1941. Afterwards, his son, Heikki H. Herlin, took over his father's post from 1941–1987. Control of the company was then handed down to his son, Pekka Herlin, which he retained from 1987–2003. The current Chairman of KONE's Board of Directors from 2003 onwards is Antti Herlin, the son of Pekka Herlin. As of December 2019, Antti Herlin controls directly or indirectly 62% of the voting rights and 22% of the shares of the company which is listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange.
  In the Finnish language Kone means "machine" or "device".
context_section_description: 1981 – KONE enters the United States market by acquiring Armor Elevator Co.
  1985 – KONE acquires Canadian division of Montgomery Elevator.
  1994 – KONE's ownership of Montgomery in Canada opens an alliance with Montgomery in the U.S. that led to the full aquistition of Montgomery altogether. After working with Montgomery to produce elevator and escalator products for 5 years, the company was fully integrated into KONE US, marking the end of the Montgomery name in the elevator industry by 1999.
  1995 – an alliance was formed as KONE and MacGregor worked together to create elevators for handling passenger traffic on modern cruise ships.
  1998 – KONE's alliance initiated with Toshiba (now divided to Toshiba Elevator And Building Systems Corp.) of Japan.
  2001 – KONE and Toshiba signed a historic agreement to exchange shares and extend Toshiba's license to market elevators based on KONE EcoDisc technology.
  2002 – KONE acquires the industrial engineering company Partek
  2007 – KONE announces they will no longer make hydraulic elevators.
  2009 – KONE acquires Fairway Elevator Company in Philadelphia to enter the modernization market in that area.
  2011 – KONE builds a new headquarters in the United States with the name of The Kone Centre in Moline, Illinois, the present headquarters is also located there.
  2011 – KONE acquires Long Elevator Company headquartered in Springfield, IL serving St. Louis, Peoria, Chicago and NW Indiana.
  2013 – KONE acquired its Israeli distributor Isralift
  2014 – KONE  acquired the elevator and escalator business of Marryat & Scott (Kenya) Ltd. and Marryats East Africa Limited, its authorized distributors in East and Central Africa.
  2017 - KONE acquired UK elevator company 21st Century Lifts. The business’ operations were merged with KONE's UK operations a short time later.
  2020 - KONE offered to acquire the elevator division of ThyssenKrupp which would merge the fourth and third largest global market player.
caption: KONE UltraRope in elevator shaft
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