Assa Abloy

The ASSA ABLOY Group is a Swedish lock manufacturer, and is the world's largest lock manufacturer by sales volume.

ASSA ABLOY was formed in 1994 when Assa AB was separated from Swedish security firm Securitas AB. Shortly thereafter, the Finnish high-security lock manufacturer Abloy Oy (a subsidiary of the Finnish company Wärtsilä) was acquired. The company was introduced to the Stockholm Stock Exchange later the same year. ASSA ABLOY has since made over 150 acquisitions. A few of these are Yale lock, Sargent and the high-security lock firms of Medeco in the U.S., Mul-T-Lock in Israel, Fichet-Bauche in France, and VingCard Elsafe International in Norway. Its two largest shareholders are Latour and Melker Schörling AB.

Name

ASSA ABLOY was founded as the merger of the two companies Assa and Abloy in 1994. Assa stands for August Stenman Stenman August. The name Abloy comes from a contraction of the Swedish-Finnish bilingual name Ab Låsfabriken Lukkotehdas Oy, meaning literally Ltd. Lock Factory Lock Factory Ltd. (first Ltd. and Låsfabriken from Swedish, last Ltd. and Lukkotehdas from Finnish).