Biography|Bengt Haak — The Year the Cement Works Became Skanska

People treat Skanska as a name the firm always wore.

The letters were adopted in the year Haak chaired the board.

He had left the daily chief-executive job in 1981, served as group chief into 1983, and became styrelseordförande that year.

He held the chair until 1991.

In 1984 Aktiebolaget Skånska Cementgjuteriet changed its registered name to Skanska Aktiebolag.

Skatteverket's official share-history page records the change in that year, next to a 5-for-1 split.

The company's own timeline says the same: on a growing international market the firm dropped Skånska for Skanska.

Wikipedia, following the 1987 centenary volume, adds the practical reason.

Too many short names were already in circulation — Cementgjuteriet, Skånska, SCG, Skånska Cement — and Skanska had been the international trading name for about a decade.

The annual meeting took the decision.

The published record does not print the hall.

The pin stays on the Regeringsgatan office the firm had used and rebuilt in the 1970s, the Stockholm address attached to Haak's years inside the company.

A later HQ on Klarabergsviadukten, and the present house at Warfvinges väg 25, came after his chairmanship.

In 1985 the king awarded him the Royal Medal, twelfth size, on the Seraphim ribbon.

That honour sits on the same stretch of years as the name change, not on a separate building.

The word Skanska is now on every helmet and bid sheet.

The man who signed the board minutes when the old cement-works name was retired is easier to miss.

Photo: I99pema, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons