Stein Erik Hagen (born 22 July 1956) is a Norwegian businessman. He is chairman of Orkla, where he is a major shareholder, and holds large stakes in Steen & Strøm, Jernia and Komplett through his family company Canica. According to the news magazine Kapital, Hagen is worth NOK 24 billion, making him the second richest person in Norway.
Biography
Hagen is educated at Kjøpmannsinsituttet (now part of the BI Norwegian Business School). He founded the RIMI discount store chain along with his father in the 1970s, and retained ownership until the 2000s, when he sold to Swedish ICA and Ahold. Most of the money was ploughed into Orkla. Hagen reportedly owns one of the biggest sailboats in Europe and used to own his own island in the Caribbean.[citation needed]
He provided financial support to the Liberal Party in the 2005 Norwegian election and to the Liberal Party, Christian Democratic Party, Conservative Party and Progress Party in 2006.[citation needed]
Private life
Stein Erik Hagen has three children from his first marriage, and a son from a later relationship. In 2004 he married Mille-Marie Treschow, the couple announced in 2012 that they were separating.
In October 2015, Hagen came out on the Norwegian-Swedish talk show Skavlan. Later the same day he added that he was bisexual, and that his ex-wives and family have known about his sexuality for many years.
Hagen is the chairman and largest shareholder of Oslo-based Orkla, a consumer goods company with revenue of about 39.6 billion kroner ($4.8 billion) in 2017. He also owns stakes in e-commerce, real estate and financial service businesses through investment company Canica, and is the founder of discount supermarket chain Rimi.
Source: