At the movies Full Metal Jacket is showing, Patrik Sjöberg sets a new world record in highjump and Lotta Engberg represents Sweden in the Eurovision Song contest. The year is 1987 and at a kitchen table in Småland two men shake hands.

One is called Stig and the other one is Paul. They share the same last name. Father and son agree – now it’s time for business.

Stig Haglund went through life as a hard working man. Most part of his career was spent in a Mechanical workshop in Lessebo. Through commitment and leadership he made his way from the shop floor to Managing Director. In the summer of 1987 he looked back at close to 40 years of service, and there it came to an end.

What made Stig take the decision was his son Paul. While dad managed the mechanical workshop the 23 year old worked behind the counter in a Hardware store in Växjö. Paul loved to make business deals and quickly gained insight that relationship building was his biggest asset. After having spent some time thinking about it he came to the conclusion that he wanted to start his own company. Växjö, hardware store and customers but now he was ready for the next step in his life.

-What do you say dad… lets go, Paul said. Said and done. Both of them resigned with the respective employer and looked ahead. The company was named Konga Mekaniska.

“We’ll take everything we can get”

The new partners lacked both a business plan and customers but through Tingsryds municipality they at least got access to local premises. A couple of used machines were bought and the two of them agreed to say yes to all orders that came their way. Business picked up slowly.

And the orders, were really different: the orders ranged from a new belfry for the Church in Skruv to large houses that were exported to Docklands in London.

During the autumn they got lucky, when the catalogue company Ansor Team AB was in the process to source a large volume of trollies for their assortment and were looking for a reliable manufacturer.

This task boosted Konga Mekaniska’s business substantially and didn’t take long before 20 people were on the payroll.

They didn’t know it then, the high jump summer of 1987, that the handshake at the kitchen table was the starting point to what was to become one of Scandinavia’s market leading companies within material handling products, with Europe’s widest assortment.