- Petter Stordalen is a Norwegian hotelier who wears 12-pound, one-of-a-kind Balmain jackets, rappels down the facades of hotels, and spends his fortune investing in environmentally friendly causes.
- He now owns the biggest hotel chain in Scandinavia along with a smattering of other business ventures, including the Scandinavian arm of recently bankrupted Thomas Cook, but he got his start selling strawberries in his local market.
- The 57-year-old is worth $1.4 billion, according to Forbes.
Petter Stordalen thanks tiny strawberries for his fortune.
At age 12, he was selling strawberries in his local Norwegian market. Now, at age 57, he owns a variety of businesses through a corporation he named the Strawberry Group. Included in that group is the largest hotel chain in Scandinavia, with just under 200 hotels.
One of those hotels, The Amerikalinjen in Oslo, was just named the 12th-best hotel in the world and the best in Northern Europe by Condé Nast Traveler Readers' Choice Awards.
Stordalen is known for his outlandish fashion choices, pulling off questionable stunts, and building a billion-dollar fortune even after being ousted from his first CEO position.
Petter Stordalen was born in Porsgrunn, Norway and got his start helping his grocer father sell strawberries at the local market at age 12.
"I often envied the other sellers who had larger and fresher berries than mine," Stordalen wrote on his corporate website.
He pushed through that envy thanks to some fatherly advice: "Sell the berries you have because they are the only berries you can sell."
"The strawberry philosophy," as Stordalen called it on his corporate website, "is about taking what you have and making the best of it."
He was later named "Norway's best strawberry salesman" in the Porsgrunn local paper.
Following his interest in sales, Stordalen attended a merchant institute and then returned to serve as a manager in his father's grocery store for a year. He then left to attend the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo.
According to Store norske leksikon, or the Great Norwegian Encyclopedia, Stordalen's first job upon completion of his degree was managing a shopping center in Trondheim at age 24.
Business Insider previously reported that he made his first million after turning that shopping center into the area's largest.
His first major success was connecting three shopping centers into one.
"Nobody believed, and I believed," Stordalen told the author of "The Billion Dollar Secret," Rafael Badziag. "And the bonus was one million."
He and other investors then began buying failing shopping malls and department stores under the name Steen & Strøm Invest. Later, he applied that same investing strategy to a new industry: hotels.
Stordalen served as the CEO of Steen & Strøm, which, in the early 90s, was the largest holder of commercial real estate in Norway. In 1996, Stordalen was asked to step down after disagreements with the largest shareholder. It is unclear what caused his ousting.
"Today, I'm really grateful that they fired me," Stordalen told Finansavisen, a Norwegian business newspaper, in 2017. "Without their resolute action, I would never have experienced the adventure that would be far greater ... Nordic Choice Hotels."
After his exit, he took the strategy he used at Steen & Strøm to explore a new industry: hospitality. He bought one chain consisting of eight hotels and then expanded from there.
Now, Stordalen's Nordic Choice Hotels chain consists of nearly 200 hotels across Scandinavia and employs over 17,000 people.
The chain consists of three main brands: Clarion Hotel, Quality Hotel, and Comfort Hotel. The company has a fourth arm with additional luxury resorts and spas called Nordic Hotels & Resorts.
It is now the biggest chain in Scandinavia, earning Stordalen the nickname the "King of Hotels."
Stordalen was a billionaire by age 37. He celebrated his 57th birthdayat the end of November.
Hospitality is far from the only industry Stordalen is involved in.
Ownership of Nordic Choice Hotels is privately held through Stordalen's corporate group, which additionally invests in real estate, finance, art, and environmental causes. It is called Strawberry Group, named after Stordalen's beginnings.
One of the ventures he is involved in is a Norwegian expedition cruise company that's dedicated to sustainability.
Stordalen is the sixth-largest shareholder in Hurtigruten, the Norwegian expedition cruise company.
It just launched the world's first hybrid cruise ship. The 450-passenger ship is currently taking leisure cruises to Antarctica, but is designed to cut emissions by 20% by running on a combination of low sulfur diesel fuel and battery packs.
Stordalen has written on Strawberry's website that he will go "all in" on investments that "contribute favorably to society, the environment, and the future of our children."
Most recently, Stordalen bought a sizable stake in the Scandinavian arm of bankrupt travel firm Thomas Cook.
At the end of October, Stordalen bought a 40% stake in Ving, the Scandinavian arm of Thomas Cook, the iconic British travel brand that went under in September and left thousands of passengers stranded in airports worldwide.
He rallied two other investors to buy the remaining 60%. The new ownership group took control of all assets and over 1,000 employees. The Thomas Cook aircrafts will be rebranded.
In an October 30 press conference, Stordalen said: "This deal unites the heart and brain. I have the heart and the partners have the brain."
Stordalen is known for being an adventurous, high-energy leader. At a hotel opening in 2012, he dropped out of a helicopter attached to wires and walked down the facade of the building as if he was auditioning to be the next James Bond.
His almost theatrical sense of adventure is what made him not just a billionaire, but a beloved celebrity, according to Scandinavian Traveler. Stordalen, for the record, has over 200,000 Instagram followers.
He is a former Ironman triathlete and while he hasn't scaled any of his hotels recently, he does start most days by taking a long-distance bike ride at 4 a.m.
Stordalen is also known for his fashion choices. At another hotel opening in 2015, Stordalen arrived by jet ski in a custom-made, 12-pound Balmain jacket.
A total of 165 hours of embroidery went into the one-of-a-kind jacket, which was composed of materials like buffalo bones and glass beads. It is now on display as a piece of art in the lobby of the Clarion Hotel in Malmö, Sweden.
Stordalen has three children in their 20s. All three are involved in his businesses.
In 2018, Stordalen reportedly signed over the majority of his shares to his three children: Emilie (28), Henrik (25), Jakob (22), according to Dagbladget, a Norwegian newspaper.
Emilie is a Cornell University graduate pursuing a master's degree in strategic marketing in London; Henrick attended the Norwegian Military Academy and is now a student at the School of Management in Bergen, Norway; Jakob is studying commerce at a prestigious boarding school in Buckingham England, all according to Strawberry Group's board member biographies.
Forbes reported that while he signed over most ownership, he intends to retain control until his death.
He also plans to continue his conservation efforts with his model-turned-physician wife Gunhild Stordalen, even though the pair recently announced their separation.
The two were married in 2010 in a $5 million Moroccan ceremony officiated by Irish singer-songwriter Bob Geldof. Together, they've been spotted cruising on the famous sailboat-slash-superyacht the Maltese Falcon and traveling to the Antarctic with Al Gore.
They also sit on a number of conservationist boards together, including the European Climate Foundation, and have even founded their own foundations, including Stordalen Foundationand GreeNudge. The Stordalen Foundation "makes financial contributions" to projects "aimed at solving health, environmental, and climate challenges," according to its website. GreeNudge, a subsidiary of the Stordalen Foundation, was founded by Gunhildand is a health and environmental research company that offers consultancy to other organizations looking to become more eco-friendly.
The pair announced their separation in November, but both posted positive messages to Instagram. She wrote that they "will always have each other's backs."
Oslo has been the family's home base for many years.
The family has lived in a beach-front villa in Oslo valued at $10.5 million since the pair married in 2010.
At the end of November, following the separation, reports surfaced that Stordalen purchased a $3.8 million apartment for Gunhild. The apartment is in Oslo. Both confirmed the apartment purchase to Norwegian outlets.
She will continue primarily working on environmental activism, as she previously had no ties to Nordic Choice Hotels.
Nordic Choice Hotels, along with the majority of Stordalen's business interests, are headquartered in Oslo.
