The State’s business activities
The State also undertakes business activities. After the declaration of independence, several state-owned enterprises were established, such as W. Gutzeit, and the state sulphuric acid and phosphate plants, Outokumpu Oy and Imatran Voima. State-owned enterprises were set up particularly in strategically and capital-intensive energy and industry sectors in which private financing was difficult to obtain. The last major state-owned companies were established in 1948 and 1960, respectively, when Neste Oy took over oil imports and Rautaruukki started to produce steel for the Finnish steel and shipbuilding industries.
From the 1980s onwards, state-owned enterprises were incorporated, and were managed like private enterprises based on normal business practices. The national railways, VR, became the VR Group and Post and Telecommunication changed its name to the Itella Group.
The State remains the owner of several companies either wholly or partly. In 2014, the State had holdings in 59 major enterprises. The State is the majority shareholder in 21 enterprises, the most significant being Finnair and Neste Oil. In addition, the State is a shareholder in 11 major publicly listed companies.
It is difficult to put an exact monetary value on the State’s assets. According to an estimate presented in the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper on 8 March 2014, the total State assets (including shares, land, roads, buildings, infrastructure and bonds) totalled 83 billion euro.