Torben Østergaard-Nielsen, Owner-Manager of United Shipping & Trading Company A/S (USTC), receives the Honorary Award of the Year 2022 at the National Nomination of Owner-Manager of the Year in PwC in Hellerup. He is a unique owner-manager who for many years has had and continues to have a significant influence on the development of the Danish business community.
This year’s Honorary Award winner starts at the age of 20 as a trainee in the shipbroking company Julius Mortensen in Fredericia. In 1978, at the age of only 24, he became CEO of the shipbroking company H. Sommer in Middelfart, and in 1981 he founded Dan-Bunkering, which today is a subsidiary of the Bunker Holding Group. Torben Østergaard-Nielsen later also becomes the owner of Julius Mortensen and gathers all his activities in the company United Shipping & Trading Company (USTC), of which he became sole owner in 1998, and which today is among Denmark’s 10 largest companies with a turnover in the last financial year of more than DKK 120 billion.
“Torben Østergaard-Nielsen has for a number of years been a significant figure in the business community – not just in Denmark, but globally. Throughout his great career, he has shown incredible diligence, determination and creative power, which has not only helped put a number of Danish companies on the world map, but at the same time created and secured a significant number of Danish and global jobs,”
Says Mogens Nørgaard Mogensen, CEO and Senior Partner at PwC.
Today, USTC has over 4,000 employees, is represented on all continents in 40 countries with more than 140 offices and is headquartered in Middelfart. The original core business is today the world’s largest supplier of marine fuel.
“With his sense of business, courage and skill, this year’s Honorary Award recipient has achieved both massive growth in the original business and achieved success in new business areas. In short, he is the epitome of a really entrepreneurial owner-manager,” emphasizes Mogens Nørgaard Mogensen.
Successful change of ownership for his daughters
Torben Østergaard-Nielsen has also completed a successful generational change. In 2020, the daughters Nina Østergaard Borris and Mia Østergaard Rechnitzer were made co-owners of the company and each got a third of the ownership in the company. Earlier this year, he handed over the post of CEO to Nina Østergaard Borris.
“We are pleased that this year’s Honorary Award goes to Torben Østergaard-Nielsen, who has shown courage, persistence and commercial common sense. As an association-owned company, we believe that we and our customers will become stronger together. Therefore, we are pleased that this year’s Honorary Award goes to a person who has not only been a good partner for us at Nykredit, but who with his industriousness is also a source of inspiration for others in the Danish business community,”
Says Henrik Rasmussen, Bank Director at Nykredit.
The Danish Chamber of Commerce also sees great reason to celebrate the newly crowned Honorary Award recipient 2022.
“Torben Østergaard-Nielsen’s career spans almost five decades, and he has steered a successful company safely through periods of oil crises, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the acceleration of globalization, incredible innovations and numerous national, regional and global crises. It deserves recognition,”
Says Gitte Lillelund Bech, Director of Markets at the Danish Chamber of Commerce.
About the Honorary Award
For the sixth year in it, the National Jury for Owner-Manager of the Year (PwC, Nykredit, Dansk Erhverv, Owner-Manager of the Year 2021) awards a special Honorary Award in connection with the award of Owner-Manager of the Year, where we recognize and honor an owner-manager in Denmark who for a number of years has made an outstanding contribution and had a significant impact on Danish business. The honorary award goes to an owner-manager who for many years has had a significant influence on Danish business and is the epitome of what it means to be an owner-manager:
- Possess the courage to make decisions in a changing world
- Have the ambitions and the will to constantly set new and higher goals and then the “drive” and the ability to achieve these
- Is the epitome of what it means to be an owner-manager.
In short, the recipient is an eternal source of inspiration for both current and next generation of owner-managers.
Former honorary laureates
Anders Holch Povlsen, Bestseller (2021), (2020 was a special year due to COVID-19, which is why the prize was not awarded here), Lars Kann-Rasmussen, VKR Gruppen (2019), Jørgen Mads Clausen, Danfoss A/S (2018), Ane Mærsk Mc-Kinney Uggla, chairman of the foundations A.P. Møllers familiefond and A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal (2017) and Købmand Lars Larsen (2016).
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