The group acquired the Yale group of companies - of which UNION was part - in August 2000.

Today, ASSA ABLOY comprises more than 100 separate companies in 40 countries, competing most successfully in the Scandinavian, North American, British, French and Australian markets. The world's leading lock group, ASSA ABLOY now boasts a 10% share of the world market.

 Organisation and markets

Today ASSA ABLOY holds market-leading positions in the Nordic region, the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Australia and New Zealand as well as many fast-developing new markets including the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. Strong positions are also held in Switzerland and Poland. In the North American market, the Group is the second-largest player in USA and with leading positions in Canada and Mexico. Following the successful integration of the Yale companies, South Africa, the Far East and parts of South America have also become strong positions.

Responsibility is clearly decentralised to one manager per country, with each country forming a natural building block in the Group's organization.

In the specialised field of Hospitality, ASSA ABLOY is the world leader through its subsidiaries VingCard and Timelox.

Identification is another area where the Group holds world leading positions through HID and Indala.

ASSA ABLOY is the World's Leading Lock Group.
In April 2002, the Group Acquired Besam, world leader in door automatics.

Product segments where the Group is active:

• Construction locks
  
  
• Industrial locks
  
  
• Door and window hardware and accessories
  
  
• Electromechanical locks
  
  
• Hospitality
  
  
• Security doors (US market mainly)
  
  
• Automobile locks (Czech Republic and UK only)
  
  
• Identification

 People make the difference

The Group's participation in the Volvo Ocean Race in 2001-2002 has been an extremely important and successful tool in the work of integrating 100 companies globally. The Race passed through almost all of ASSA ABLOY's important markets. At each stopover local management meetings have been held to make sure that everybody understands the Group's overall strategy and quickly adopts its way of working. In total, approximately 1,000 employees have partcipated in these meetings to create a deep rooted commitment to the organization. Attitude surveys are carried out regularly to assess progress.

ASSA ABLOY has a strong belief that giving employees the opportunity to own shares or convertible bonds in the company strengthens the feeling of belonging. For the third time in the Group's history a new EUR 100 M incentive program was launched in the fall 2001. More than 4,500 employees chose to participate.

 Annual sales

Sales for the year 2005 amounted to £ 2,000M (1,846) which represents an increase of 9%, of which organic growth for comparable units contributed 5%.

Number of employees: 29,500