Thomas Fredrik Olsen (born 1857)
Norwegian shipping magnate (1857–1933)

Thomas Fredrik Olsen (15 October 1857 – 29 January 1933) was a Norwegian businessman and ship owner of Fred. Olsen & Co.
Thomas Fredrik Olsen (commonly known as Fred. Olsen) was born in the village of Filtvet in Hurum municipality, Buskerud County, Norway. Olsen was the son of ship owner Petter Olsen (1821-1899), the father of Gösta Hammarlund, and the grandfather of Fredrik Olsen. He took over as the owner of two of his father's sailing ships, and later invested in steam ships. Fred. Olsen took the company from a small business with a few boats into a powerful multinational shipping and ship building business. Olsen was the major shareholder of the workshop Akers Mek. At the time of his death his company, Fred.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Fredrik Olsen (born 1857)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.