Companies Finland has its own version of Succession: “It quickly became clear that my father was not retiring at all,” says a statement about a controversial family business.

Which was first, email or letter? There is no clear answer in the book, as the stories of the brothers are contradictory. Pekka says he received an email Ville letter.

But which of Kopra’s brothers got the message first? There is a word against it. And the ultimate truth doesn’t matter so much, for the end result is known. The point is that the question can be found in the book at all.

Historians Sakari Siltalan and Teemu Keskisarja written by When so damn it is – The history of the Kopra sawmill family (Siltala 2021) is an exceptional work. It is a dizzying story about how the Kopra family, which started sawing in Valkjärvi in ​​Karelia in the 19th century, built a sawmill empire for themselves. Versowood is currently Finland’s largest mechanical forest industry company.

But the book is not a glossy picture – as historians often tend to be. It is a family drama and a kind of Korpi-Suomen Success. (Success is HBO ‘s popular TV series about the family company’ s power struggle.)

I am colleagues Jaakko Lyytinen with a few years written in the Monthly Supplement Companiesseries, which tells interesting stories about Finnish companies. These anecdotes of history can be found especially in business histories, which have become blunt with the contract.

Usually, a company commits history to itself at a point when it is filling round years. And the birthday party doesn’t include giggling in sad things.

Because the target company pays to make the history, its management usually also says the last word about what comes into the book and what doesn’t. Thus, the historical ones will become public relations-inspired, glorifying the vision of today’s management and owners in particular. At the same time, they become very boring.

When so damn saw is something completely different. It does not cover up the painful things that need to be brought to the attention of the writers and especially the Kopra family, who own the company, which has allowed Siltala and Keskisarja to continue the story of the book practically to this day. In this way, the separation of the Kopra brothers, Peka and Ville, in 2012 is also involved.

The reason was – as is often the case in family businesses – a failed generational change.

In 2006 father Keijo Kopra divided the company ‘s ownership into half. Pekka became CEO, and little brother Ville took over responsibility for finance and administration at Versowood’s parent company.

However, the father kept one percent of the shares, so in the event of a conflict, Keijo Kopra’s word resolved. And he likes to solve things.

“It quickly became clear that my father was not retiring at all,” says Pekka Kopra in the book.

The position of the new CEO was difficult when Dad “resisted in the background and went to confuse the organization,” as Ville Kopra puts it. Pekka says that he had “a lot of responsibilities, but no freedom and no powers”.

The gaps finally broke when Dad allied with Ville against Pekka.

Pekka says that at the end of October 2012, he received an e-mail in which Ville and his father stated that it was time for Pekan to step down as CEO. According to Ville, Pekka first sent a letter announcing his resignation as CEO.

Anyway, Pekka left and Ville came to his place. As a condition of the CEO, Ville set a majority stake in his father’s shares.

Pekka, on the other hand, bought himself a Westas sawmill competing with Versowood. At the same time, however, Pekka still owns less than half of Versowood.

Father Keijo is currently a member of the board of Versowood, headed by Ville Kopra. According to the book, the father likes to share his views on what the company is doing both in advance and afterwards.

“There’s been a hell of a lot of fighting over investment in recent years,” Ville says in the book.

“When I think something is being done, Dad goes barking after every fucking thing. And again when that’s done: the devil had to buy even then, fucking afterwards. Eat little motivation. ”

Versowoodin history is one of the most fascinating economic nonfiction books published in recent years. Sawing is a business of its own.

It’s a low-income business where the business cycle is almost always bad. Indeed, the industry says that seven lean years are followed by seven obese months. Or, as the preface to history states:

There is a loss for every cube, but when it is so damn sawed, something is left under the line.