Pandora (jewelry)

History

Pandora was founded in 1982 by Danish goldsmith Per Enevoldsen and, his then-wife, Winnie Enevoldsen. The pair began on a small scale by importing jewellery from Thailand and selling to consumers.

In 1987 the company ended its retail operations and became a pure wholesaler; two years later Enevoldsen hired in-house designers and established a manufacturing site in Thailand, where it is still located. With low production costs and an efficient supply chain, the Enevoldsens could provide affordable, hand-finished jewellery for the mass market. Pandora's collection grew to include an assortment of rings, necklaces, earrings and watches. It started selling its signature charm bracelets in 2000 after several years of development, protected by a patent.

The Danish private equity group Axcel bought a 60% stake in the company from the Enevoldsen family in 2008. Shares totalling DKK 9.96 billion (US$ 1.84 billion) were sold in an IPO in October 2010, one of the biggest IPOs in Europe that year, giving Pandora a market capitalisation of around DKK 27 billion. The company is publicly listed on the NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen Stock Exchange in Denmark and is a component of the OMX Copenhagen 20 index.

Pandora became the world's third-largest jewellery company in terms of sales, after Cartier and Tiffany & Co. In 2011, more than one piece of Pandora jewellery was sold every second on average.

Shares fell nearly 80% in 2011 after a shift in focus to higher-end designs alienated core customers, but performance recovered after a return to the more affordable mass market, with the group reporting revenue of DKK 19 billion and net profit in excess of DKK 3 billion in 2014.