Carlsberg Foundation

About Carlsberg Foundation

The Carlsberg Foundation, in Danish Carlsbergfondet, is a Danish enterprise foundation with a philanthropic purpose and the controlling shareholder of the brewing group Carlsberg A/S: it holds 30% of that company's share capital and 78% of its votes, and its charter obliges its board to keep control of the majority of the votes.^[1][2] The brewer J.C. Jacobsen established it by charter and deed of gift to the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 1876, and on his death in 1887 it became sole owner of the Old Carlsberg brewery, which makes it the world's oldest enterprise foundation with responsibility for an industrial company; its board members are still elected by the Academy from among its Danish members, and two of them sit on the supervisory board of Carlsberg A/S, one as deputy chair.^[2][1] It runs the Carlsberg Research Laboratory, has owned the Carlsberg Academy since a 2015 charter amendment, and awards funding for the purposes its charter names.^[2]

The foundation has no owner and no corporate parent. An enterprise foundation is a self-governing entity with no owners or shareholders,^[3] and the foundation's LEI record reports neither a direct nor an ultimate accounting parent, giving the reason NO_KNOWN_PERSON for both.^[4][5] It is seated at H.C. Andersens Boulevard 35 in Copenhagen with CVR number 60223513, LEI 549300TCRGPALF0XHY69 and an entity creation date of 25 September 1876; Wikidata's item carries the same LEI and CVR number.^[6][7] The charter required the foundation to own at least 51% of the brewery's share capital from the 1970 Carlsberg-Tuborg merger, more than 25% of the capital with at least 51% of the votes from 2007, and voting control alone from 2013.^[2] In 1902 Carl and Ottilia Jacobsen gave the New Carlsberg Brewery to the foundation and established the New Carlsberg Foundation as an independent foundation under it, a separate legal entity.^[2]