Kärkkäinen (chain store)
Finnish department store chain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kärkkäinen (Finnish: [ˈkærkːæi̯nen]; formerly J. Kärkkäinen) is a department store chain in Ylivieska, Finland. It was established in 1988.[1] In 2016, it was the fourth largest discount store chain in Finland after Tokmanni, HalpaHalli and Motonet.[2] In addition to Ylivieska, the company has also stores in Oulu, Ii, Lahti, Jyväskylä and Seinäjoki[3], the company also owns an online store.
The company's founder is Juha Kärkkäinen. In 2024, Pasi Lämpsä began serving as the company’s CEO.[4]
History
Juha Kärkkäinen founded the company in 1988.[1] In its early years, the company operated from a mobile shop vehicle. In 1991, the company acquired its first business premises in Ylivieska. Later, the company expanded, and today it operates a 30,000 m² department store called Iso Kärkkäinen in its founding city of Ylivieska.[citation needed]
In addition, the company has a 5,000 m² department store in the Limingantulli district of Oulu. In December 2007, a new 10,000 m² Kärkkäinen Express department store was opened in Ii along Highway 4. In spring 2009, a 32,000 m² department store was opened in Lahti. On April 6, 2017, a new store was opened in the Palokka Home Center in Jyväskylä.[citation needed]
In 2010, Kärkkäinen applied for corporate restructuring, because the company had a total of more than EUR 37 million in restructuring debt. The district court drew up a ten-year repayment program for the company.[5] The corporate restructuring program ended in August 2020.[6]
Controversies
In 2013, the regular print publication of Magneettimedia ended, and in 2015 J. Kärkkäinen transferred its publication to the Finnish Resistance Movement.[7][8] Although Juha Kärkkäinen distanced himself from Magneettimedia, as late as 2016 J. Kärkkäinen still owned the domain name www.isomagneetti.fi, which redirected to the Magneettimedia website.[9]
In a brand valuation survey conducted by Markkinointi & Mainonta in 2018, Kärkkäinen was the least valued of the seven discount store brands.[10] This is widely thought to be due to the controversy surrounding the company and its CEO, which stemmed from anti-Semitic articles in the company’s free newspaper distribution, including in Magneettimedia.[11] The connections of the free newspaper distribution to the neo-Nazi organization Finnish Resistance Movement have also been detrimental to the company's reputation.[12][13] Largely due to the uproar, many companies do not sell their products in Kärkkäinen's stores; Finlayson, Fiskars and Otava, among others, have terminated the cooperation.[14][15][16]
In 2021, Juha Kärkkäinen urged his employees in an internal email not to take the coronavirus vaccine. The message was accompanied by a link to MV-media's website.[17][18]
