GN Store Nord since 1985
In 1985, The Great Northern Telegraph Company changed its name to GN Store Nord (GN = Great Nordic) with the aim of creating a new group identity and organizing its businesses. In this process, all subsidiaries were renamed to include GN: GN Danavox, GN NetTest, GN Automatic, etc. A major change happened in 1991 when GN was assigned the attractive GMS concession from the national Danish telecommunication authorities. In March 1992, GN's new subsidiary Sonofon opened the first private mobile telephone network in Denmark. Although GN was not the only investor in Sonofon, it owned the majority of the shares. With the blossoming of the data communications and telephony industry, and under CEO Jørgen Lindegaard, GN was back on track and enjoyed big success in the late 1990s. In 2000, the company sold Sonofon to Norwegian telecom operator Telenor for a price of DKK 14,7 billion. A large amount was invested in the GN subsidiary NetTest, which had evolved from the former Elmi and considered GN's prospective core business. It was decided to let NetTest acquire the French company Photonetics for a price of DKK 9,1 billion.[4] The optimistic view of the future was also reflected in the share price, which had increased fivefold in only one year, from September 1, 1999, to September 1, 2000. Same year the American Jabra Corporation was acquired.[5] The focus and investment in NetTest, however, resulted in a serious downturn since GN had misjudged the market development of NetTest's products. In 2001, net profit ended at DKK -9,2 billion, followed by a share price decline equivalent to previous years' gains. Thereby major parts of the yield from Sonofon was lost within one year, and shareholders were raging in the media and at the annual general meeting.
The following years' turbulence led to the company selling most of its subsidiaries and leaving Tietgen's old headquarters in 1893 at Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen. GN Store Nord's headquarter currently resides in Ballerup North of Copenhagen, Denmark.[4] GN continued focusing on its two core businesses; hearing aids and headsets, produced by GN Hearing and GN Audio, respectively. On October 2, 2006, GN announced its decision to divest GN Hearing (formerly GN ReSound) and GN Otometrics (a company producing audio measuring equipment) to Swiss competitor Sonova (formerly known as Phonak). The deal, however, was annulled after being blocked by the German Cartel Office. After this, GN announced that it intended to keep the two companies but filed an appeal against the court ruling. The case is still pending.
The blocked deal, however, left GN challenged to the extreme with two underperforming businesses, a thin product pipeline, a heavy debt position, and facing a highly adverse macroeconomic environment. Nonetheless, with comprehensive restructuring and management efforts, the company managed to survive. Since then, GN has gradually fought its way back. In 2009, GN Audio (then GN Netcom) made a decision to globally market all its products under the same brand, Jabra (a company that GN had acquired in 2000). The purpose of consolidating all products under the same brand was to strengthen the company's position as the world's leading supplier of headsets. Today, GN Audio is a world leader in Unified Communications headsets, and within the last couple of years, the company has managed to be the first at introducing a number of innovative products on the market. In 2014, the company launched the world's first sports headset with a built-in heart rate monitor. In addition, a series of noise cancellation headsets with a concentration zone has been launched, which are specially designed to improve employees' ability to concentrate in noisy open offices. GN Hearing also got back on track. In 2010, the company launched the world's first hearing aid with 2.4 GHz technology – the new wireless technology was groundbreaking compared to the previous inductive technology.[4] In 2014, GN Hearing changed the industry once more with the introduction of the world's first Made for iPhone hearing aid, which, based on the 2.4 GHz technology enables the streaming of sound directly from an iPhone without any body-worn devices.
In October 2016, GN Audio acquired VXi Corporation, the manufacturer of both the VXi and BlueParrott headset brands.
