Norwegian billionaire Tor Hagen has built a titanic business by reimagining the ideal European vacation
cruise ship, explaining what makes Viking’s voyages successful. The secret is in what the ships don’t have. There are no casinos, no kids, no umbrella drinks, no formal nights, no waterslides and absolutely no butlers. Hagen has been in the cruise industry long enough to know what he doesn’t like.
“We are reinventing ocean cruises,” Hagen says with a twinkle in his eye. While the Norwegian-born entrepreneur is known primarily for making European river cruises popular among Americans, the small river ships were just stepping-stones to getting back onto the high seas. Viking’s river and ocean cruises focus intensely on the destination, whether it’s Prague, Kotor in Montenegro or Scotland’s Shetland Islands. Passengers file into port every day to partake in home visits with local families, private performances or after-hours museum tours. At night they sample local cuisine or sit in on lectures about the history of the region.Hagen, 76, caters to a certain crowd: wealthy, well-educated and over 55.
In 1984 he put together a $240 million management buyout with the help of the private equity firm J.H. Whitney. The deal was almost final when he heard on television that a competitor, Knut Kloster, had come out of nowhere to purchase the company. Hagen blames a J.H. Whitney partner for being too busy at the -opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles to send the last $5 million to the sellers.
For the first decade of its existence Viking was on the edge. The September 11 terrorist attack hurt leisure bookings enough for Hagen to ask Carnival CEO Micky Arison for a $20 million loan, but lawyers squabbled over the details and the loan never happened. The 2008 financial crisis pushed Hagen to the wall. Desperate, he agreed to sell a majority stake to the Dutch private equity firm Waterland at a reported valuation of $130 million. But negotiations dragged on.
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