founded W.G.Thomén Metsätoimisto (W.G.Thomé’s Forestry Office) in Helsinki on May 1, 1911. The business comprised forest planning and inventory, tax classification of forest lands and measurement of export roundwood; gradually the company engaged itself into agency business. Mr. Thomé was owner from 1911 to 1918.
was co-owner from 1918 to 1945 and sole owner from 1945 to 1951. From 1951, Oy Thomén Metsätoimisto (Thomé’s Forestry Office Ltd.) was a joint-stock company engaged in servicing forest owners as well as in international trade in wood and wood-based products. Trade in wood raw materials with the Soviet Union started in the 1960’s. In 1957 operations expanded also into merchant shipping under the name of Oy Thombrokers Ab. Equity investment business was initiated at the end of the 1950’s.
Mr. Brofeldt’s son-in-law, was Managing Partner from 1951 to 1978 and Senior Partner from 1978 to 1991.In 1969 the forestry office was renamed Thomesto Oy. The Jouhki family now wholly owned it. Internationalisation, diversification and expansion of operations took place in the 1970’s and 80’s. Thomesto became an established and well-known expert in the Soviet trade.
Mrs. Kata Jouhki, charismatic and influential person active in many fields, served the family business over the course of more than fifty years.
was Managing Partner from 1979 to 2001. Due to the growth and expansion of investment business, in 1989 Thomesto was divided into an Investment Group (Thominvest Oy) and a Trading Group (Thomesto Trading Companies/Thomesto Oy) to emphasize the special features of the two different business lines. Thominvest Oy was the parent company of Thomesto Oy until the latter was sold to Metsäliitto in 2001, and the remaining group restricted its scope merely to investment activities.
was President of Thominvest from 1989 to 2002, and Chairman from 2002 to 2007. Thomproperties Oy merged with Thominvest in March 2004, and the combined entity is now called Thominvest. In 2013 Mr. Timo Jouhki started to act again as the Company’s Chairman until 2016.
has been the Company’s President from 2002 to 2009 and the Chairman from 2009 to 2013 before assuming his present role as the Vice Chairman until 2016. In 2016 the business activities of Thominvest were split in two. Thomasset and Thomfinance serve different branches of the Jouhki family.
Thominvest’s story begins in 1911, during the time of Russian rule when Finland was a Grand Duchy. Thirty-year-old forester William Gustav Thomé (born 1880) decided to open a forestry office in Helsinki, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland. The business carried his name – W. G. Thomé’s Forestry Office (W. G. Thomén Metsätoimisto).Thomé offered forest management planning and implementation services to forest owners, especially those in the rapidly growing wood processing sector.
