Olympia Holding AS was established in 1990 and is today 100% owned by Haakon Korsgaard and his 3 children. Mr. Korsgaard has professional and entrepreneurial experience from North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. His start-ups have been in both onshore and offshore construction, health and leisure, digital media and computer graphics, food retailing, real estate and international financial services. He is best known for launching the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores in Norway, which later expanded into all Scandinavia, presently consisting of more than 200 stores.

Mr. Korsgaard's greatest achievement was the creation of Europe's largest operator in the specialized services of acquisition, reconstruction and management of sub-performing consumer loan portfolios. In 1991, after having sold his 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores, Mr. Korsgaard together with his associates created the concept of 'forehandlings-inkasso' (collection by negotiations). Thereafter, Olympia's phone negotiators would treat the clients with respect and see themselves as advisors in the process towards agreeable solutions. Empathy, patience and time are key words to remember for Olympia personnel. Bankruptcy proceedings were the exceptions to Olympia's collections and no more than a handful of persons were bankrupted among Olympia's more than a million debtors. The concept proved to be successful and Olympia dissolved debt burdens at an average discount to the debtor of 50%. The persons that took advantage of Olympia's 'over the phone negotiated offers' were then relieved of the respectable negative remarks and subsequently in a position to get into the mainstream of the financing possibilities again. Olympia has been a European pioneer in this part of the financial services industry eliminated more than EUR 500 million of personal burdens. The international banking community gave its approval to this concept by selling more than 500 portfolios to Olympia. Among the sellers were Europe's largest financial institutions such as General Electric Bank, Barclays Bank, Credit Lyonnais, Commerzbank, Den norske Bank, Svenska Handelsbanken, MBNA etc.

In 2004 Aktiv Kapital ASA, a major competitor quoted on the Oslo stock exchange, bought 100% of the shares of Olympia Capital ASA.