Brewer J.C. Jacobsen gave Carlsberg to a foundation in 1876, securing it for 140 years

J.C. Jacobsen established the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen in 1847. In 1876 he created the Carlsberg Foundation by charter and deed of gift to the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, deliberately placing the brewery under an institution rather than leaving it to ordinary inheritance.

When Jacobsen died in 1887, the foundation became the sole owner of the Old Carlsberg Brewery — the world's oldest enterprise foundation with responsibility for an industrial company. In 1902 his son Carl Jacobsen and daughter-in-law Ottilia gifted the New Carlsberg Brewery to the same foundation, reuniting the two halves.

The charter requires the foundation to control a majority of the votes in Carlsberg A/S, and it has done so ever since — through the 1970 merger with Tuborg, the stock-market listing and global expansion. Today Carlsberg is the only global brewer owned by a commercial foundation.

The foundation has held controlling votes in Carlsberg since 1876, keeping the brewer independent; it is the world's only global brewer owned by a commercial foundation.

A charter and deed of gift bound ownership before anyone could contest it.

The Royal Danish Academy guaranteed independent board elections.

The 1902 gift of New Carlsberg ended the split between father's and son's breweries.

A majority-vote requirement kept control with the foundation through mergers and listings.

A founder can out-legislate his own succession: by giving the brewery to a foundation with a charter, Jacobsen made it structurally impossible for heirs or investors to break the company apart.

The foundation funds science and culture from Carlsberg's dividends and remains an active owner with seats on the brewer's board, more than 140 years after it was created. The brewery Jacobsen secured outlived every owner, merger and market cycle since 1876.