Norwegian firms join forces to supply military boarding teams

Two Norwegian companies have joined forces to put better magnetic technology into the hands of military boarding teams around the world, with Blumags and H. Henriksen AS announcing an exclusive supply agreement on June 23, 2026, that reshapes how corrosion-resistant tactical magnets reach the specialized operators who depend on them.

Under the deal, Blumags becomes the sole supplier of magnetic products within Henriksen’s REBS product line, an acronym for Rapid Entering and Boarding Systems, a family of equipment used by military and maritime organizations globally for boarding operations, forced entry, and personnel insertion in demanding operational environments. In return, Henriksen takes over primary marketing and sales responsibility for Blumags’ standalone tactical magnet range, giving the younger company immediate access to a customer network that has taken generations to build. The arrangement is a classic complementary pairing: one company brings deep engineering capability in a narrow specialty, the other brings the institutional credibility and end-user relationships that no amount of product quality can substitute.

H. Henriksen is not a household name outside defense and maritime circles, but within those circles its longevity speaks for itself. Founded in 1856, the Norwegian firm has been supplying specialized equipment to military and naval operators for longer than most defense contractors have existed, outlasting two world wars, the Cold War, and the transformation of naval special operations from a niche capability into a central pillar of modern military strategy. Its REBS product family has accumulated users across multiple continents, serving the kinds of professional operators who cannot afford equipment failures in the water, on a ship’s hull at night, or at the threshold of a hostile vessel. That kind of customer base is not won through advertising; it is earned through decades of products that work when everything else is going wrong.

Blumags, operating as the commercial brand of Apex Technology AS, takes a very different trajectory to the same market. Founded in 2020 and therefore less than six years old at the time of this agreement, the company has built its identity around one specific problem: making magnets that do not corrode. Marine environments are among the most corrosive on earth. Salt water, humidity, temperature cycling, and biological fouling attack conventional magnetic materials aggressively, degrading holding force and accelerating failure over time. Blumags addresses that problem through the use of corrosion-resistant alloys and what the company describes as proprietary design solutions aimed at minimizing weight, maximizing service life, and preserving adaptability across a wide range of applications. The result is a product line suited to exactly the environments where REBS equipment operates.

Emil S. Jahren, co-founder of Blumags, framed the partnership in terms that any engineer who has tried to commercialize a technical product will recognize. “As engineers, it’s easy to focus on the product itself and believe that the best design will win. In reality, trust is just as important. Henriksen has spent generations earning the confidence of military and maritime customers around the world, and that cannot be replicated overnight. The opportunity to contribute to an established product range like REBS is every bit as valuable to us as the opportunity to bring our technology to its users.”

The significance of that observation extends beyond one company’s commercial strategy. Military procurement, particularly in the special operations and naval domains, is notoriously relationship-driven. Operators who perform high-risk boarding missions need absolute confidence in their equipment, and that confidence rarely extends to unknown suppliers regardless of technical merit. By routing Blumags’ technology through Henriksen’s established REBS brand, the agreement allows the magnetic products to inherit that trust rather than having to build it from scratch against a baseline of skepticism.

Henrich Henriksen, president of H. Henriksen, described what drew his company toward the partnership. “What attracted us to Blumags was their expertise in magnetic technology and the solutions they have developed. Their use of corrosion-resistant alloys and focus on practical, functional design fit well with our philosophy of delivering reliable equipment to professional users. We believe this collaboration will further strengthen the REBS product range for years to come.”

From counterpiracy operations in the Gulf of Aden to enforcement of international sanctions and coast guard interdiction of smuggling networks, ship boarding is among the most physically demanding and tactically sensitive operations that maritime forces conduct. Equipment used in these environments must survive not only the mechanical stresses of the boarding itself but also prolonged exposure to seawater, repeated cleaning with harsh chemicals, and the temperature extremes found across different operational theaters from the Arctic to equatorial waters. The durability requirements that drove Blumags to develop its corrosion-resistant magnet technology are not theoretical; they reflect a genuine gap in what conventional magnetic products can sustain under professional operational use.

The agreement also creates a development pathway that neither company could pursue independently with the same efficiency. Henriksen brings continuous feedback from end users who operate REBS equipment in the field, a source of product intelligence that engineering teams rarely access directly. Blumags brings the technical depth to act on that feedback in ways that conventional magnetic suppliers typically cannot. Combined, the two companies can close the loop between what operators discover in the field and what shows up in the next generation of products, a cycle that tends to produce meaningfully better equipment faster than either channel-led distribution or lab-driven engineering can achieve on its own.