[3] In search for a financier for the magazine they turned to the chairman of the Ax:son Johnson investment company Nordstjernan and former editor-in-chief of Veckans Affärer, Johan Björkman.

[4] When the founders plans for Fokus were announced many lauded the project as an interesting idea, but at the same time most analysts declared it doomed to fail.

[3][5] The magazine is owned and published by FPG Media, a Swedish limited company (aktiebolag), where the major share holders are Nordstjernan, the Johan Björkman Foundation, and Tagehus.

[6] In March 2013, the trade magazine Resumé reported that despite increasing circulation Fokus had made a projected loss of approximately 88 million SEK from 2005 until 2012.

Together with the culture and science television station Axess TV, the magazine is seen as a prestige project for the Ax:son Johnson family, and they are prepared to invest money in it from other sectors of their business empire.

Each issue typically contains in-depth articles on politics and economics, two or more chronicles, a longer interview and a portrait of a politician, a sport star, a business profile, a writer, a researcher or a philosopher, as well as coverage and reviews of culture.

In determining the most desirable municipalities to live in, at least 30 factors are taken into account, including such things as the quality of schools, healthcare, and crime and unemployment rates.

They have also been criticised, for example in a book by written the local-politician Magnus Nilsson and published by the think-thank Timbro, for favouring small homogeneous municipalities situated near larger cities.

[9] Fokus editor Martin Ahlquist has stated that the ranking should not been see as an evaluation of the work of local politicians, but rather as a guide for citizens and that it is therefore natural that some municipalities are favoured by their location.

In an attempt to reach more affluent and influential readers, Fokus has been distributed free of charge to passengers traveling business class with Scandinavian Airlines, Finnair, Malmö Aviation and SJ 2000.

[16] In May 2007, Fokus was awarded the Swedish Publicists' Association's grand prize for its revitalisation of long form journalism, shown especially in its coverage of the political affairs surrounding the general election of 2006.