When we arrived in Poland and walked through the terminal they had some photos explaining the history of that route. You have been able to sail with Stena Line to Poland for several years now and they seem to be making good money on the service. I was pretty fascinated by the simplicity of such a big business.
After reading about it, it more or less seemed as if they got hold of a ferry, paid the ports for permission to use their amenities, then put some ads out and sailed. They kept sailing for a while and the traffic came. Since there was plenty of traffic they added a second boat. It worked well for a while (was run under another name) so they got two bigger boats and started sailing under the Stena Line name. They also built their own terminals and infrastructure instead of using an old restaurant as their office.
Stena AB was founded in 1993. Today they have 19 000 employees that run businesses in recycling, shipping and finance. Then their real estate. They own 27000 rentals :) Not bad for one little Swedish family named Olsson. I’m impressed by them.
