News / SOL Lines takes a vertical step as it gains control of Scanlog

Gothenburg-based carrier SOL Lines has taken a majority stake in Swedish freight forwarder Scanlog, in another example of vertical integration in the supply chain.

SOL Lines announced today it had increased its stake in the 3PL from 20% to just over 50%, with chairman Michael Kjellberg saying the acquisition gave the company greater opportunity for providing end-to-end solutions.

“We’re aware that a number of our customers want logistics suppliers with the ability and skills to deliver door-to-door logistics services. We’ve not been selling that service because we focus on quay-to-quay, but now we’re looking forward to the opportunity of also assisting our customers with requests for multimodal transports via Scanlog.”

SOL operates liner ro-ro and general cargo services between northern Europe and the Mediterranean and Africa, as well as agency services.

Mathias Wideroth, chairman and founder of Scanlog, said: “With SOL, Scanlog gets a strong majority shareholder that can help us continue our rapid growth. SOL taking this step shows they believe in us, and we see that as a mark of quality.”

Scanlog said its business model was based on “responsible logistics”, which has included its work to optimise transport routes, capacity utilisation and means of transport. It also carbon-offsets all air freight free of charge for its shippers, it added.

Meanwhile, last year SOL Lines formed the 50:50 joint-venture Wallenius SOL with Wallenius Line to transport forestry products in the Baltic region by 2021 with some of the world’s most modern ice-class LNG-powered vessels. These will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% and fuel consumption by 50% per transported unit.