Rederi AB Slite
Encyclopedia
Rederi AB Slite was a Swedish
shipping company, founded in 1947. The company was one of the three founding companies of Viking Line
. Rederi AB Slite went bankrupt
in 1993.
, had been in the shipping business since 1867, when Johan Niclas Myrsten founded the dynasty.
In mid 1950s two newbuilt cargo ship
s, and were delivered to Slite. In 1959 and 1961 respectively they were rebuilt to be able to load cars and take passengers. These ships were then put on a route between Simpnäs north of Stockholm
and Mariehamn
on Åland. In 1964 the company's first purpose built ferry
was delivered. In the early 1960s there was a heavy competition from several companies on the route Sweden - Åland. This led to a cooperation between Slite and Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen
, which later became a part of Rederi Ab Sally
.
In 1966 the marketing company Viking Line
was founded and by now Ålandsfärjan Ab
, later SF Line
, had joined the cooperation. Viking Line initially had three ships, Ålandsfärjan Ab's , Vikinglinjen's and Slite's Apollo. Since the name of the marketing company came from one of the other founding companies, Carl-Bertil Myrsten demanded that the colour of Viking Line's ships would originate from his company. The discussion regarding colour ended when Inga Gattberg took her favourite lip stick and made a mark on the contract with the words “This is the colour we are going to use”.
All Viking Line's ships were therefore painted in Apollos original red colour that now is so characteristic for Viking Line.
expanded heavily. In 1970, Slite's second was delivered from Jos L Meyer
in West Germany. Her sister entered service two years later.
Due to the increasing internal competition between the three companies within Viking Line, the original route between Kapellskär
and Naantali
was clogged with Viking Line ships during the first years of the 1970s. The companies tried new routes for their increasing fleets. Rederi Ab Sally and SF Line started traffic between Stockholm
and Turku
, and Sally also acquired two ships for the Stockholm-Helsinki
route. Slite in turn chose to start 24 hour cruises between Stockholm and Mariehamn with the venerable SS Svea Jarl, purchased in 1976 from Silja Line
and renamed . To finance the purchase, the 1970-built Apollo was sold.
In 1979, Diana was replaced by the new building . For a couple of years, Diana II serviced on the Stockholm-Turku route but Sally pushed her back to Kapellskär-Naantali with their bigger .
In October 1987 Rederi Ab Sally was sold to Effoa
, the main owner of rival company Silja Line. The situation of having the main competitor owning 33% of Viking Line became untenable and Sally's shares of Viking Line were sold to Slite and SF Line. Sally's remaining ship in Viking Line service, the Viking Sally, was chartered to Slite for the next three years.
Around the same time, SF Line and Slite ordered new ships again. Slite's replaced the Apollo III in 1989 and by 1990 it was time for the Viking Sally to be replaced with Athena's sister, the . The Olympia was scheduled for replacement in 1993 when the jewel of the company's crown, the world's largest passenger ferry, was to be delivered.
.
Matters became worse when the Swedish krona was allowed to float
in the autumn of 1992. Because of this, the almost finished Europa built in Germany, suddenly became 500 million SEK more expensive. Slite became unable to pay for the Europa when their bank Nordbanken
, which at the time had large sums invested in Slite's main rival Silja Line
, withdrew their loan guarantees. After the loss of Europa, Slite had lost over 550 million SEK within two years, 200 million due to the increased costs for the Kalypso and 350 million lost in advance payments for the Europa. Consequently Slite was declared bankrupt in April 1993.
. SF Line became the sole owner of Viking Line and changed its name to Viking Line Ab.
After the auction of Slite's ships and other assets, it became clear that the bankruptcy was unnecessary. All the debts could be paid for with the money gained from the ship sales. It has been speculated that Nordbanken did everything they could to break Slite in order to help their financially poor Silja Line. In March 1993 the Europa entered service for Silja Line as the .
The company was then forced to sell all of its fleet. One of their largest vessels (MS Olympia) was sold to P&O Ferries
where it was renamed Pride of Bilbao
. It operated at P&O for 17 years until 2010.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
shipping company, founded in 1947. The company was one of the three founding companies of Viking Line
Viking Line
Viking Line is a Finnish shipping company that operates a fleet of ferries and cruiseferries between Finland, the Åland Islands, Sweden and Estonia. Viking Line shares are quoted on the Helsinki Stock Exchange...
. Rederi AB Slite went bankrupt
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
in 1993.
Early History
Rederi AB Slite was founded by Carl-Bertil Myrsten together with his siblings Inga Gattberg, Sven Myrsten and Lars Myrsten in 1947. The oldest brother Robert Myrsten had his own shipping company Rederi AB Robert Myrsten and was not part of Rederi AB Slite. The Myrsten family, from Slite on the island of GotlandGotland
Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...
, had been in the shipping business since 1867, when Johan Niclas Myrsten founded the dynasty.
In mid 1950s two newbuilt cargo ship
Cargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...
s, and were delivered to Slite. In 1959 and 1961 respectively they were rebuilt to be able to load cars and take passengers. These ships were then put on a route between Simpnäs north of Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
and Mariehamn
Mariehamn
Mariehamn is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is the seat of the Government and Parliament of Åland, and 40% of the population of Åland live in the city...
on Åland. In 1964 the company's first purpose built ferry
Ferry
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
was delivered. In the early 1960s there was a heavy competition from several companies on the route Sweden - Åland. This led to a cooperation between Slite and Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen
Rederi Ab Sally
Rederi Ab Sally was a Finnish shipping company founded in the 1937 by Algot Johansson. Originally a tanker operator, Sally became a dominant member of the Viking Line shipping consortium in the 1970s. The company met bad times in the 1980s and was bought by its rivals Effoa and Johnson Line in 1987...
, which later became a part of Rederi Ab Sally
Rederi Ab Sally
Rederi Ab Sally was a Finnish shipping company founded in the 1937 by Algot Johansson. Originally a tanker operator, Sally became a dominant member of the Viking Line shipping consortium in the 1970s. The company met bad times in the 1980s and was bought by its rivals Effoa and Johnson Line in 1987...
.
In 1966 the marketing company Viking Line
Viking Line
Viking Line is a Finnish shipping company that operates a fleet of ferries and cruiseferries between Finland, the Åland Islands, Sweden and Estonia. Viking Line shares are quoted on the Helsinki Stock Exchange...
was founded and by now Ålandsfärjan Ab
SF Line
SF Line was the name of the Finnish shipping company presently known as Viking Line. The company, originally named Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan, was one of three shipping companies that formed shipping marketing company Viking Line in 1966, the other two being Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen and Rederi AB Slite...
, later SF Line
SF Line
SF Line was the name of the Finnish shipping company presently known as Viking Line. The company, originally named Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan, was one of three shipping companies that formed shipping marketing company Viking Line in 1966, the other two being Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen and Rederi AB Slite...
, had joined the cooperation. Viking Line initially had three ships, Ålandsfärjan Ab's , Vikinglinjen's and Slite's Apollo. Since the name of the marketing company came from one of the other founding companies, Carl-Bertil Myrsten demanded that the colour of Viking Line's ships would originate from his company. The discussion regarding colour ended when Inga Gattberg took her favourite lip stick and made a mark on the contract with the words “This is the colour we are going to use”.
All Viking Line's ships were therefore painted in Apollos original red colour that now is so characteristic for Viking Line.
Growing period
During the 1970s and 1980s, ferry traffic between Sweden and FinlandFinland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
expanded heavily. In 1970, Slite's second was delivered from Jos L Meyer
Meyer Werft
The Meyer Werft is one of the remaining large German shipyards, headquartered in Papenburg. Since 1997, it has been part of the Meyer Neptun Group together with Neptun Werft in Rostock.-History:...
in West Germany. Her sister entered service two years later.
Due to the increasing internal competition between the three companies within Viking Line, the original route between Kapellskär
Kapellskär
Kapellskär is a port about north of Stockholm, in Sweden. It is located by the Baltic Sea, in Norrtälje Municipality, Stockholm County and is served by frequent passenger ferry services to Mariehamn, Åland, Finland, operated by Viking Line, with 3 services per day and direction during peak season...
and Naantali
Naantali
Naantali is a city in south-western Finland, known as one of the most important tourist centres of the country. The municipality has a population of , and is located in the region of Finland Proper, west of Turku....
was clogged with Viking Line ships during the first years of the 1970s. The companies tried new routes for their increasing fleets. Rederi Ab Sally and SF Line started traffic between Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
and Turku
Turku
Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...
, and Sally also acquired two ships for the Stockholm-Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
route. Slite in turn chose to start 24 hour cruises between Stockholm and Mariehamn with the venerable SS Svea Jarl, purchased in 1976 from Silja Line
Silja Line
Silja Line is a Finnish cruiseferry brand operated by the Estonian ferry company AS Tallink Grupp, for car and passenger traffic between Finland and Sweden. The former company Silja Oy – today Tallink Silja Oy – is a subsidiary of Tallink Grupp, handling marketing and sales for Tallink and Silja...
and renamed . To finance the purchase, the 1970-built Apollo was sold.
In 1979, Diana was replaced by the new building . For a couple of years, Diana II serviced on the Stockholm-Turku route but Sally pushed her back to Kapellskär-Naantali with their bigger .
Heavy expansion
Economic difficulties plagued Rederi Ab Sally in the early 1980s. Despite having the big Viking Sally on the Stockholm - Turku route plus two new large ships on the capital route between Stockholm and Helsinki, Sally was not able to invest in more new ships. This left a spot open for Slite and SF Line to take over the capital route. In 1986, Slite's , at the time the largest passenger ferry in the world, was put into service between Stockholm and Helsinki, replacing Sally's the .In October 1987 Rederi Ab Sally was sold to Effoa
Effoa
Finland Steamship Company was a Finnish shipping company founded in 1883 by Captain Lars Krogius. In Finnish and Swedish The company was usually referred to simply as FÅA. In 1976, the company changed its name to Effoa, a phonetic spelling of the abbreviation FÅA.The company was a founding member...
, the main owner of rival company Silja Line. The situation of having the main competitor owning 33% of Viking Line became untenable and Sally's shares of Viking Line were sold to Slite and SF Line. Sally's remaining ship in Viking Line service, the Viking Sally, was chartered to Slite for the next three years.
Around the same time, SF Line and Slite ordered new ships again. Slite's replaced the Apollo III in 1989 and by 1990 it was time for the Viking Sally to be replaced with Athena's sister, the . The Olympia was scheduled for replacement in 1993 when the jewel of the company's crown, the world's largest passenger ferry, was to be delivered.
Crisis and bankruptcy
The timing of ordering of new expensive cruise ferries couldn't have been worse for Rederi AB Slite. In October 1989, just weeks after the order of the Europa was signed, the Finnish shipyard Wärtsilä Marine went bankrupt. Wärtsilä had built the Athena for Slite and was about to finish her sister, the Kalypso. The bankruptcy resulted in an increased cost for the Kalypso, about 200 million SEKSwedish krona
The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...
.
Matters became worse when the Swedish krona was allowed to float
Floating exchange rate
A floating exchange rate or fluctuating exchange rate is a type of exchange rate regime wherein a currency's value is allowed to fluctuate according to the foreign exchange market. A currency that uses a floating exchange rate is known as a floating currency....
in the autumn of 1992. Because of this, the almost finished Europa built in Germany, suddenly became 500 million SEK more expensive. Slite became unable to pay for the Europa when their bank Nordbanken
Nordea
Nordea Bank AB is a Stockholm-based financial services group operating in Northern Europe. The bank is the result of the successive mergers and acquisitions of the Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian banks of Nordbanken, Merita Bank, Unibank and Kreditkassen that took place between 1997 and 2000...
, which at the time had large sums invested in Slite's main rival Silja Line
Silja Line
Silja Line is a Finnish cruiseferry brand operated by the Estonian ferry company AS Tallink Grupp, for car and passenger traffic between Finland and Sweden. The former company Silja Oy – today Tallink Silja Oy – is a subsidiary of Tallink Grupp, handling marketing and sales for Tallink and Silja...
, withdrew their loan guarantees. After the loss of Europa, Slite had lost over 550 million SEK within two years, 200 million due to the increased costs for the Kalypso and 350 million lost in advance payments for the Europa. Consequently Slite was declared bankrupt in April 1993.
Aftermath
All Slite's ships were sold by compulsory auction after the bankruptcy. SF Line made bids on the Athena and the Kalypso but lost them to the heavily investing Malaysian cruise company Star CruisesStar Cruises
Star Cruises , a member of Genting Hong Kong, is the sixth largest cruise line in the world behind companies such as Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean Cruises...
. SF Line became the sole owner of Viking Line and changed its name to Viking Line Ab.
After the auction of Slite's ships and other assets, it became clear that the bankruptcy was unnecessary. All the debts could be paid for with the money gained from the ship sales. It has been speculated that Nordbanken did everything they could to break Slite in order to help their financially poor Silja Line. In March 1993 the Europa entered service for Silja Line as the .
The company was then forced to sell all of its fleet. One of their largest vessels (MS Olympia) was sold to P&O Ferries
P&O Ferries
P&O Ferries is the current name for the amalgamation of a range of ferry services that operated from the United Kingdom to Ireland and Continental Europe...
where it was renamed Pride of Bilbao
Pride of Bilbao
MS "Princess Anastasia" is a cruiseferry owned by St. Peter Line. Until September 2010, she was known as "Pride of Bilbao", operated by P&O Ferries on their Portsmouth–Bilbao route. The vessel was built in 1986 as the Olympia by the Wärtsilä shipyard in Turku, Finland for Rederi AB Slite, Sweden...
. It operated at P&O for 17 years until 2010.
Ships
Not a complete list.- Slite (1959–1964)
- Boge (1961–1963)
- Apollo (1964–1967)
- Visby (1967–1970, chartered)
- Apollo (II) (1970–1976)
- Diana (1972–1979)
- Apollo III (1976–1989)
- Diana II (1979–1992)
- Olympia (1986–1993)
- Viking Sally (1987–1990, chartered)
- AthenaMS Pearl of ScandinaviaMS Pearl Seaways is a cruiseferry owned by DFDS Seaways and operated on their Copenhagen–Oslo service. She was built in 1989 by Wärtsilä Marine, Turku, for Rederi AB Slite as MS Athena for use in Viking Line traffic. Between 1993 and 2001 she sailed as MS Langkapuri Star Aquarius...
(1989–1993) - KalypsoStar PiscesMS Star Pisces is a cruise ship, owned by Star Cruises and up until recently did short cruises from Hong Kong after she was laid up. She was originally built as the cruiseferry MS Kalypso in 1990 by Masa-Yards, Turku, Finland for Rederi AB Slite for use in Viking Line traffic...
(1990–1993) - Europa (1993, never delivered)
External links
- Rederi AB Slite at Fakta om Fartyg