The story
Founded by Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing in 1998.1
In 1903, the first railway ferry sailed between Gedser in Denmark and Warnemünde in Germany. The route was operated by DSB on the Danish side in partnership with a state-owned German shipping company.
A second service, the "bird's flight line" (die Vogelfluglinie in German) between Rødby and Puttgarden, was added in 1963, creating a direct route between Copenhagen and Hamburg.
The company was separated from DSB in 1995 and transformed into an independent limited company called DSB Rederi. It was subsequently rebranded as Scandlines in 1997. The Scandlines brand had already been in use since 1991 on the Helsingør–Helsingborg ferry route. In 1998, the two shipping company partners—Danish Scandlines and German DFO—merged to form Scandlines, which was owned by the Danish Ministry of Transport and Deutsche Bahn.
Scandlines was privatised in 2007, with 3i and Allianz Capital Partners each acquiring 40% ownership and Deutsche Seereederei holding the remaining 20%. In 2010, Deutsche Seereederei sold its shareholding to 3i and Allianz. In 2013, Allianz sold its 49% stake to 3i. In 2018, First Sentier Investors and Hermes Investment Management acquired shareholdings of 50% and 15% respectively.
Between 1999 and 2015, several Scandlines routes were sold, including Aarhus–Kalundborg to Molslinjen and Helsingør-Helsingborg to ForSea Ferries.
Scandlines currently operates two routes: Gedser–Rostock and Rødby–Puttgarden. The company expects to continue operating on the Rødby–Puttgarden route, with three ferries, despite the planned completion of the Fehmarn Belt tunnel.
From Wikipedia’s article on Scandlines, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5