By
Rebecca Gibson |
Swedish shipowner, entrepreneur and founder of Stena, Sten Allan Olsson has died at the age of 96 years old.
Born in 1916 on the island of Donsö, in Gothenburg’s southern archipelago, Olsson started a shipping company in 1948, operating 12 owned and 12 chartered freighters in the 1950s.
In 1962, Olsson entered the passenger ferry business on the Gothenburg-Skagen route with Stena Line, which is now one of the world’s largest international transport and travel service operators. Stena Line operates in Scandinavia, the North Sea and the Irish Sea with a network of 18 strategically located ferry routes in Europe. The company has a modern fleet with a total of 35 vessels including fast ferries, traditional combi-ferries, ropax ferries and cargo ships.
The Stena Sphere incorporates companies in various fields of the shipping industry and is one of Sweden’s largest, family-owned groups of companies. It employs more than 20,000 people and generates a turnover of around SEK 60 billion.