Atlantic Container Line (ACL)

Atlantic Container Line (ACL) was formed in May 1965 by four European shipping companies (Holland America Line, Swedish America Line, Transatlantic Steamship and Wallenius) to containerise the Europe-North America East Coast trade. They were joined by Compagnie Generale Transatlantique and Cunard in 1967 with each partner holding a 20% share each except SAL and Transatlantic which owned 10%.

ACL was a pioneer in the use of container/roro vessels starting with the ATLANTIC SPAN in 1967, the first of ACL's four G-1 (first generation) conro vessels with 700 teu container capacity and space for rolling cargo. They were followed by the six 845 teu G-2 class conro vessels (built in 1969-70) and the five 2,100 teu G-3 conro vessels (built in 1984-85). The G-3 ships were lengthened in 1986-7, from 250m to 292m, raising their capacity to 2,900 teu, allowing ACL to enter into a slot cooperation with Hapag-Lloyd on the transatlantic trade.

In January 1975, SAL acquired Holland America Line's cargo transportation business including the 10% share in ACL, and the business was renamed Incotrans (Intercontinental Transport). In 1983, ACL's ownership changed again with Wallenius, Cunard and CGM (the new name of CGT) each at 22.22%, Transatlantic had 11.11% and SAL/Incotrans split their share into 17.22% and 5%. In 1984 SAL/Incotrans was acquired by Transatlantic, which in turn was bought by Swedish transportation company Bilspedition.

In 1989, Bilspedition/Transatlantic, which already held 33.33% of ACL, acquired the shares of Wallenius, CGM and Cunard to become the sole owner of ACL. Bilspedition also took over Wallenius' and Cunard's stakes in Gulf Container Line (GCL) and integrated it into the ACL network. 

A public offering for ACL by Bilspedition was successfully made in 1994 and the company was listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange.

ACL's ships remained under the ownership of its previous partners but by 1996, it acquired full ownership of its fleet with the final purchase of ATLANTIC CARTIER from CGM.

Bilspedition's stake in ACL, which was reduced from 100% to around 15% after the public listing, was sold in early 1997 to US-based Holt Cargo Systems, a company involved in terminal operations and which controls Navieras de Puerto Rico. After raising its stake in ACL to about 30% in 1998, Holt made an unsuccesful bid to take control of ACL. 

In August 2000, the Grimaldi Group acquired Holt's shares in ACL and raised its holdings to 44% to become ACL's largest shareholder. In September 2000, CMA CGM has bought 10.04% of ACL shares. In 2001, Grimaldi launched a mandatory bid for ACL after its sharehodings exceeded 45% and increased its stake to 81%, and then to 91% after acquiring CMA CGM's stake in October 2001. ACL became a wholly owned unit of the Grimaldi Group in 2007.

ACL commenced studies on a new generation G-4 conro vessels in 2008 and finally placed an order in August 2012 with Hudong-Zhonghua for five units for delivery in 2015 to replace the aging G-3 units. The G-4s can carry 3,800 teu with 28,900 sqm of roro space, including a car capacity of 1,307 vehicles.