Tallink

AS Tallink Grupp

Type	Public
Traded as	Nasdaq Baltic: TAL1T
Industry	Maritime transportation
Founded	1989
Headquarters	Tallinn, Estonia
Area served	Northern Europe
Key people	Janek Stalmeister, Enn Pant, Andres Hunt
Services	Passenger transport, freight, cruises
Revenue	945.2 million Euro (2015)
Profit	59.1 million Euro (2015)
Number of employees	6,835 (avg. FY 2015)
Website	www.tallink.com www.tallinksilja.com

Tallink is an Estonian shipping company currently operating Baltic Sea cruiseferries and ropax ships from Estonia to Finland, Estonia to Sweden, Latvia to Sweden and Finland to Sweden. They also own Silja Line and a part of SeaRail. It is one of the largest passenger and cargo shipping companies in the Baltic Sea region.

History of the company known today as Tallink can be traced back to the year 1965 when the Soviet Union-based Estonian Shipping Company (ESCO) started passenger traffic between Helsinki and Tallinn with MS Vanemuine. Regular around-the-year traffic was started in 1968 with MS Tallinn, which served on the route until she was replaced by the new MS Georg Ots in 1980.

In May 1989 ESCO formed a new subsidiary, Laevandusühisettevõte Tallink, together with the Finnish Palkkiyhtymä Oy. In December of the same year ESCO and Palkkiyhtymä purchased MS Scandinavian Sky from SeaEscape, and the ship began traffic on the Helsinki–Tallinn route in January 1990 as MS Tallink. Later in the same year the freighter MS Transestonia joined the Tallink on the Helsinki–Tallinn route and Tallink was established as the name of the company as well as the main ship. At the same time ESCO still operated the Georg Ots in the same route, essentially competing with its own daughter company. This conflict was resolved in September 1991 when the Georg Ots was chartered to Tallink. In the early 1990s passenger numbers on Helsinki–Tallinn traffic were steadily increasing, and during winters between 1992 and 1995 Tallink chartered MS Saint Patrick II from Irish Ferries to increase capacity on the route.

Tallink became a fully Estonian-owned company in 1993 when Palkkiyhtymä sold its shares of both the Tallink company and MS Tallink to ESCO. At this time other companies were establishing themselves on the lucrative Helsinki–Tallinn traffic, including the Estonian New Line, owned by the Tallinn-based Inreko. ESCO and Inreko saw no sense in competing with each other and in January 1994 Tallink and Inreko Laeva AS were merged into AS Eminre. Tallink remained the marketing name for the company's fleet. Later in the same year Inreko purchased MS Nord Estonia from EstLine (a daughter company of ESCO and the Swedish Nordström & Thulin Ab), renamed her MS Vana Tallinn and placed her in Helsinki–Tallinn traffic for Tallink. Inreko also brought with them two fast hydrofoils, HS Liisa and HS Laura which began serving under the Tallink Express brand. In 1994 Tallink also attempted traffic from Estonia to Germany for the first time, with two chartered ferries MS Balanga Queen and MS Ambassador II that were placed on the route Helsinki–Tallinn–Travemünde.