Luxembourg-headquartered ro-ro and container shipping operator CLdN has completed the acquisition of Samskip's quay-to-quay and door-to-door freight business between mainland Europe, the UK, and Ireland, following receipt of all required regulatory approvals, as reported by Container News.

The services will officially transfer to CLdN on 29 June. The acquisition covers Samskip's container shipping network linking Rotterdam with the UK ports of Belfast, Blyth, Grangemouth, Hull, and Tilbury, and the Irish ports of Cork, Dublin, and Waterford, with the network making more than 1,000 port calls annually.

The deal also includes Samskip's door-to-door freight operations between the UK, Ireland, and continental Europe, together with lease agreements for more than 5,000 multimodal cargo units, including pallet-wide containers, reefers, curtain-side containers, and flat racks.

The acquisition expands CLdN's short-sea container shipping network and strengthens its integrated RoRo and LoLo services, while increasing the scale of its multimodal logistics operations, particularly between the UK, Ireland, and Central and Eastern Europe.

Both companies said they are working closely to ensure a smooth transition with minimal disruption for customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.

Ólafur Orri Ólafsson, CEO of Samskip, said: "Our industry continues to evolve rapidly, and successful organizations must evolve with it. This milestone allows us to focus our efforts on what matters most to our customers: reliable services, strong regional expertise, and a seamless multimodal network that helps simplify increasingly complex supply chains."

Although the Rotterdam-UK and Ireland services are transferring to CLdN, Samskip said it will continue serving the UK and Ireland through its wider multimodal and freight forwarding network, maintaining connections with Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the Baltic states.

The transaction reflects a wider trend of network rationalisation among European short-sea carriers, as operators seek to concentrate capacity, reduce route duplication, and build end-to-end multimodal capability across the UK and Ireland corridor, a market that has grown in strategic importance since the introduction of post-Brexit customs arrangements.

View the full report on CLdN's completed acquisition of Samskip's UK and Ireland freight business.