I use socat with following init script on debian 7.2 with sysVinit. It works perfectly:

#!/bin/bash
DESC=socat
DAEMON=/usr/bin/socat
LIB=/usr/lib/socat
SOCAT_ARGS="-d -d -lf /var/log/socat.log"

[ ! -f /etc/default/socat.conf ] || . /etc/default/socat.conf

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin

[ -x $DAEMON ] || exit 0

#
#       Try to increase the # of filedescriptors we can open.
#
maxfds () {
        [ -n "$SOCAT_MAXFD" ] || return
        [ -f /proc/sys/fs/file-max ] || return 0
        [ $SOCAT_MAXFD -le 4096 ] || SQUID_MAXFD=4096
        global_file_max=`cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max`
        minimal_file_max=$(($SOCAT_MAXFD + 4096))
        if [ "$global_file_max" -lt $minimal_file_max ]
        then
                echo $minimal_file_max > /proc/sys/fs/file-max
        fi
        ulimit -n $SOCAT_MAXFD
}

start_socat() {
        start-stop-daemon --quiet --start \
                --pidfile /var/run/socat.$NAME.pid \
                --background --make-pidfile \
                --exec $DAEMON -- $SOCAT_ARGS $ARGS < /dev/null
}

stop_socat() {
        start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile /var/run/socat.$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON
        rm -f /var/run/socat.$NAME.pid
}

start () {
        echo "Starting $DESC:"

        maxfds
        umask 027
        cd /tmp
        if test "x$AUTOSTART" = "xnone" -o -z "x$AUTOSTART" ; then
                echo "Autostart disabled."
                exit 0
        fi
        for NAME in $AUTOSTART ; do
                ARGS=`eval echo \\\$SOCAT_$NAME`
                echo $ARGS
                start_socat
                echo " $NAME $ARGS"
        done
        return $?
}

stop () {
        echo -n "Stopping $DESC:"

        for PIDFILE in `ls /var/run/socat.*.pid 2> /dev/null`; do
                NAME=`echo $PIDFILE | cut -c16-`
                NAME=${NAME%%.pid}
                stop_socat
                echo -n " $NAME"
        done
}

case "$1" in
    start)
        log_daemon_msg "Starting socat" "socat"
        if start ; then
                log_end_msg $?
        else
                log_end_msg $?
        fi
        ;;
    stop)
        log_daemon_msg "Stopping socat" "socat"
        if stop ; then
                log_end_msg $?
        else
                log_end_msg $?
        fi
        ;;
    reload|force-reload|restart)
        log_daemon_msg "Restarting socat" "socat"
        stop
        if start ; then
                log_end_msg $?
        else
                log_end_msg $?
        fi
        ;;
        *)
        echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/$NAME {start|stop|reload|force-reload|restart}"
        exit 3
        ;;
esac

exit 0

However after an upgrade to debian 7.4 the system changed to systemd. So to run the same script on systemd I added a service that wrappes the /etc/init.d/socat script:

[Unit]
Description=Socat

[Service]
ExecStart=/etc/init.d/socat start
ExecStop=/etc/init.d/socat stop

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

When I start the service it is started but stops directly:

Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/socat.service; enabled)
Active: inactive (dead) since Fri, 18 Apr 2014 14:09:46 +0200; 4s ago
Process: 5334 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/socat start (code=exited,
status=0/SUCCESS) CGroup: name=systemd:/system/socat.service

Am I missing something?