Financial news
Wehinger sells stake in Westbahn F
OLLOWING his resignation as CEO of Austrian open-access passenger operator Westbahn at the beginning of June, Dr Stefan Wehinger has sold his shares in mother company Railholding to the other three shareholders.
Prior to his departure,
Wehinger, Railholding co- founder Mr Hans-Peter Haselsteiner (CEO of construction company Strabag), and SNCF Voyages each owned 25.93% while Swiss investment company Augusta Holding held the remaining 22.21%. There had been speculation that SNCF Voyages was
AUSTRIAN Federal Railways (ÖBB) CEO Mr Christian Kern says that ÖBB’s results for the first six months of 2012 are better than expected and if the economic situation remains stable he expects a return to profit in 2012, a year earlier
ORTUGUESE Trains (CP) CEO Mr José Benoliel has
than previously predicted. ÖBB has struggled
financially for several years, posting losses of É28m in 2011 and É329m in 2010. Kern says the passenger division profited from rising road fuel prices with significant
revealed that CP ended 2011 with a loss of É289m, compared with a loss of É201m in the previous year. According to CP, the loss includes disparities, changes in fair value losses in subsidiaries, and financial costs of É227m. If these three elements were stripped out, the company would be left with an operating loss of É62m, which would be
NSALDO STS Australia has won two contracts worth a total of $A 362.2m ($US 371m) to supply signalling systems for Rio Tinto’s heavy-haul iron-ore operations in Australia. The first contract, worth $A 317.5m, is for the development and delivery of an automated train management system for Rio Tinto’s 1500km iron-ore network in the Pilbara region of Western Australia which is due to be completed in 2015.
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an improvement of É26m over the previous year. CP says a reduction in overall costs helped Ebitda to grow from É26m in 2010 to É39m last year, and this figure is expected to reach É60m in 2012.
Passenger numbers fell by 5.8% to 226 million last year, which CP attributes to a deterioration in the economy and competition from other modes. It also blames strikes
The contract is awarded under the 2010 Rio Tinto Iron Ore - Ansaldo STS Framework Agreement (Rafa) and includes the introduction of a centralised vital safety server for the safe and flexible management of train movements and an on-board driving module. The system will reuse wayside infrastructure, and installation must not disrupt train operations.
The second contract is also
increases in urban ridership. Long distance ticket sales rose by 3% although revenue increased less due to ÖBB offering a higher proportion of discounted fares, particularly on its flagship Vienna - Salzburg route in an effort to
Losses mount for Portuguese railways P
and a 5% fare hike in January 2011 which was followed by a 15% rise in August. At the end of 2011, CP had a workforce of 2978, down 263 on the previous year. Infrastructure manager Refer also had a difficult year, with losses increasing 12% to É164m, although Refer says É7m of this is explained by a change in accounting methods. Revenue fell 4% to É166m and Ebitda dropped 19% to É68m.
Rio Tinto awards heavy-haul contracts A
awarded under Rafa and is for the next stage of scheduled upgrades to increase capacity and improve efficiency on the Pilbara network. The $A 44.7m contract encompasses improvements to locomotive control systems allowing the introduction of electronic- controlled pneumatic (ECP) braking. Once completed, Ansaldo STS will install and carry out system integration of the ECP brakes on Rio Tinto’s entire heavy-haul fleet.
interested in acquiring all of Wehinger’s shares and thus gain the majority of the company. However, it emerged at the end of June that Wehinger’s shares have been divided between the three remaining shareholders, meaning Haselsteiner and SNCF each hold 35%, while Augusta Holding owns 30%. Westbahn still faces tough competition from Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) (see panel). Westbahn has introduced discounted fares at weekends, but while ridership is reportedly healthy, revenue remains below anticipated levels.
ÖBB heading for profit after encouraging first-half performance
compete with Westbahn. Freight subsidiary Rail
Cargo Austria (RCA) also improved its performance, despite still feeling the impact of the economic downturn in Italy, Slovenia, Hungary and Romania.
Trenitalia agrees Amadeus ticket deal
RENITALIA has signed a distribution agreement with transaction processor Amadeus, which will allow its tickets to be sold through all Amadeus sales channels around the world. Travel agents will be able to book tickets on Trenitalia’s high-speed services through existing sales channels as well as the Amadeus global distribution system (GDS), which links 91,000 sales points worldwide. Trenitalia’s other long-distance and medium- distance fares will follow soon. Travel agents using the system will have standardised access to Trenitalia services through the FlyByRail Track system allowing them to make combined air/rail bookings, as well as the Rail Agent Track system which is designed exclusively for rail services. Amadeus says this will make it easier for passengers and travel agents to compare Trenitalia services with flights on the same route.
T IRJ August 2012
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