Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

UK

Deutsche Bahn to sell German Arriva assets to Italian consortium

State-owned German railway Deutsche Bahn said Wednesday that it would sell German assets belonging to its British subsidiary Arriva to a consortium led by the Italian Ferrovie dello Stato.

Published: 8 December 2010 16:47 CET
Deutsche Bahn to sell German Arriva assets to Italian consortium
Photo: DPA

Financial details were not disclosed, but German media have estimated the deal’s value at around €170 million ($225 million), well below Arriva Germany’s 2009 sales of €460 million.

“The offer price and the fulfilment of EU demands regarding the buyer were decisive criteria for us,” Deutsche Bahn chief executive Rüdiger Grube said in a statement.

Trenitalia, which is owned by Ferrovie dello Stato, said in a statement that the consortium “has taken a major market share of five percent and aims to develop further its presence in the German public transport market.”

The German market “is particularly dynamic,” the statement added, and the deal was part of Ferrovie dello Stato’s strategy to “strengthen its international position as the third biggest European rail operator.”

The German railway bought Arriva earlier this year for €2.8 billion but has had to sell the German rail and bus operations for cartel reasons to comply with European Union law.

Deutsche Bahn said that the Cube Infrastructure fund, which is based in Luxembourg, was part of the Italian-led consortium.

AFP/mry

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

TRAVEL

Could Oslo-Copenhagen overnight train be set for return?

A direct overnight rail service between the Norwegian and Danish capitals has not operated since 2001, but authorities in Oslo are considering its return.

Published: 2 September 2021 14:56 CEST

Norway’s transport minister Knut Arild Hareide has asked the country’s railway authority Jernbanedirektoratet to investigate the options for opening a night rail connection between Oslo and Copenhagen.

An answer is expected by November 1st, after which the Norwegian government will decide whether to go forward with the proposal to directly link the two Nordic capitals by rail.

Jernbanedirektoratet is expected to assess a timeline for introducing the service along with costs, market and potential conflicts with other commercial services covering the route.

“I hope we’ll secure a deal. Cross-border trains are exciting, including taking a train to Malmö, Copenhagen and onwards to Europe,” Hareide told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

The minister said he envisaged either a state-funded project or a competition awarding a contract for the route’s operation to the best bidder.

A future Oslo-Copenhagen night train rests on the forthcoming Jernbanedirektoratet report and its chances of becoming a reality are therefore unclear. But the Norwegian rail authority earlier this year published a separate report on ways in which passenger train service options from Norway to Denmark via Sweden can be improved.

“We see an increasing interest in travelling out of Norway by train,” Jernbanedirektoratet project manager  Hanne Juul said in a statement when the report was published in January.

“A customer study confirmed this impression and we therefore wish to make it simpler to take the train to destinations abroad,” Juul added.

Participants in the study said that lower prices, fewer connections and better information were among the factors that would encourage them to choose the train for a journey abroad.

Norway’s rail authority also concluded that better international cooperation would optimise cross-border rail journeys, for example by making journey and departure times fit together more efficiently.

The Femahrn connection between Denmark and Germany, currently under construction, was cited as a factor which could also boost the potential for an overland rail connection from Norway to mainland Europe.

Night trains connected Oslo to Europe via Copenhagen with several departures daily as recently as the late 1990s, but the last such night train between the two cities ran in 2001 amid dwindling demand.

That trend has begun to reverse in recent years due in part to an increasing desire among travellers to select a greener option for their journey than flying.

Earlier this summer, a new overnight train from Stockholm to Berlin began operating. That service can be boarded by Danish passengers at Høje Taastrup near Copenhagen.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about the new night train from Copenhagen to Germany

SHOW COMMENTS