Greece’s national rail business TrainOSE has been sold to Italy’s state railway group Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) for EUR45 million ($ 48.1 million).
The sale belongs to Greece’s EUR86 billion bailout agreed with its creditors two years ago. The privatization of state possessions is a condition of the bailout deal though it opposes Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ pre-election assurance not to privatize the nation’s infrastructure.
Athens {had| had actually} been attempting to sell the asset since 2013 however government modifications as well as political obstacles stood up the sale.
Without the sale, TRAINOSE would certainly needed to return more than 700 million euros in state aid to the European Union, forcing it to close.
Athens has accepted to sell the railway and also well as various other state possessions aiming to earn EUR 5.8 billion by 2018.
Inning accordance with FS Chief Executive Renato Mazzoncini, the purchase of TrainOSE is “an opportunity for growth as well as enhancement, both for FS which continues its global growth and for the Greek railways which will certainly have the ability to benefit from FS’s expertise and also experience.”
The purchase was completely in line” with the company’s 2017-26 strategy which maps a quadrupling of non-Italian business to more than EUR4 billion by 2026, Mazzoncini told the rail industry’s journal Railway Gazette.
TrainOSE is the only operator of passenger and freight services on the 2500 kilometer Greek network. It moves 15 million travelers as well as 4.5 million tons of freight yearly.
