ÖBB buys Go-Ahead Germany

[U-Bahnfreund]

Austrian Federal Railways announced today they bought Go-Ahead Verkehrsgesellschaft Deutschland GmbH, so Go-Ahead's regional railway operations in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. The price is being kept secret.

ÖBB already tried to enter the German market with their subsidiary "Allegra" which won the RE Munich-Prague contract but the award was withdrawn due to some legal problems. Now this Go-Ahead business seems to be their next step.

Would be interesting to see if the brand Go-Ahead remains, or whether they will come up with something else.

Here's the official press release by ÖBB: https://presse-oebb.at/news-oebb-go...l-transport?id=187145&menueid=29803&l=english

Edit: and here from Go-Ahead group: https://newsroom.go-ahead.com/news/...e-of-its-german-rail-business-to-austrias-obb

 

[YorkRailFan]

Austrian Federal Railways announced today they bought Go-Ahead Verkehrsgesellschaft Deutschland GmbH, so Go-Ahead's regional railway operations in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. The price is being kept secret.

ÖBB already tried to enter the German market with their subsidiary "Allegra" which won the RE Munich-Prague contract but the award was withdrawn due to some legal problems. Now this Go-Ahead business seems to be their next step.

Would be interesting to see if the brand Go-Ahead remains, or whether they will come up with something else.

Here's the official press release by ÖBB: https://presse-oebb.at/news-oebb-go...l-transport?id=187145&menueid=29803&l=english

Edit: and here from Go-Ahead group: https://newsroom.go-ahead.com/news/...e-of-its-german-rail-business-to-austrias-obb

I have seen on another thread on this site that the Go Ahead brand will likely be retained.

 

[Planesandtrain]

The Go Ahead brand will only be able to stay temporarily. A new brand will be worked on once the sale is complete. It remains to be seen how closely OBB will get involved with the new subsidiary but knowing them they like to put their own mark on things. The mood amongst staff has improved a lot knowing that we will have a railway operator known for its high quality behind us.

 

[Stephen Lee]

Will ÖBB upgrade the Go-ahead RE trains to Cityjets?

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

What do you mean by "upgrade"? At least in Baden-Württemberg, the exterior and interior design, the information design and the capacity is set by the rail authority, so i don't see what they could change

 

[cactustwirly]

Will ÖBB upgrade the Go-ahead RE trains to Cityjets?

Unlikely the Flirts are brand new almost

 

[YorkRailFan]

GERMANY: Austrian Federal Railways’ purchase of The Go-Ahead Group’s rail activities in Germany was completed on February 1. This follows the European Commission’s approval of the deal announced in October.

ÖBB told Railway Gazette International that ‘with this acquisition, ÖBB is pursuing its long-term goal of further international growth. With the acquisition of Go-Ahead Deutschland, ÖBB has achieved its market entry into local passenger transport by rail in Germany. It is an important step for further growth in southern Germany.’



Go-Ahead’s German business held the Land of Baden-Württemberg’s Stuttgart Netz Lot 1b (Rems–Fils), Lot 1c (Franken-Enz) and Netz 3b Murrbahn operating contracts, and Bayern’s E-Netz Allgäu and Augsburger Netze Lot 1 contracts, with around 1 000 employees and 144 electric multiple-units.

‘Positive outcome’
Completion of the transaction marks Go-Ahead’s exit from the German rail market after five years, although the operations will continue to use Go-Ahead branding in the short term.

Go-Ahead Group Chief Executive Miguel Parras said the company had delivered new trains, high customer service and increased capacity, and the sale was ‘a positive outcome both for The Go-Ahead Group and for our German colleagues’.



Go-Ahead is owned by Kinetic and Globalvia. It holds rail operating contracts in partnership with Keolis in the UK and alone in Norway, and operates buses in the UK, Singapore, Ireland, Sweden and Australia. It was recently selected to operate the Stockholm metro in a joint venture with ComfortDelGro.

‘Go-Ahead continues to pursue opportunities for strategic expansion in both bus and rail in selected markets around the world’, said Parras.

Austrian Federal Railways completes purchase of Go-Ahead’s German rail operations

GERMANY: Austrian Federal Railways' purchase of The Go-Ahead Group's rail activities in Germany was completed on February 1. This follows the European Commission's approval of the deal announced in October. ÖBB told Railway Gazette International that 'with this acquisition, ÖBB is pursuing its...

www.railwaygazette.com

Purchase now completed. Didn't really see much blowback from competition regulators so was quite an easy transaction.