The integration of AnsaldoBreda into Hitachi under the HRI brand has been a key focus for Hitachi over the last year. Given its troubled recent history, Dormer is pleased with the progress AnsaldoBreda has made in restoring its business, a process which he points out was already underway before the takeover by Hitachi.
“When we looked at AnsaldoBreda four years ago we decided that it wasn’t right for Hitachi,” Dormer explains. “There were two reasons for this. One was that AnsaldoBreda was a bit of a mess and secondly, I don’t think Hitachi Rail was strong enough from a leadership point of view in Europe at that time. However, when we went back two years ago and had another look, we saw quite a transformation in the business. They still had their legacy problems - IC4 in Denmark and V250 in Belgium and the Netherlands were disastrous projects - but they were building ETR 1000 [high-speed trains] for Trenitalia in a very successful joint venture with Bombardier.”