My ideas for a British company to compete in Europe

[tbtc]

Arriva Trains UK (includes ATW, XC, CH franchises; not sure about LOROL or GC) lost €29m (EBIT) according to the 2011 DB annual report.
Arriva as a whole (includes UK buses and the European ops) made €160m profit on the same basis.
http://www1.deutschebahn.com/ecm2-db-en/ar_2011/gmp/units/passenger_transport/dbarriva.html

So DB is subsidising its UK franchises rather than the other way round.
The few words of comment show ATW performance as "satisfactory" but XC and Chiltern as "weak".
I doubt if DB are happy with their UK rail investment.

Thanks for confirming - so not only are the Germans subsidising the Greek economy, they are also picking up the tab for some loss making train franchises in the UK? Danke!

 

[northwichcat]

Thanks for confirming - so not only are the Germans subsidising the Greek economy, they are also picking up the tab for some loss making train franchises in the UK? Danke!

No they're not. The profits from Arriva Bus UK are almost 5 times the losses from Arriva Trains UK, so the Germans are making a very nice profit off Arriva UK even though the trains aren't going as well as they would like.

 

[tbtc]

No they're not. The profits from Arriva Bus UK are almost 5 times the losses from Arriva Trains UK, so the Germans are making a very nice profit off Arriva UK even though the trains aren't going as well as they would like.

You said that:

we are losing money on the railways and helping fund the French and German states in the process

...but the point I'm making is that the Germans are losing money on UK railways too! Which kind of ruins the argument that the UK should make money from running trains overseas.

The fact that the UK bus market is profitable doesn't change this.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Thanks for confirming - so not only are the Germans subsidising the Greek economy, they are also picking up the tab for some loss making train franchises in the UK? Danke!

I've found a more recent DB Interim Report for Jan-June 2012 here:
http://www1.deutschebahn.com/file/2749864/data/2012_zb_dbkonzern_en.pdf

Arriva is on p25.
Arriva UK Trains is now in profit to the tune of €19m for the first half.

I posted this earlier today but it seems to have vanished.