Last year, NMBS-Group has made a financial setback. Their debts have increased seriously. NMBS-Group exists of NMBS-Holding, NMBS and Infrabel. The total debts of these tree entities were 2.705 billion Euros in 2009. In 2008 it still was 2.415 billion Euros.
Especially operator NMBS is facing with a strongly augment. The debts increased from 53 million Euros in 2008 to 511 million Euros in 2009. Even the result of the operator deteriorated. There is an expectation of a deficit of 285.9 million Euros. The loss could even reach 473 million Euros. Also NMBS-Holding’s debts increased a lot, last year. The third entity ‘Infrabel’ is the only one that has no debts, they even have a buffer of 0.5 milliard Euros.
The most important reason of the growth of debts is due to the reducing of NMBS’ revenues of national (-36percent), international (-12percent) and freight (-24percent) traffic. Moreover, the loans costs and the energy costs incur more and more.
In my point of view, the declining popularity of NMBS has also to do with its problem. It was a difficult period for the company: the rising delays of the train and more and more incidents, like the disaster in Halle and the derailment of a train in Deinze. Furthermore, the company had decided to not equip the Belgium intercity trains with internet. While it is possible in our neighbours.
However, the management starts searching a solution to knock down their debts. One of their ideas is reducing their offer in the summer. Another strategy is to increase the government subsidy, but therefore they need the assent of the government.
http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=DMF20100410_008
I am kind of surprised by this article. We all know that NMBS keeps raising their ticket cost over the years and still they have to cope with increasing debts.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI am in full agreement with you when you say it might have something to do with the decreasing popularity of travelling by train due to the accidents that have been happening quite a lot lately. On the other hand, more and more people aren't going to work with their car so they haven't got that many possibilities and the train is one...
I don't think the popularity has declined due to not equiping belgium intercity trains with internet since mobile internet is getting more and more popular.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI'd also like to remark that the accidents that have been happening in 2010 do not have an influence on the debts of NMBS in 2009. Off course they will certainly have an influence on the debts of 2010.