Talgo has reported turnover of €216·6m for the first half of 2020, up 29% on the same period last year. The growth was driven by an increase in manufacturing activity, mainly high speed trains for RENFE. It recorded adjusted EBITDA of €14·5m, down from €31m, which the company said ‘reflects the extraordinary situation caused by the economic context arising from Covid-19’.
Online travel booking platform Trip.com now offers Eurostar and SNCF tickets
‘Our businesses are facing challenging market dynamics resulting from the historic decline in railcar loadings and the resulting underutilised railcars in North America’, said Trinity Industries CEO & President Jean Savage on July 22. ’Commercially, our primary focus is to maintain the utilisation of our lease fleet, then to meet customer demand for newly manufactured railcars as appropriate. Our lease fleet utilisation is holding around 95%, albeit with pricing pressure on lease rates, and our production capacity for 2020 railcar deliveries is essentially solid. The timeline for a recovery in the rail sector remains unclear as increasing Covid-19 cases in the USA potentially threaten the recent improvement in economic and rail market activity.’
Standard & Poor’s has affirmed both the FS Group’s Issuer Credit Rating at BBB and the Stand Alone Credit Profile at bbb+, the latter one notch above the overall FS rating and the sovereign one. The outlook remains negative, reflecting that on Italy.