The steel group voestalpine, which is suffering as a supplier from the sluggish automotive market, has now further strengthened its rail division – with a purchase in France as well as a new production facility and a stake in China. “The train has recently shown itself to be crisis-proof, so we want to expand it,” said company spokesman Peter Felsbach to APA.
The international production capacities in this area have now been increased somewhat. Increasing urbanization, especially in Asia, as well as European efforts to protect the climate “promise solid market forecasts for the rail sector in the years to come,” voestalpine says.
Near Paris, voestalpine Railway Systems acquired the switch plant SEI.L (Societe d’Equipement Industriel. Lietaert) and, according to its own statements, positions itself as “an essential supplier for the state-owned French railway operator SNCF”. “The French railways will invest extensively in their infrastructure over the next ten years.” As of now, we can serve this growing need for points as a local producer, “said the voestalpine board member Franz Kainersdorfer. With 30,000 kilometers of track, the French rail network is the second largest in Europe.
In China, the Linzer Group has been active in the rail sector as part of a joint venture with CNTT (Chinese Turnout Technologies) since 2007 and is one of the top 3 suppliers for the national high-speed network. This is to be expanded from the current 30,000 to 50,000 kilometers in the next few years. With the participation in Sanjia Turnouts, a manufacturer of turnout systems in central China, Voest now wants to serve “the booming local transport sector”. Sanjia employs approximately 150 people in its Ruzhou plant.
“The Chinese government plans to build more than 100 new trams and subways in cities with over a million inhabitants – with our second joint venture, we now have even better access to these projects,” said Kainersdorfer.
With the wholly-owned subsidiary Signaling China, voestalpine also founded its “first local production and development location” for digital switch monitoring. It was initially a sales company located at an existing location, it was said on APA request.
Voestalpine Railway Systems also participated in an Argentine turnout assembly plant through its Spanish subsidiary JEZ. The company called Sistemas Ferroviarios Argentinos (SRL) near Buenos Aires is expected to significantly increase Voest’s competitiveness in Argentina. “The regional manufacturing share and optimized sales opportunities should contribute to this.”
The Railway Systems division belongs to the Metal Engineering Division of the voestalpine Group and, according to the company, is the global market leader for complete rail infrastructure systems including rails, switches and digital signaling technology. In the past financial year 2019/20 (at the end of March), Voest’s rail business with around 7,000 employees (1,500 of them in Austria) at around 70 production and sales locations worldwide achieved unchanged sales of EUR 1.4 billion compared to the previous year – of EUR 12.7 billion in the entire group.
“Even in the currently challenging economic environment, the rail infrastructure sector is showing stable development,” emphasized voestalpine boss Herbert Eibensteiner. The latest company acquisitions are “an important step in order to be optimally positioned in this market in the future and to produce as close as possible to our customers”. At the same time, the group wants to “continue to consistently push ahead with innovations for the digitalization of the railway”.
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