While revenue and gross profit increased by 14% and 19% respectively compared with 2018, Ebit grew by more than 50% year-on-year.

The executive and supervisory boards will propose a dividend of €0.16 per share to the AGM on May 28, an increase of more than 30% compared with last year’s distribution.

Norway: Infrastructure manager Bane Nor’s property subsidiary Eiendom achieved a pre-tax profit of NKr 1.1bn ($US 107m) in 2019, a NKr 317m decrease from 2018, due to extraordinary results in 2018 and the accrual of sales gains.

“I am very pleased with the financial results in 2019, and it was also a very productive year for us,” says Bane Nor CEO, Mr Jon-Erik Lunøe. “Of many highlights from the year, I would like to mention that we opened two new, great hotels, one at Drammen station and one at Porsgrunn station. At Kvaleberg in Stavanger, we completed a new, modern train workshop, and in our many wholly and partly-owned housing projects, we completed 310 homes.”

Germany: Knorr-Bremse reported strong preliminary full-year 2019 results, with full-year revenue increasing by 4.8% to €6.9bn, up from €6.6bn in 2018. Sales from the Rail Vehicle Systems (RVS) division grew by 5.6% to €3.6bn, up from €3.4bn in 2018, while Commercial Vehicle Systems (CVS) division sales grew by 3.8% to €3.2bn, up from €3.1bn in 2018.

Orders totalled €7bn, with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.02, expanding Knorr-Bremse’s order intake by 0.9%. The company’s order book reached a new peak of €4.6bn at the end of 2019, an increase of 2.8% from €4.5bn at the end of 2018.

Group Ebit for 2019 was €1bn, up 9.3% from €972m in 2018, with an Ebit margin of 15.3%.

The Netherlands: Infrastructure manager ProRail will become an independent administrative body (ZBO) from January 1 2021, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management has announced.

The change from a company to a ZBO will simplify ProRail’s management system, and will not affect passengers and operators. ProRail staff will retain their own collective labour agreement and working conditions.

Slovakia: National operator ZSSK’s inter-city services, which are run on a commercial basis between Bratislava, Žilina and Košice, carried 8,118,000 passengers in 2019.

Services operated with an occupancy rate of 75.9%, with an average delay per train of around three minutes.

The IC service had an Ebitda of €3.2m, with a final positive result of €206,000.