Alstom has opened an Engineering & Innovation Centre at Maia near Porto which will develop digital signalling products for the Portuguese market as well as Alstom projects around the world. It has an initial team of 25 engineers and technicians, a warehouse for the storage and repair of components, and Alstom said it has ‘an ambitious growth plan’ for the site.
Railpool is to open a Polish subsidiary in Poznań on October 1, headed by Robert Nowakowski who has more than 20 years of experience in the Polish rail sector and will join the leasing company on the same date. ‘The foundation of a Railpool subsidiary in Poland is a logical continuation of our considerable activities in this market, one of the biggest and most important rail markets in Europe’, said CEO Torsten Lehnert.
Christian Kern has taken over the operational management of European Locomotive Leasing Group as Executive Chairman. He was previously a member of the shareholder committee as a representative of Credit Agricole/Predica, and has resigned as a shareholder of Blue Minds Group. Christoph Katzensteiner has stepped down from the management of ELL, which now has a fleet of more than 170 Siemens Vectron locomotives.
Knorr Bremse issued its inaugural sustainability-linked bond on the European debt capital markets on September 14. The bond has a volume of €700, tenor of five years and annual coupon of 3·25%. The the interest rate linked to the achievement of a sustainability target evaluated by ISS Corporate Solutions, and if Knorr-Bremse does not achieve the target, the interest rate will be increased by 20 bps pa until maturity. ‘We are strengthening our liquidity and refinancing, among other things, our current M&A transactions’, said CFO Frank Markus Weber. ‘As the second sustainability-linked instrument in our capital structure we further send a strong message, to continue to facilitate the integration of aspects of sustainability in all areas of the company.’
CAF Group has obtained the platinum level in the evaluation of sustainability management carried out by Ecovadis. The evaluation covers policies, activities and results in environmental matters, labour practices and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement.
Founding member Quandel Consultants has renewed its membership of the US High Speed Rail Coalition’s executive committee.
