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Sale and Lease Back of used fleet of 109 locomotives and 4.000+ used railcars

As part of this transaction Lineas entered into a Sale and Lease back transaction (SALB) with Beacon Rail for 109 T77 locomotives and with Ermewa for approximately 4000 railcars. The transactions enables Lineas to optimize their financial structure, to strengthen its financial buffers in order to further invest into its European growth strategy.

Client's profile

Lineas is the largest private rail freight operator in Europe and is currently owned by Argos, a private equity firm. Lineas employs over 2100 staff and has an annual turnover of €500 million. Headquartered in Brussels it also has operations in France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Spain, and coordinates operations throughout Europe.

Apex Rail acted as exclusive financial advisor to Lineas from the initial market sounding until financial close of both transactions taking place in parallel. Our assignment was to structure both SLBs to create a competitive environment which
1) generated an attractive sales price for the assets against competitive lease rates,
2) allowed Lineas to maintain long term control over its strategic assets and
3) which to continue full utilization of Lineas maintenance and ECM capacity.

Chris Forster

Managing Director in Apex Rail