The state-owned company has billions in debt.
(Photo: IMAGO/Arnulf Hettrich)
Berlin After a brief recovery in 2022, Deutsche Bahn expects to be back in the red again this year. Last year, the bottom line loss was limited to around 300 million euros, as shown by group figures that were available to the Reuters news agency on Wednesday. In 2021 it was still 911 million euros. Before paying taxes and interest for the high debts, the company even posted an operating profit of 1.3 billion euros.
In 2023, however, the group loss will increase again to around two billion euros. There should be an improvement in the years to come. But that’s not enough to finance the investments: According to the documents, the debt of around 33 billion euros will climb to 41.5 billion euros this year. A railway spokeswoman did not want to comment on this and referred to the balance sheet press conference on Thursday.
The fact that the group closed 2022 with a comparatively small minus is primarily due to the international logistics subsidiary Schenker. It made a record profit of over two billion euros, as freight rates had risen rapidly as a result of the corona crisis. Recently, however, the boom had flattened out, so that according to the documents, Schenker’s profit was almost halved.
Since the ailing rail network will also record a loss of half a billion euros, the entire group will fall back into the deep red and the debt will increase accordingly.
More: Deutsche Bahn and its customers are threatened with a black year in 2023