Intermoney | The company will manufacture trains and trams for France after being awarded two new contracts worth a total of €300 million. In consortium with Alstom, the Basque group will supply 14 trains from the Coradia Polyvalent platform to the Burgundy region. The shared contract stems from agreements between the two companies following CAF’s purchase of Alstom’s Reichshoffen plant three years ago, after the French company was forced to divest itself of certain assets due to its merger with Bombardier. The order will be manufactured in Reichshofen. In addition, it will supply 38 Urbos trams to Grenoble, with an option to extend the order by nine more trams.
Assessment: Positive news for CAF, although with a limited impact given that the amount of the two new contracts represents slightly less than 2% of its portfolio. In any case, it allows it to consolidate its presence in France, one of the countries that invests most consistently in the renewal of railway rolling stock and where CAF has two production plants. So far this year, CAF’s new orders have reached €2.746 billion. In March, its order book stood at €15.603 billion (up 6%); and throughout the second quarter, CAF has continued to win major contracts (€220 million for trams in Taiwan, €220 million for buses in Berlin and €300 million for these two contracts in France), bringing its order book to a record high of around €16 billion.