The revenues of Romanian railways operator CFR SA rose by 3.5 percent in the first half of this year, to some EUR 263 million, while the network traffic decreased by 5 percent during this period, according to a recent announcement.

CFR, which runs the railways network in Romania, currently works with 25 railway operators, 21 freight and four for passengers. For access to railway infrastructure, railway operators pay the infrastructure charge (TUI) and for the services and facilities required for railway infrastructure they pay private rent or charges, as applicable.

"There is an improvement in operating results, given that because of the European crisis, the decline in passenger and freight traffic, a strong trend which started in 2008, is also visible in Romania. These are the conditions, after all CFR is the infrastructure manager. There is a decrease of about 5 percent in the traffic on the network, and our total revenues have increased by 3.5 percent,” said George Micu, general manager of CFR SA.

The company's operating income rose by 7.2 percent to some EUR 202 million. The company's EBITDA increased by 36 percent in the period to some EUR 40 million.

The company's arrears were down to half during this period, to some EUR 240 million, while its debt increased by 5.2 percent, to some EUR 318 million.

"From the point of view of operating results what happened is not a wonder, yet the results show that the efficiency of rail infrastructure in Romania can substantially improve, " said Sorin Mîndruţescu, Chairman of CFR SA.

He added that, given the diminishing traffic, the management tried to boost revenues by tapping into other types of income, such as the retail spaces within the railway infrastructure or the stock market sales of crap resulting from repairs.

The new management at CFR SA, in place since spring this year, decided to create a marketing department, while also reorganizing and streamlining the department in charge of EU funding. Another new measure was to create a special taxi area at the main railway station Gara de Nord, similarly to the one at the Bucharest Otopeni airport, to prevent the activity of illegal taxis which overcharge passengers.

Earlier in April, CFR appointed a new general manager, Romanian George Micu, a former manager of sister company CFR Marfa – Freight, after the Cypriot Dimitris Sophocleous resigned following the dismissal of his management plan by the company's board. Micu joined CFR Marfa in 2009 and in 2010 he became a GM.

The current board was also named mid-April. Peter Weiss, one of the board members named then, later on stepped down as was replaced by Sebastian Tcaciuc, investment director with Advent International. The other board members are Sorin Mîndruţescu – the chairman of the board and CEO of Oracle Romania, George Micu - the company's general manager, Florian Raimund Kubinschi and Enache Jiru, both members of the former CFR SA board.

editor@romania-insider.com