"We want to grow together with our customers"
Interview with Thomas Riedler, Chief Sales Officer of ELL Austria GmbH
Since 2014, ELL Austria GmbH, meaning European Locomotive Leasing, has taken the entire complexity out of the locomotive asset for its customers. In an interview with Wirtschaftsforum, Chief Sales Officer Thomas Riedler discussed the rapid growth of the last decade, the future of rail mobility, and the 'Virtuous Circle', with which the company can guarantee maximum profitability and an unprecedented level of availability.
Wirtschaftsforum: Mr. Riedler, with its fleet of 250 locomotives, ELL Austria supports its clients throughout Europe as a leasing specialist — what services are at the core of your activity?
Thomas Riedler: With the Vectron, we offer the most modern and flexible locomotive currently available on the European market. In addition to financing and all technical aspects such as all repair, maintenance, and servicing work, which we implement with our in-house technicians and over 40 contractual partners throughout Europe, our service portfolio goes well beyond the usual wet-lease concept: We aim to take the entire complexity surrounding the asset locomotive off our clients' shoulders, allowing them to fully concentrate on the challenges of their day-to-day business. Thus, we see ourselves as a full-service provider for all railway companies engaged in passenger and freight transport from the Black Sea to Rotterdam, from Italy to Scandinavia, and from the Polish-Ukrainian to the German-French border.
Wirtschaftsforum: Does the slogan "rail over road" promise further growth potential for your company, as many political decision-makers suggest?
Thomas Riedler: At the end of the day, such statements are all too often mere lip service with far too little actual substance. A much more consistent expansion of the rail network would be indispensable, especially in light of the declared climate goals under the Green Deal, because with the current political commitment these are simply not realistically achievable. With our portfolio of cutting-edge electric locomotives with the highest efficiency, we see ourselves as an essential part of the solution. The market has recognized this for a long time: In our last financing round with a volume of 250 million EUR, we were four times oversubscribed – although we only spoke to banks with whom we had already been in a long-standing business relationship at that time.
Wirtschaftsforum: How do you view the current economic situation and the outlook for the coming years?
Thomas Riedler: For our company, the situation is somewhat paradoxical at the moment: Overall, the development in our market is declining, dramatically so for some market players. Some state railways have recently experienced volume decreases of up to 20%. In contrast, private railway transport companies have been able to gain significant market shares. ELL Austria has greatly benefited from this development, as despite the currently difficult economic situation, the demand for locomotives remains extremely high – this is driven particularly by technological advancements: The typical lifespan of a locomotive is about 40 years. However, many of the facilities currently in use in the market have been running on the tracks for over 30 years. Due to progressively worsening performance and stricter regulatory conditions, many of them will need to be replaced in the near future, as a retrofit would be technologically and economically unreasonable. In this fact, we see enormous growth potential for our company, which will certainly continue to increase once the economy picks up again.
Wirtschaftsforum: In the ten years of its existence, ELL Austria has experienced rapid growth – what do you see as the central reasons for this ongoing success story?
Thomas Riedler: Everything we do is aimed at maximizing customer benefit – and that inevitably underpins our entire business model. To achieve this goal, we must ensure the highest possible availability of our locomotives. We have also managed to sustain this: Our availability rate is currently well over 98% and is moving strongly towards 99% – these are figures that our industry had not known until now. We were only able to achieve this by designing our structures and processes as efficiently as possible – thereby achieving maximum profitability, with which we have gained the enduring trust of our financially strong owners, Axa and Crédit Agricole. Thus, we have successfully established a 'Virtuous Circle,' where each component mutually reinforces the others. To maintain this exceptional service quality permanently, we will be investing not only in more locomotives over the next few years but also in the training of our staff, appropriate testing equipment, and the further development of our business relationships with our workshop partners. With this, we want to ensure the shortest delivery times within Europe regardless of the manufacturer – and continue to grow together with our customers.