Bahrain investment firm Arcapita has announced the sale of Freightliner Group, an international rail freight operator, to Genesee & Wyoming, a US-based international owner and operator of short line and regional freight railroads.

Consideration for 100 per cent of the shares was approximately $800 million and the assumption of liabilities. Freightliner management will continue to hold an approximate 5 per cent ownership interest post sale.

Headquartered in London and with over 2,500 employees, Freightliner is a leading UK rail logistics company, moving containers and heavy goods between ports and inland distribution hubs.

Freightliner has four main operating subsidiaries: Freightliner Intermodal, the largest inland hauler of maritime containers in the UK; Freightliner Heavy Haul, transporting coal, aggregates, cement and petroleum; Freightliner International, currently operating in Poland and Australia, and in several other European countries through its subsidiary ERS Railways; and Freightliner Maintenance, the company’s in-house provider of fuelling and maintenance services.

Martin Tan, Arcapita’s chief investment officer, said: "Since Arcapita’s acquisition of Freightliner in 2008, the company has grown its revenues by 87 per cent and EBITDA by approximately 70 per cent, despite the slow European economic recovery following the global financial crisis.”

“The management team, working with the Freightliner board, have transformed Freightliner into a global rail business, by extending operations to the Middle East, Australia and across continental Europe, completing accretive add-on acquisitions while growing the core UK business," Tan noted.

Atif A Abdulmalik, Arcapita’s chief executive officer, said: “We are very pleased that the investment in Freightliner has resulted in a profitable outcome for our investors. Arcapita’s European private equity investment and portfolio management teams have supported Freightliner’s highly-professional management team and significantly enhanced the company’s growth.”

“The sale of Freightliner follows a series of other successful exits achieved in the US and the Middle East in recent months. We continue to focus on delivering a number of other significant exits within our global investment portfolio in the near term while also working on closing new investment opportunities in the GCC region, US and Asia,” he added.- TradeArabia News Service