OREANDA-NEWS. October 13, 2010. The main operating subsidiary of Globaltrans, Russia’s leading private freight rail transportation group, will be able to fund the purchase of new railcars as part of a rolling stock renewal drive with the help of a seven-year, fixed-interest senior loan of 650 million roubles from the EBRD, reported the press-centre of EBRD.

The borrower is OJSC New Forwarding Company (NPK), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Globaltrans Investment Plc, a Cyprus-registered holding company which consolidates the freight rail transportation business of Russia’s N-Trans group. In 2008, the EBRD invested USD 49.55 million to acquire a minority stake in Globaltrans at its IPO.

NPK is planning to buy up to 5,000 rail gondola cars in 2010-2011 and this EBRD financing will fund part of those purchases.

This local currency loan is an example of how the EBRD is helping prudent Russian clients mitigate currency risk by providing long-term rouble debt matching their rouble revenues, the EBRD’s Transport Director, Sue Barrett said after the NPK loan signing.

After a drastic decline in late 2008 and early 2009 due to the global economic downturn, Russian rail transportation volumes started picking up in the second quarter of 2009. Rail transport accounted for over 40 percent of Russia’s freight movements in 2009. The figure rises to 85 percent if pipeline traffic is excluded from the calculations.

The EBRD has invested over USD 1.4 billion in 11 railways and associated projects in Russia, including this one, since the government launched a structural reform of the sector in 2001. The reform was designed to encourage private funding for the renewal of Russia’s rolling stock and the modernisation of its railway operations.

Russia, which has the world’s second largest railway network after the United States, is estimated to need between 400,000 and 780,000 new railcars over the next 10 years.  Private ownership of the railcar fleet stands currently above 40% and is due to rise to around 50 percent, according to the railway sector’s medium to long-term strategies.

No other financial details of the NPK transaction were disclosed.