Acquisition Of Carbo Rail By VTG Complete

Under a transaction signed in February 2020 and now approved by the relevant antitrust authorities, VTG Rail Logistics GmbH has acquired a majority stake in Slovakian railway operator Carbo Rail. With immediate effect, the Hamburg-based group has thus taken full charge of Carbo Rail’s strategic development and operational management. Carbo Rail will be integrated in VTG’s Retrack railway company and will in future operate under the name Retrack Slovakia. “Its operating licenses for Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary make Carbo Rail a sensible complement to our Retrack network that sustainably reinforces our presence in Central and Eastern Europe,” says Günther J. Ferk, Head of VTG Rail Logistics Europe.

VTG’s Retrack network establishes logistical links between Europe’s key business and industrial hubs, enabling single wagons, groups of wagons and entire block trains to be tracked and traced. In 2007, an alternative concept to the national railway’s single wagon system was devised within the context of an EU project - what emerged was Retrack. Multiple railway companies joined forces with the aim of simplifying single wagon transport and offering customers a new cross-border European portfolio with a reliable running schedule.

This system was initially developed by Transpetrol GmbH Internationale Eisenbahnspedition, which consequently was merged with VTG Rail Logistics Deutschland. In 2014, after several partners had withdrawn from Retrack, VTG decided to take control of the project. True to the VTG motto "make rail easy", Retrack offers its customers individually scalable and efficient transport services.