The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the German affiliate of UniCredit, HypoVereinsbank, are providing credit lines totalling up to more than EUR 2 billion to Deutsche Bahn for the procurement of 90 new S-Bahn trains for Munich. DB will receive the financing for the new vehicles from Bayerische Eisenbahngesellschaft (BEG), which plans, finances and controls the regional and S-Bahn traffic in Bavaria on behalf of the Bavarian Ministry of Transport.
“We are delighted to support the modernisation of public transport in the metropolitan Munich area. Appealing regional transport solutions are key to fostering the transition to climate-friendly mobility by encouraging commuters to switch from road to rail,” the EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle, who is responsible for financing in Germany, said.
To finance the trains purchase, BEG selected a lessor, LHI Leasing based in Pullach near Munich, and two investors, EIB and Unicredit, in competitive tendering procedures. The Free State of Bavaria enables very favorable financing conditions through a capital service guarantee.
“The funding is one of the largest in this area. It shows what sets us apart as a bank: as a pan-European institution, we are able to offer an innovative financing solution of this size,” Jan Kupfer, Corporate Customers Director at HypoVereinsbank, said.
Under a leasing structure developed by LHI Leasing GmbH, the loans are transferred to special purpose vehicles (SPVs) and secured by a debt service guarantee from the state of Bavaria.
“The lease financing of the new Munich S-Bahn trains is perfectly in line with our purpose: supporting the expansion of sustainable mobility,” said the Head of Structured Finance/Rolling Stock at LHI Stefan Wildgruber.
The contract to deliver S-Bahn trains for Munich was signed with Siemens Mobility on August 2, 2023, that will deliver XXL trains with a capacity of 1,841passengers in each 200-metre-long vehicle. The increased capacity will allow for passenger growth in the coming decades and pave the way for the mobility transition from road traffic to rail. They are expected to enter commercial operation by the end of 2028.
All trains will be equipped with ETCS, an ATO system and a Train Integrity Monitoring System (TIMS) that will introduce interoperability to the Munich rail network which DB plans to digitalise and install the ETCS by 2030.
The transport services for the entire network of the Munich S-Bahn network are provided by DB Regio since December 2020 based on the 1st Munich S-Bahn contract concluded with BEG and is currently covering around 21 million train kilometers a year.
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