On 18 May 2017, Greenbrier Companies, Inc. and Astra Rail Management GmbH announced that planned merger to create Greenbrier-Astra Rail has received all required regulatory approvals from relevant European antitrust officials.
The transaction will be completed on June 1, 2017 and combines the operations of Greenbrier Europe and Astra Rail to create an end-to-end, Europe-based freight railcar manufacturing, engineering and repair business.
With principal operations in Poland and Romania and headquarters in the Netherlands, Greenbrier-Astra Rail will have nearly 4,000 employees and 6 production facilities across Europe.
In October 2016, Greenbrier entered into an agreement with Astra Rail Management GmbH to form a new company, Greenbrier-Astra Rail, which will manufacture freight rail cars and will offer engineering and repair services. According to the announcement (October 2016), the Greenbrier-Astra Rail will be controlled by Greenbrier with an approximate 75% interest.
The combined enterprise will be formed between Greenbrier’s European operations headquartered in Swidnica, Poland and Astra Rail based in Germany and Arad, Romania. Greenbrier-Astra Rail will offer manufacturing and service capability in Europe with greater scale and efficiency for current customers. It also provides the opportunity to pursue growth in railcar markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations and Eurasia. As partial consideration for its majority interest, Greenbrier will pay Astra Rail a total value of EUR 60 million (EUR 30 million at closing and EUR 30 million 12 months after closing).
The US Greenbrier company designs, builds and markets freight railcars in North America, Latin America and Europe. It owns a lease fleet of over 8,000 railcars and performs management services for over 266,000 railcars.
With 130 years of experience, Astra Rail Industries has a capacity of 5000 wagons per year, being considered among the biggest freight car manufacturing capacity in Europe. Astra Rail business areas involve the development, design and testing, freight car and bogie production, modernization, revision and repair, including steel components and mechanical processing.
Within Astra‘s 350.000 m2 production area, the company owns an in-house testing facility for benches teste to verify the dynamic and static strength, brake tests and tests for derailment in curves.
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