British government to sell off Eurostar stake

Britain said today it intends to sell off its 40-per cent stake in Eurostar, the high-speed rail service connecting London with Paris and Brussels, as part of a 20-billion pounds privatisation drive.
The move is part of a new national infrastructure plan, which sets out how the British government intends to privatise the equivalent of USD 32 billion or 24.1 billion euros of financial and corporate assets by 2020.
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government expects to reap hundreds of millions of pounds from selling its stake in the cross-channel rail operator.
Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander said the plan was "great news" because "after years of neglect, the UK's energy, road, rail, flood defence, communications and water infrastructure needs renewal".

Alexander, a Liberal Democrat, added that no final decisions had been made over any of the privatisations plans but that Eurostar "is very much on our list for consideration".
He told Sky News, "If there is assets that the government doesn't need to own and we can release vital resources that could go to improving infrastructure elsewhere in the country, then that is a good decision to make."

If Britain does dispose of its Eurostar holding, it could come at a crucial time in the cross-Channel service's development as it prepares to face up to increased competition within a few years.

Ministers in the coalition had in the past maintained that the Eurostar stake would be retained.
The train service is currently 55-per cent owned by French rail operator SNCF with the British government holding 40 per cent and Belgian train operator SNCB the remaining five per cent.
Marc Fressoz, a French author who specialises in transport, said it was a "good time" to sell.
"Eurostar has reached maturity on the market. It has seen off air travel on the Paris-London and Brussels-London routes," he told AFP.
He predicted that SNCF or SNCB could be tempted to increase their share.
But if a pension fund or another private investor comes in, Eurostar could face demands to increase its short-term profitability in a way that state investors do not, Fressoz said.

Eurostar is in rude health, having recorded operating profits of 91 million pounds last year -- boosted by the London Olympics -- compared with 20.8 million in 2011, and it saw passenger numbers rise two per cent to 9.9 million in the same period.