Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Bombardier wins rail order in Switzerland

Bombardier Inc. said its rail subsidiary, in partnership with Germany's Siemens, has won a $277 million US order for rail cars from the federal railway in Switzerland.

On Tuesday, Berlin-based Bombardier Transportation and Siemens Transportation Systems announced a deal with the Swiss railway, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen, to build 121 double-decker rail cars for delivery starting in late 2010.

Bombardier, which will undertake the final assembly of the cars at its Swiss manufacturing facility, will net $98 million US in revenue from the order while Siemens, which will build the car bodies, expects to gain $179 million.

The deal represents Bombardier Transportation's fourth major rail order since the end of July.

In August, the rail arm of Bombardier, which represented 45 per cent of the parent company's total revenue last year, announced the sale of $138 million US worth of light rail cars to Turkey. The firm is to supply 30 vehicles starting in 2010 with an option to build another 28 cars.

In the same month, Bombardier Transportation inked two other agreements, one to sell 26 cars to New Jersey's transportation authority worth $262 million US and another to build 20 cars for Montreal's metropolitan railway, which will gain Bombardier $223 million US in additional revenue.

Bombardier wins rail order in SwitzerlandThree-month stock chart for Bombardier

The recent announcements are especially important since the company, which has been plagued by slowing growth in its high-profile airplane business, plans to release its second-quarter earnings on Thursday.

For the first three months of the fiscal year ended April 30, 2008, revenue from Bombardier's aircraft division grew by five per cent while sale for its rail segment jumped 41 per cent.



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