Financial management system

In addition to aiming for a sustained rise in enterprise value, DB Group’s financial management focuses on maintaining a capital structure that will ensure excellent credit ratings. The key figure used for this purpose, debt coverage, is described in key economic performance indicators.

DB AG contains DB Group’s Treasury center. Before obtaining funds from external sources, we first conduct intra-­Group financing transactions. When borrowing external funds, DB AG takes out short-term loans in its own name, whereas long-term capital is generally obtained through the Groupʼs financing company, DB Finance.

The funds are passed on to the Group companies through short-term credit lines or in the form of long-term loans. Further advantages of this concept arise from the consolidation of our know-how, realized synergy effects and minimized refinancing costs.

• We have access to a European debt issuance program (EDIP) for long-term debt financing. Six senior bonds were issued under the EDIP in the year under review (total volume: about € 1.9 billion). In contrast, senior bonds with a total volume of € 1.9 billion were redeemed. As a result, the utilization rate increased slightly to about
  81% as of December 31, 2019 (as of December 31, 2018: about 78%).
• We also have an Australian debt issuance program (Kangaroo Program). A senior bond was issued under this program (volume: AUD 115 million/€ 71 million). The utilization rate increased as a result to about 24% as of December 31, 2019 (as of December 31, 2018: about 20%).
• In the area of short-term debt financing, we still have a multi-currency commercial paper program available to us. As of December 31, 2019, the program was utilized with six USD issues with a maturity term of a few days. The utilization rate increased as a result to about 30% as of December 31, 2019 (as of December 31, 2018: –).
• As of December 31, 2019 we also had guaranteed unutilized credit facilities with residual maturities of between 1.0 and 2.0 years, and continue to have another guaranteed unutilized credit facility of € 0.1 billion.
• In addition, as of December 31, 2019, we were able to rely on credit lines of € 2.7 billion for the operating business (as of December 31, 2018: € 2.5 billion). These credit lines are made available to our subsidiaries around the world and include provisions for financing working capital as well as sureties for payment.
• In order to strengthen the balance sheet structure, we also issued hybrid bond for the first time in the year under review via DB finance.

In the year under review, the leasing volume increased mainly as a result of the IFRS 16 effect.

In order to finance regional rail passenger transport vehicles, we entered into a sale and leaseback agreement for 18 new electric multiple units from Stadler for the East SH e-network. The lease contract commences on December 11, 2022 and has an imputed term of 30 years. DB Regional is the lessee for the first transport contract period of at least 13 years with a nominal leasing volume of € 104 million. The financing is hedged by the Federal state of Schleswig-Holstein through a capital service guarantee, a reuse guarantee and a transfer of receivables rather than a repayment guarantee, including a waiver of objection.

Bond issues