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.

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, Deutsche Bahn Finance GmbH (DB Finance).

The funds are passed on to the Group companies as short-term credit lines, which can be utilized as part of cash pooling on internal current accounts and/or through fixed short-term credit, or in the form of long-term loans at risk-adjusted conditions. Further advantages of this concept arise from the consolidation of our know-how, realized synergy effects and minimized refinancing costs.

• DB Group has access to a European debt issuance program (EDIP) for long-term debt financing, the volume of which increased in 2021. Ten senior bonds were issued under the EDIP in 2021 (total volume:€ 4.9 billion) and five senior bonds were redeemed (total volume€ 1.8 billion). As of December 31, 2021, the utilization rate decreased slightly to about 75% (as of December 31, 2020: about 78%) as a result of the program volume increasing.
• An Australian debt issuance program (Kangaroo Program) is also available, but was not used for new issues in 2021. As no senior bonds were due for redemption, the utilization rate as of December 31, 2021 remained unchanged at about 28%.
• In the area of short-term debt financing, we still have a multi-currency commercial paper program available to us. As of December 31, 2021, the program was not in use (utilization rate as of December 31, 2020: ‒%).
• As of December 31, 2021, we also had guaranteed credit facilities with a residual term of up to two years (unchanged at€ 2.0 billion). In the previous year, we had agreed short-term credit lines for the interim financing of the measures planned by the Federal Government to partially offset losses associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, of which€ 0.5 billion was still pending as of December 31, 2021 (as of December 31, 2020:€ 2.9 billion). As of December 31, 2021, we continued to have an additional guaranteed unutilized credit facility (€ 0.1 billion).
• In addition, as of December 31, 2021, we were able to rely on credit lines of€ 2.5 billion for the operating business (as of December 31, 2020:€ 2.6 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.