Financial management stable

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 indicators used for this purpose, redemption coverage and net debt/EBITDA are detailed in the value management section.

DB AG contains DB Group’s Treasury center. This ensures that all Group companies are able to borrow and invest funds at optimal terms and conditions. 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 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. Advantages from this concept arise from the consolidation of our know-how, realized synergy effects and minimized refinancing costs.

• A European debt issuance program (EDIP) for long-term debt financing is available. Under the EDIP, five bonds were issued in the year under review (total volume: about € 2.7 billion). Conversely, bonds with a total volume of € 1.9 billion were repaid. The utilization rate of the EDIP in this context increased slightly to 80% as of December 31, 2018 (as of December 31, 2017: 77%).
• We also have an Australian debt issuance program (Kangaroo Program). Under this program, one bond was issued and one bond from the previous year was increased (total volume: AUD 356 million (about € 0.2 billion)). The utilization rate of the Kangaroo Program increased as a result to 22% as of December 31, 2018 (as of December 31, 2017: 15%).
• In terms of short-term external financing, a multi-currency commercial paper program remains available.
• As of December 31, 2018 we also had guaranteed unutilized credit facilities with a remaining term of between 1.0 and 2.0 years and another guaranteed unutilized credit facility of more than € 0.1 billion (as of December 31, 2017: € 0.1 billion).
• In addition, we were able to rely on credit lines of € 2.5 billion for the operating business (as of December 31, 2017: € 2.2 billion). These credit lines, which are made available to our subsidiaries around the world, include provisions for financing working capital as well as sureties for payment.

No major finance lease transactions were concluded in the year under review. The finance lease volumes rose primarily as a result of taking on existing finance lease contracts for buses (€ 51 million) following the acquisition of VT-Arriva µ129, an early contract extension (€ 41 million) and a re­­classification of two rental properties as part of ex­­­­­tending a contract (€ 38 million), to € 562 million (as of De­­­cember 31, 2017: € 501 million). In contrast, financing volumes de­­creased as scheduled through repayment.

In order to finance regional rail passenger transport vehicles, we entered into a sale and leaseback agreement for 20 new multiple units from Alstom for the Ulm diesel network. The lease contract begins on December 13, 2020 and has a calculated duration up to December 10, 2044.

DB Regional is the lessee for the first transport contract period of at least 12 years with a nominal leasing volume of € 59 million. The public transport authorities are the Bayerische Eisenbahngesellschaft mbH (BEG) and the Baden-Württemberg regional government. The financing is secured through a reuse guarantee by the BEG and an assignment of receivables from the public transport authorities in the absence of fulfillment, with defense or objection waived.