Rome, 31 March 2020
2019 was the best year in the history of the Ferrovie dello Stato Group with revenues of over €12 billion and €584 million in net profit, without extraordinary transactions. For the second year in a row, we improved all our financial targets, pursuing growth in recurring revenues and cost efficiency”, underlined Gianfranco Battisti, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of FS Italiane after the Board of Directors meeting for the approval of the Annual Financial Report, including the consolidated financial statements of the Group as of 31st December 2019.
The FS Italiane Group technical investments totalled €8.1 billion in 2019, with a robust increase of the investment rate over the second half of 2019. FS Italiane confirms its position as the leading Italian industrial group in terms investments in Italy (up 8.4% from 2018), significantly contributing to the country’s growth prospect with the development of the transport, infrastructure and the logistics sectors.
“We are guided by our strong 2019 - 2023 Industrial Plan and the principles of sustainability: with a distributed economic value of €10.2 billion, a 1.4% contribution to Italian GDP and lower emissions of 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere over the past year. We achieved these results by putting people at the core of our industrial strategy, and with the determination to improve our business in Italy and around the world”.
“In this difficult beginning of 2020 - continued Battisti - the FS Italiane Group has launched several initiatives to support the country and is helping to address the COVID-19 coronavirus health emergency, while ready to restart with an extraordinary plan to accelerate investment in rail and road infrastructure for over €20 billion by 2020.
FS Italiane is preparing for the post-pandemic phase with strategies to be adapted to the changes in the way we travel, which will be very different from those of the past. We have developed innovative preventive measures to make passenger health safety a permanent part of travelling”, continued Battisti.
“It is very important to take immediate steps to identify initiatives to analyse certain dynamics, such as consumer behaviour in their travel patterns, reviewing the customer experience in travel, and making better use of digital channels in order to return to a normal functioning of the society and the economy with sustainable growth, integrating green transition and digital transformation”.