Would it be realistic to renationalise the railways? - BBC News Magazine

[whole diary]

[ellendune]

Ah so this is yet another company trying make its profits in countries where it is more advantageous. 

[stuving]

Ah so this is yet another company trying make its profits in countries where it is more advantageous. 

Yes, though since this business is all about financing, and companies lending each other lots of money, the transactions are not entirely artificial ones. The interest payments may be  inflated, through. I can't see that a company ought to use some tax advantages, like the ones encouraging capital investment and allowing tax to be deferred and losses offset, but not others, because the government that wrote them did so for another reason. I do wonder why governments ( not just here) have been so slow to curb these "side-effects", though a start has now been made.

To correct a couple of points: Eversholt Investments Ltd. is itself the Irish company owned by one in Luxembourg, and apart from a couple of financing companies the rest of the group - the companies that own stuff - are English. The ^50M dividend was in addition to the ^49M interest going to the shareholders, so it was paid out the the ^55M loss ... not the obvious way to run a company, is it? 

They do pay tax, but mostly in Ireland. There is an analysis of this, but I don't think it tells you much as it relates to the profit as declared and this is lower than it presumably should be. They paid very little this year, but over ^8M last year when the profit was ^53M.

[Tim]

After refurbishment no longer works, as should happen soon with Pacers, you can flog them to some emerging country overseas, where they will seem ultra-modern.

The pacer owner ROSCOs^» (Rolling Stock Owning Company - about) have already produced their glossy brochures to show that their 'assets' can be refreshed yet again to make them Equality Act and RVAR compliant. Sending them overseas is too much like hard work when UK^▸ (United Kingdom) PLC is still prepared to stump up for, and put up with, them.

I'd not be putting money on all the Class 14x fleet being retired from UK service by 31st December 2019.

Not forgetting of course that even if they aren't all modified by that date the Secretary of State has derogation powers to override EA and RVAR legislation if needs must...

Agree with all of that and would add that ROSCOs are not at all in the business of "flogging" their assets.  Why would they sell something for a one off payment when they can lease it out for an on-going return.  I expect that even when the stock is truly life expired, the ROSCOs would rather sell it to the scrap man than to someone who might put it to commercial use because that would mean competition in the provision of stock and potentially downward pressure on lease charges. 

[grahame]

Agree with all of that and would add that ROSCOs^» (Rolling Stock Owning Company - about) are not at all in the business of "flogging" their assets.  Why would they sell something for a one off payment when they can lease it out for an on-going return. 

HSBC Rail sold (?)six class 483 2 car units to South West Trains in 2007, but then I suspect that we could find an exception to every rule.  Even in that rather odd case, I wondered "why"; said to be because of the embarrassment of the profit they were making, but I find that hard to believe.  More likely to get rid of some oddballs from their books, and the heavy maintenance issues too.