Veolia Transdev

Transdev, formerly Veolia Transdev, is a French-based international private-sector company which operates public transport. It has operations in 17 countries and territories as of November 2020.

History

The group was formed by the merger of Veolia Transport and Transdev on 3 April 2011. Veolia Environnement and Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC) had 50% shareholdings. It was initially planned for the company to be sold by an initial public offering, potentially accompanied by a rebranding, within 12 months of the merger.

On 6 December 2011, Veolia Environment, seeking to reduce debt and focus on its core businesses of water, waste and energy, announced a €5 bn divestment program over 2012/13 that would include a sale of its share in Veolia Transdev within two years. At the time of the announcement, Veolia Transdev declared its intention to concentrate on four main markets (France, the Netherlands, Germany, United States), to develop UK, Asia and Australia and to divest from other countries and other activities amounting to about 9-10% of global revenue in 2012/13. After this announcement, the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, for its part, officially reiterated its commitment to Veolia Transdev and its continued support as a shareholder to the group's development.

In early 2012, it was reported that Cube Infrastructure, a fund controlled by the French bank Natixis (Groupe BPCE), was likely to acquire about half of Veolia's stake in Transdev. The Caisse des Dépôts would take over the other half. This was later changed in October 2012 to Caisse des Dépôts acquiring 10% of the shares from Veolia. This however was not implemented. Following the sale of Transdev subsidiary SNCM in late 2015, CDC and Veolia continued talks about selling Veolia's stake in the joint venture. In December 2016, CDC finally bought 20% shares from Veolia. As a result, Veolia's share became 30% while CDC's share became 70%.

In October 2018, Veolia announced its intention to sell its remaining 30% shareholding to the Rethmann Group. The transaction was completed in January 2019, with Rethmann increasing its shareholding to 34% by adding its Rhenus Veniro subsidiary to the Transdev portfolio.Veolia out of transport as Rethmann acquires Transdev stake
'' Railway Gazette International'' 11 January 2019

Operational history

At the time of merger, Transdev operated in the following 27 countries. In 2014, the operations at the time were organised into seven geographical areas (struckthrough countries' operations have already ceased):
*France
*Benelux (Netherlands, Belgium)
*North America (USA, Canada)
*Germany and Central Europe (Croatia, Poland, Czech Republic, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia)
*The UK and Northern Europe (Finland, Ireland, Sweden)
*Asia and the Pacific (Australia, China, South Korea, India, New Zealand)
*Southern Europe and the rest of the world (Chile, Colombia, Israel, Morocco, Portugal, Spain)

In 2013 CEO Jérôme Gallot confirmed Veolia Transdev would consolidate its operations down to 17 countries."Veolia Transdev rebranded and repositioned"
''Bus & Coach Australasia'' July 3, 2013 As of November 2020, Transdev operates in 17 countries spanning across five continents. The list only counts sovereign countries and therefore excludes New Caledonia (France). Jersey, a British Crown dependency and Hong Kong (China), were previously also not counted for the same reason. Veolia Transdev (and Transdev) operated MyBus operations until 2012 and Hong Kong Tramways until 2020 respectively.

Additionally, Transdev is a shareholder of Transamo, a transport engineering and consultancy firm in Europe that was inherited from the old Transdev. It specialises in the project management of public transport projects in France. Société de Transports intercommunaux de Bruxelles (STIB) is the other major shareholder of Transamo.

Europe

Czech Republic

In December 2018, Transdev commenced operating a 10-year contract in the Moravian-Silesian Region serving Bruntál, Krnov, Nový Jičín and Rýmařov. Transdev had previously operated buses in the Czech Republic until they were sold to Arriva