Interim Report

Chairman’s letter

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

Today we can look back with satisfaction on a successful first half year. We were not only successful in our business activities. We also made major progress in our efforts to improve the level of quality and service we provide to our customers, and we made advances in the ecological sustainability of our operations.

Due to the recovery seen in the transport, freight forwarding and logistics markets we were able to increase our revenues by 17 percent to 18.9 billion euros – on a comparable basis by 7 percent to 17.3 billion euros – while our adjusted EBIT figure rose by 34 percent to 1.1 billion euros. Developments noted at the DB Schenker business units was particularly dynamic as they more than doubled their adjusted EBIT figure in total. Furthermore, we exceeded the pre-crisis level in rail passenger transport, with DB Bahn Regional, in particular, recording successful results for the first half year. We were able to win about 70 percent of the train kilometers awarded in the fiercely competitive regional transport market.

This success did not just happen by itself. The four initiatives we launched in 2010 have driven our efforts to successively improve our core business, both fundamentally and sustainably.

Within the framework of our Customer and Quality initiative and our Capex initiative we will invest 6 billion euros in our infrastructure in the year 2011. We will bundle about 700 construction sites in 60 corridors. This will involve the renewal of more than 1,600 switches, about 2,300 kilometers of track and 2.5 million tons of ballast. The goal of these extensive measures is to increase punctuality and decrease traveling time. We also made progress in modernizing stations in numerous cities. Within the framework of our Engineering initiative we achieved a major milestone by realigning responsibilities in the area of new vehicles. In May the Federal Transport Minister presented the “ Railway Vehicle Handbook – Guidelines for Manufacturing and Certification,” which we prepared in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Transport, the Federal Railways Agency, and the railway industry. This handbook establishes the new legal foundation for the extensive procurement of vehicles that will take place in the coming years.

The ICx will be the first vehicle that we will procure on the basis of the new handbook. In May we signed the necessary contracts with Siemens for the purchase of up to 300 of this new generation of long-distance trains – a milestone of our Capex initiative and the biggest purchase of vehicles in the history of Deutsche Bahn. In addition, we also invested in regional trains and freight trains. These capital expenditures not only benefit our customers; they also benefit the environment, as the next generation of vehicles uses up to 30 percent less energy. And in addition to lower CO2 emissions, we will also reduce the level of noise. We signed an agreement with the Federal Ministry of Transport wherein we agreed to the key issues related to retrofitting all rail freight cars with low-noise brakes, which are also known as “whisper brakes.” Thereby we will reduce noise by about 50 percent.

We also scored successes with our Market initiative: we not only won numerous tenders in the regional transport sector, we also signed added important new major customers in the automotive sector for our transport and logistics business.

The good results recorded in the first half of the year are due to the untiring efforts of our employees as well as the continued trust of our customers. On behalf of the entire Management Board of Deutsche Bahn AG I would like to take this moment to express my deepest thanks to them.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Rüdiger Grube
CEO and Chairman
of the Management Board

Last modified: 28.07.2011