The infrastructure company Globalvia has entered the capital of the railway operator Iryo, Renfe's low-cost high-speed competitor,

after purchasing 24% of the capital

from Operador Ferroviario de Levante (OFL), owned by the partners who own the airline regional Air Nostrum, which keeps 31%.

This means that the Spaniards cede to the Italian high-speed public operator

Trenitalia the position

of Iryo's main shareholder, with 45%, while the remaining 55% is divided between the two Spanish companies.

The amount of the operation has not been disclosed, but analysts valued the entire company at 200 million euros.

The operation comes at a key moment for Iryo, the third company to compete in high speed after the liberalization of the sector in Spain,

as it will open on the Madrid-Barcelona line next November

, thus competing with Renfe, both in AVE as in its low cost, Avlo, and also with Ouigo, from the French operator SNCF.

In mid-December, the Madrid-Valencia connection will be launched and then the Madrid-Andalusia connection will arrive, which will be in March 2023, and the Madrid-Alicante route, in June next year.

Its goal is to capture eight million passengers in 2025.

The company, which will start the activity with

20 trains,

will occupy 70% of the capacity offered in package B in the three corridors that go from Madrid to Barcelona, ​​the Valencian Community and Andalusia.

OFL has been looking for a partner since last year to strengthen Iryo's financial strength.

According to the president of Iryo, Carlos Bertomeu,

the entry of Globalvia into the shareholding "provides financial muscle

to the project, it has a vocation for long-term permanence as a shareholder of the first private operator of the Spanish high-speed network and proven experience and solvency" .

The CEO of Globalvia, Javier Pérez-Fortea, pointed out that this operation "reinforces its commitment to new forms of mobility" in the countries where it operates and provides "a more panoramic view of transport infrastructure management, and added value to advance and innovate in each of them".

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  • Renfe

  • bird

  • Barcelona

  • AVLO

  • ouigo

  • Valencia

  • Alicante