£13m dividend for Merseyrail owners

MERSEYSIDE rail operator Merseyrail has returned £13m to its two shareholders after a year of strong earnings growth.

Newly-filed accounts show pre-tax profits were up 18% to £14.5m on revenue of £135.2m, up £2.7m, in the year to January 7, 2013.

The dividend to shareholders Serco and Abellio, which have equal stakes, increased by £4.3m from £8.7m.

Merseyrail employs 1,234 staff and is responsible for 800 services a day across a 75-mile network. During the period fares rose by an average of 5.4% and by 2.4% in January. Merseyrail claims to have the lowest fares in the country.

It said 95% of trains were punctual and it achieved a 92% rating in a passenger satisfaction survey – joint third of all franchised train operators.

In their report the directors said the £20m revamp of Central Station, which closed the underground station for six months, had made it a “challenging” year.

Management had hoped for a better track record on punctuality but services were affected by bad weather and “severe infrastructure disruptions”.

Unusually Merseyrail was awarded a 25-year franchise in 2003 – around double the length of most licence agreements. Merseyrail’s managing director Maarten Spaargaren saw his annual salary rise from £221,000 to £267,000.

In a statement Merseyrail said: “Published in the tenth anniversary year of the concession agreement with transport authority, Merseytravel, this consistently strong set of figures is in line with our glowing results for passenger satisfaction, performance and punctuality, and allow us to continue investing in our network. These results were despite significant station closures last year.”