李嘉誠收購英國客運列車公司

LONDON – Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man, has added a major passenger train provider in Britain to his vast empire of corporate holdings, which includes ports, utilities and retail stores.

倫敦——亞洲首富李嘉誠(Li Ka-shing)在自己龐大的商業帝國中又增添了一家英國的大型客運列車供應商。這一帝國中本已包含了多座港口、公共事業公司及零售商鋪。

CK Investments, which is jointly owned by two of Mr. Li’s companies, agreed on Tuesday to acquire the Eversholt Rail Group from the private equity firm 3i Infrastructure and other investors.

週二，由李嘉誠聯合擁有的CK Investments達成協議，從私募公司3i Infrastructure等投資者手中購入Eversholt Rail Group。

Mr. Li’s companies will pay 2.5 billion pounds, or about $3.8 billion, including the assumption of debt.

李嘉誠旗下的企業將支付25億英鎊（約合235億元人民幣），包含債務負擔。

Eversholt Rail owns about 28 percent of Britain’s passenger train fleet, which it leases to 11 train operators in Britain. The company also leases freight locomotives and cars.

Eversholt Rail擁有英國約28%的客運列車，並將其租賃給了該國11家鐵路運營商。這家企業同時還經營貨運機車和汽車的租賃服務。

“Eversholt Rail has performed strongly, both operationally and financially, under its current ownership providing, managing and maintaining key U.K. rail assets,” Mary Kenny, chief executive of Eversholt Rail, said in a news release. “We look forward to continuing our success with CKI, who have extensive experience in managing infrastructure assets and are highly supportive of our strategy and approach.”

“Eversholt Rail一直表現良好，無論是運營上還是財務上。它在目前的擁有者旗下提供、管理並維護了關鍵的英國鐵路資產，”公司首席執行官瑪麗·肯尼(Mary Kenny)在新聞稿中表示。“我們期盼在CKI旗下繼續取得成功。該公司在管理基建資產上擁有豐富的經驗，並高度支持我們的戰略與手法。”

The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in March.

這筆交易還有待監管部門的批准，計劃於3月份完成。

A consortium of investors, including 3i Infrastructure, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and STAR Capital Partners with its co-investor PGGM, acquired the business in 2010.

2010年，包括3i Infrastructure、摩根士丹利基建合夥人基金(Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners)、STAR Capital Partners及其共同投資商PGGM在內的投資財團，收購了這家鐵路集團。

3i Infrastructure said it would receive £358 million in proceeds for its stake.

3i Infrastructure表示，公司將因其股份獲得3.58億英鎊的收益。

In deciding to sell, the firm “carefully evaluated the price offered against our assessment of the potential for the business, as well as the impact on our investment portfolio of selling this investment,” Peter Sedgwick, the 3i chairman, said in a news release.

在做出出售決定時，公司“審慎地權衡了對方的報價與我們對業務潛力的評估，以及出售這項資產對我們投資組合的影響，”3i的董事長彼得·塞奇威克(Peter Sedgwick)在新聞稿中表示。