Today the tendering authorities Trafikstyrelsen and Skånetrafiken announced that DSB has won the tender for the Coastal Line, the Kastrup Line and the services in Southern Sweden.

Now that DSBFirst has won both the Danish and the Swedish bids, this reinforces our platform for DSB's expansion abroad, and DSB is now ready to demonstrate how we intend to significantly upgrade the service of customers both in Denmark and Sweden, saidDSB's CEO Søren Eriksen.

"It is a great day for DSB. We are very pleased with the decision, while at the same time recognising the great challenges which await us", saidSøren Eriksen and he continued

"I am incredibly pleased and proud on behalf of all our employees. Many skilful employees at DSB and our partner First Group have made a tremendous effort for this to succeed. Overall, DSB's more than 9,000 employees deserve this victory".

The decision made by the two authorities means that DSB will continue the successful operation of the Coastal and Kastrup lines in Denmark and on the lines to Malmö and further on to Gothenburg respectively Kalmar and Karlskrona in Sweden. The extent of the traffic in Sweden depends on which options the Skånetrafiken decided to exploit.  Thus, DSB will become the biggest train operator in Scandinavia and the second biggest long-distance and regional train services operator in Sweden.

"Today's success constitutes a mile stone in the history of DSB. We have definitely not taken this decision for granted. On the contrary, we have responded to the competition. We now face the significant and important task of implementing all the plans for the Øresund services and duplicating many of the excellent customer initiatives from our Øresund bid to the rest of the Group, so that all of our customers can benefit from them", saidSøren Eriksen.

The total contract sum is approximately DKK 7 billion over the entire period, of which half relates to the Swedish services. With this victory, DSB is bit further down the road toward the objective of earning 20 per cent of its revenues from train services abroad. The services in Scania increase DSB's turnover by approximately three per cent.

"Today's decision demonstrate that DSB is capable of winning major tenders abroad and that the basis for this victory to some extend can be attributed to our work and the experience we have made from having taken part in previous bids abroad and with other partners", said Søren Eriksen.

Commenting on the announcement, FirstGroup Chief Executive Moir Lockhead said:

"We are absolutely delighted to have won the Oresund rail competition with our partners DSB. We look forward to working with DSB to establish the first rail franchises in Denmark and Sweden and to bring sustained growth and improvements in passenger service to these important rail businesses."