Eurostar International Limited (EIL) is the railway company operating the international

Eurostar Eurostar is an international high-speed rail service in Western Europe, connecting Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The service is operated by the Eurostar Group which was formed from the merger of Eurostar, ...

train services between Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Brussels via the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (), sometimes referred to by the Portmanteau, portmanteau Chunnel, is a undersea railway tunnel, opened in 1994, that connects Folkestone (Kent, England) with Coquelles (Pas-de-Calais, France) beneath the English Channel at ...

. Eurostar was previously operated by three separate companies in Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, but this structure was replaced by EIL as a new single management company on 1 September 2010. EIL is owned by

Eurostar Group Eurostar Group is a holding company created by SNCF Voyageurs, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, NMBS/SNCB, and Federated Hermes Infrastructure in 2022 with the aim of merging the operations of Thalys and Eurostar high-speed rail s ...

. Eurostar International is the largest customer of

Getlink Getlink, formerly Groupe Eurotunnel, is a European public company based in Paris that manages and operates the infrastructure of the Channel Tunnel between France and the United Kingdom, operates the LeShuttle railway service, and earns revenu ...

, the owner of the Channel Tunnel.

History

Eurostar International was formed in 1990 as European Passenger Services (EPS), as the division of

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

responsible for the UK section of the

operation. Following the opening of the

, Eurostar trains began operating on 14 November 1994, with EPS,

NMBS/SNCB The National Railway Company of Belgium (, NMBS; , SNCB; ) is the national railway company of Belgium. The company formally styles itself using the Dutch and French abbreviations NMBS/SNCB. The corporate logo designed in 1936 by Henry van de V ...

and

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (, , SNCF ) is France's national State-owned enterprise, state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the Rail transport in France, country's national rail traffic along with th ...

responsible for the running of Eurostar services in their own territory. On 1 April 1994, EPS signed a fixed-rate track access contract with

Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the railroad, track, railway signalling, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the railway station, stations of the Transport in England#Rail, British railway syste ...

lasting until 29 July 2052 as part of the plans for Regional Eurostar services. The

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the Rail transport in Great Britain, railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, the process was largely compl ...

saw ownership of EPS transferred in 1996 to London and Continental Railways (LCR), a property development company owned by the

Government of the United Kingdom His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

. This was part of the contract agreed with the British Government for LCR to build and operate

High Speed 1 High Speed 1 (HS1), officially the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel. It is part of the line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Euro ...

(HS1) between London and the Channel Tunnel. The company was renamed Eurostar (UK) Limited (EUKL) and was to use the income from EUKL to help finance the HS1 project. Following financial assistance from the UK government in 1998, LCR was forced to appoint a management contract for EUKL. Bids for the contract were submitted by

Virgin Rail Group Virgin Rail Group (WCT Group since 2021) is a British rail transport company that was formed by the Virgin Group to bid for rail franchises in the United Kingdom during the privatisation of British Rail in the late 1990s. United Kingdom ope ...

and Inter-Capital and Regional Rail, a consortium of

National Express Mobico Group, formerly National Express Group, is a British multinational public transport company with headquarters in Birmingham, England. Domestically it currently operates bus and coach services under brands including National Express. Th ...

(40%), SNCF (35%), NMBS/SNCB (15%) and

British Airways British Airways plc (BA) is the flag carrier of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main Airline hub, hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and pass ...

(10%). The latter was awarded the contract which was to run from 1998 until 2010. In January 2009, after the completion of HS1, the UK's

Department for Transport The Department for Transport (DfT) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport ...

took control of LCR and announced its intention to put both HS1 and EUKL up for sale.

Deutsche Bahn (, ; abbreviated as DB or DB AG ) is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). DB was fou ...

expressed an interest in EUKL but no sale materialised. On 31 December 2009, EUKL was renamed Eurostar International Limited (EIL). On 1 September 2010, the three national Eurostar operators merged into EIL as a single company with a single management structure. Following this change, the ICRR management contract for the UK business was terminated. Once all Eurostar assets were transferred to EIL, the holdings in the company were amended to LCR (40%), NMBS/SNCB (5%) and SNCF (55%). In November 2010, LCR sold a 30-year concession to operate HS1 to a Canadian consortium of

Borealis Infrastructure The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) is a Canadian public pension fund, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. OMERS is a defined benefit, jointly sponsored, multi-employer public pension plan created in 1962 by Ontario provinci ...

and

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board () is an independent organization responsible for administering defined benefit pension plan, defined-benefit pensions for school teachers of the provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of ...

for £2.1bn. EIL then paid access charges to the consortium to operate Eurostar trains on HS1. On 4 December 2013, the UK Government announced it was looking to sell LCR's 40% stake in EIL. In January 2014, in a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

with

Keolis Keolis is a French transportation company that operates public transport systems all over the world. It manages bus, rapid transit, tram, coach networks, rental bikes, car parks, water taxi, cable car, trolleybus, and funicular services. B ...

, Eurostar was shortlisted to bid for the

InterCity East Coast InterCity East Coast is a railway franchise for passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line in the United Kingdom from London King's Cross to Hull, Leeds, Bradford, Harrogate, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Aberdeen. It was fo ...

franchise, but the franchise was awarded to

Virgin Trains East Coast Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) (legal name East Coast Main Line Company Limited) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operated the InterCity East Coast franchise on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, the No ...

. In June 2014, the UK's 40% shareholding in EIL was transferred from LCR to

HM Treasury His Majesty's Treasury (HM Treasury or HMT), and informally referred to as the Treasury, is the Government of the United Kingdom’s economic and finance ministry. The Treasury is responsible for public spending, financial services policy, Tax ...

, and a sale process was launched on 13 October 2014 when it was announced that the UK government planned to raise £300million by selling its stake. In March 2015, the Treasury announced it had sold the stake to

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (, CDPQ; ) is an institutional investor that manages several public and parapublic pension plans and insurance programs in the Canadian province of Quebec. It was established in 1965 by an act of the ...

(CDPQ) (30%) and Hermes Infrastructure (10%) for £585m. It also confirmed agreement to redeem its preference share in EIL for £172m, raising £757m in total. The sale was completed in May 2015. In 2020, Eurostar shareholders unanimously appointed Jacques Damas as chief executive officer, following news that previous CEO Mike Cooper would join Arriva as Group CEO, and facing the challenges of exiting the COVID-19 crisis and leading it towards future developments. In April 2022, Eurostar International's ownership was transferred into a new holding company named

, along with THI Factory. The previous shareholders now own a part of the new holding company.

Fleet

EIL is the owner of the

British Rail Class 373 The British Rail Class 373, known in France as the TGV TMST and branded by Eurostar as the Eurostar e300, is a French designed and Anglo-French built electric multiple unit train that is used for Eurostar international high-speed rail services f ...

and Class 374 sets.

References

External links

Company website
{{SNCF Group, state=collapsed Eurostar Holding companies of the United Kingdom Railway companies of the United Kingdom Railway companies established in 1990 1990 establishments in England