VR completes purchase of Sweden´s MTRX

National railway operator VR on Thursday completed acquisition of the long-distance train operations of MTRX, said VR in a press release.

The passenger traffic between Stockholm and Gothenburg will continue, and all of the about 130 MTRX employees will become part of VR's long-distance operations.

The acquisition of MTR Nordic's Swedish subsidiary MTR Express (Sweden) AB and its commercial long-distance traffic operations MTRX was announced in February, and it has been approved by the Swedish Competition Authority.

The integration of MTRX into VR's long-distance operations will begin immediately, and in the fall, the trains on the Stockholm-Gothenburg route will operate under the VR brand identity.

"The market for commercial long-distance traffic in Sweden is about twice the size of Finland's, and the modal share of rail transport of all passenger traffic is even double compared to Finland. I believe that this acquisition enables us to achieve profitable growth in a competitive market where customer experience is a competitive advantage,” Chief Executive Officer of VR Elisa Markula said.

The VR CEO said that MTRX has been awarded for the best customer experience for eight years by the Swedish Quality Index and has also been recognized for its innovativeness and VR wants to continue this development.

With the acquisition, VR aims for profitable growth in line with its strategy and prepares for increasing rail competition in Finland by gaining experience from the competitive long-distance market in Sweden.

The acquisition is also believed to strengthen VR's competitive position in the Swedish purchased traffic and to be visible to Finnish passengers as better services and even higher quality public transport.

MTRX has been operating in commercial open-access traffic between Stockholm and Gothenburg since 2015.

The company operates with six Stadler FLIRT trains, running 126 services per week, corresponding to over one third of all services on the route. MTRX's revenue in 2022 was approximately 350 million SEK (30.5 million euros) .