Deutsche Bahn misses 2014 targets, hit by strikes, competition

Deutsche Bahn missed its financial targets for 2014, according to data published Thursday, as strikes and growing competition took a chunk off the German rail operator's earnings.
The company's 2014 net profit surged 52 percent compared with 2013, but reached just 988 million euros ($1.05 billion) -- short of the 1.1 billion euros that it was targetting.
Full-year revenues came in at 39.7 billion euros, short of the 40.5 billion euros the rail group was aiming for.
The state-owned company's boss Ruediger Grube had already warned at the end of February that its 2014 earnings would be weaker than expected.
The group estimates that November's walkout by train drivers -- their longest in two decades -- cost it 170 million euros, while freak storms that hit in June also disrupted its services.
"In addition, there is increasing pressure from competition on the long distance links and on DB Schenker Logistics," the group's financial chief Richard Lutz said.
Long distance bus services have been eating into the rail company's market share.
Deutsche Bahn is quadrupling its long distance bus services by the end of 2016 to maintain a foothold in the market.
The group is eyeing revenues of more than 41 billion euros for 2015 and net profit of 1.1 billion euros.