Pending further delays, PKP to award $80 mln tender
After twice postponing the deadline for an $80 million rail car-leasing tender, Polish State Railways (PKP) is scheduled to award the contract this Friday, according to a PKP report to bidders.
The original deadline for the tender, which was announced in February, was March 24. A PKP notice dated March 17, however, stated that one potential candidate requested more time to prepare its offer, causing the date to be pushed to April 20. On April 18, the deadline was pushed to May 19 for the same reason.
"If a firm is serious, they will be on time," said Dariusz Czerniak, marketing and sales manager for The Greenbrier Companies, which also plans to bid for the tender. Greenbrier has a more than 60% stake in Wagony Swidnica, which produces freight cars near Wroclaw.
In a PKP letter to bidders dated May 6, another interested candidate asked for permission to push back the rail car delivery deadline, scheduled for March 2001, by two months. But the railroad declined to do this, saying that the deadline is sufficient and that it did not expect the delivery of all cars at the same time.
Railroad watchers suggested other reasons behind the tender delays.
Henryk Klimkiewicz, president of independent rail consulting company Zespol Doradcow Gospodarczych TOR, expressed doubts about the current tender, saying it was put out in February to appease Greenbrier. Industry figures had believed Greenbrier would be the winner of the tender.
In May 1999, Greenbrier lost a previous tender for 4,500 rail cars for coal shipment to Konsorcjum Taborowe, a consortium of several rail-car-manufacturing facilities throughout the country owned almost entirely by PKP. Greenbrier protested the outcome, saying delivery time requirements were too tight and the tender's provisions were issued in such a way as to make the company's participation almost impossible. Due to what railroad spokesmen called "client demands," part of the tender was broken off into a separate tender for the 1,000 cars.
Although the consortium did win the 1999 tender, no wagons have been delivered yet, Czerniak said. And nothing has been signed. "There is no deal," Klimkiewicz said.
"The realization of a deadline is determined on a two-sided basis," said PKP spokesman Roman Hajdrowski.
Hajdrowski acknowledged that the deadline for the 1,000 wagons was extended to May, but declined to go into detail. "I would like to remain at that (deadline)," he said. He did add, however, that the company realizing the bid has the right to lengthen it and in this case, the lengthening was done to give interested parties the chance to make a bid.
One of the main concerns surrounding the tender has been who will actually pay for the rail cars. PKP's dire financial situation, with a net loss at the end of 1999 of zl. 2.3 billion ($583 million), has made it practically impossible for the railroad to obtain credit from financial institutions. This, railroad watchers say, is one of the reasons why the tender's deadline has been put off, rather than one of the interested parties wanting more time to prepare its offer. However, Greenbrier has insisted it can come up with a financing plan for the railroad.
Another question that remains is whether the railroad can attract serious and stable customers to transport its goods. "Objectively speaking, they are not in a condition to realize the second tender," Klimkiewicz said.
