Drevstranese Railways Public Society
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| File:Laciteduvinexterieur.jpg Drevka' Headquarter in Angrast | |
Native name | |
|---|---|
| publicly traded company | |
| Traded as | DREV-K |
| Founded | March 5, 1919 |
| Headquarters | Drevstran |
| Revenue |  22.3 billion solidus |
| 493 million solidus | |
Number of employees | 175,000 (Worldwide, as of March 2022) |
| Subsidiaries | Drevka Insurance Drevka Residences Drevka Deposits and Investments Fund Drevka Pripoj Drevstranese Autobus Society Drevstran International Fret Society |
The Drevstranese Railways Public Society (Drevstrany Seleznichna Verejna Spoloshnost in Ostro-Ludzic, Drev Vasutas Drev Vasutas Koztarsadalom in Lush) or Drevka for short, is a private for-profit Railway company which act as the national infrastructure manager and operator of Drevstran' railway system. It is owned at 61% by the Drevstranese Railways Workers Holding (Drevstrani Seleznichiarov Spoloshnost in Ostro-Ludzic, Drev Vasuti Munkas Birtok in Lush), the Sespo, which act as the Holding company for Drevka and all of its subsidiaries. The Sespo itself is collectively owned at 100% by all of Drevka' workers and employees and the society status' forbid Sespo from abandoning more than 49% of Drevka, or of its subsidiaries, shares thus guaranteeing workers' control over their company. Beside the Sespo, current major shareholders are the Drevstranese State (10.5%), the Ferret Family Holding (7.1%), Charia-Thelesis Transport (5.5%), Realm Railway Group of Brumen (3.1%), Verrucosa Tenura (2.7%), UL Argentaria (1.9%), and Oldo-Lugos Holding (1.2%).
History
Origin
The Drevstranese Railways Public Society was created in 1919 when the newly born First Republic of Drevstran nationalized the four major railway operators active before the civil war (Fur-Merv, Drev-Sevr, Angrast, East) and transfered their lines to this newly created state company.
The main goal of the Drevka was to pilot the reconstruction of the Drevstranese railways network after the destructions of the Civil War. Lines that were still useable were immediately re-opened while railways that had been known to be unprofitable or redundant were given no attention or outright closed. The main priorities of the Drevka was to return the vital Barbelon - Angrast - Pristlav line to its pre-war levels of activity and, for military reasons that would become apparent during the 1920 Drevstranese Intervention in Arazija, the re-opening of the Angrast - Eszkavar - Arazija line. But by 1921, all major railways of Drevstran were once again fully operational and the modernisation of the network could now begin.
Privatization
Between 1919 and 1954, the Drevka was a State-owned enterprise with 51% of the capital in the hands of the First Mervoshia, the rest being publicly floated. But after the Black Street Days and the events that led to the proclamation of the Second Mervoshia, the Anarcho-democrats of Obrichko Dursila sought to use the company, which workers had been active in all major social movements of Drevstran since 1921, as a laboratory for some of their new ideas. The "moderate" wing of Dursila' party (then known as the "Ottonids" for their ideological proximity with North Ottonia) was able to lead the project and push for a system of common-ownership and Worker cooperative. The project was approved in Parliament in early 1955 and the State' capitals within the DRPS were given to a new holding company known as the Drevstran Railworkers Holding, nicknamed Sespo.
The Sespo is held in Collective Ownership by all employees of the Drevka. This way, they could influence their company' board of directors' decisions on matter such as establishing policies, setting strategic goals, and appointing the CEO. The experiment led to a chaotic era for the Drevka as the move scared other owners of the company, created tensions within the workforce (despite tentatives by the Anarcho-Democrats to prepare the employees to their new duties through education programs, night classes, etc... before the privatization) and conflicts between the different workers syndicates. But despite everything, the workers' holding was maintained and is now regarded as one of the Anarcho-Democrats few successful projects. It survived attempts by Marveil Urshlo' liberal-conservatives to privatize or nationalise the Holding and through a careful investment program it was even able to raise its ownership of the DRPS from 51 to 74% in ten years. Sespo also began playing the role of an investment company for the Drevka with activities not only in public transports, real estate, and engineering as it handled all of the Society' subsidiaries, but also as an asset manager for the employees to finance their retirement pensions, healthcare coverage, insurances, and other benefits provided by the Society to its workers, although the majority of these investments and programs were financed by selling Drevka shares and taking loans.
International Cooperations
To face the concurrence from automobiles and airplanes, the Drevka became interested with developing its own Template:High-speed rail network after successful results in Brumen with the opening of the Dinsmark-Anfang rail corridor H-Bahn in 1968 proved the viability of the project. Cooperation with the Realm Railway Group of Brumen began in earnest in 1970, leading to the first high-speed rail line, the Angrast - Pristlav line, opening to the public in 1975.
Later on, partnership with the RGB would continue and lead to the creation in 1991 of the Continental Comet Consortium, a jointly owned multinational consortium tasked with operating the new Comet trans-continental high-speed lines.