TheChek News Flow

Getlink chief puts forward €50mn pot for companies considering launching rivals to Eurostar

The operator of the Channel Tunnel has offered €50mn in support to encourage companies to open new cross-Channel rail services to rival Eurostar.

Yann Leriche, Getlink chief executive, said at least five companies are “seriously” interested in starting new passenger trains between the UK and Europe, and that the barriers to entry have decreased in recent years.

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, a consortium backed by the largest shareholders in Mobico, formerly known as National Express, and Dutch start-up Heuro have all said they are considering launching services, and Leriche said there are at least two other contenders.

“We have a lot of room, including at peak times. I think there is a potential to have more high speed trains and freight trains,” he told the Financial Times.

Getlink, formerly known as Eurotunnel, manages and operates the infrastructure of the Channel Tunnel and also operates the LeShuttle passenger and freight trains.

Leriche believes there is space for more than one new operator, and the money could be split between new entrants. Overall, around 400 trains a day use the tunnel, which has capacity for 1,000. The actual usage is below the forecasts when the tunnel was opened 30 years ago.

Getlink and HS1, which operates the high-speed lines from Kent to London, have long pushed for more operators to launch services.

Leriche said Getlink has earmarked at least €50mn to spend over the next five years in direct subsidies to support any new operator launching a service.

The money would be available once the new service is launched to help operators with the initial high running costs of launching a new train service. Getlink previously supported Eurostar when it began nonstop trains between London and Amsterdam.

“There are still hurdles [to launching a new service], but they used to be quite high, and now they are very limited,” Leriche said.

Among the biggest challenges to any new entrant is the cost of ordering modified trains to comply with the tunnel’s stringent safety rules, including increased fire resistance.

Leriche said this critical hurdle has been cleared after Alstom’s new TGV trains were certified to run through the tunnel, meaning a new operator could buy trains off the shelf, “massively” reducing expenditure.

Getlink has also worked with national regulators to streamline the regulatory process to certify new operators, and believes there is demand for 4mn passenger journeys a year from Germany and Switzerland, on top of Eurostar’s current routes from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Evolyn, a Spanish-led project backed by the billionaire Cosmen industrialist family, an investor in Mobico, has announced a preliminary agreement, but not a final deal, to buy new trains from Alstom. Mobico itself held talks over joining the consortium, but opted not to.

Separately, Leriche said he is confident there will be no significant disruption to passenger services from the introduction of new EU biometric border controls due to be introduced this year.

The UK’s leading logistics body has warned Channel ports could “grind to a halt” as a result of the control, which will require passengers to register details including fingerprints at passport control.

Leriche said Getlink has invested €80mn in new border facilities, and has the space to handle the new logistics.

Getlink is also considering opening new inland lorry terminals, to allow vehicles to leapfrog congestion in Kent and northern France.

This would mark a significant shift for the company, which currently only operates stations at the near the entrances of the tunnel near the English Channel.

As Getlink diversifies its business, it has also held talks with the UK and French governments over adding more cables to carry electricity to connect energy markets in the UK and the continent.

Returns still tend to be better for those who heed the Wall Street adage, but volatility has been greater outside of the summer months in recent years

One of the oldest adages on Wall Street—“sell in May and go away”—has held that it is in investors’ best interest to sell their stocks at the beginning of May and return to the market at the start of November.

But does that have any validity? Actually, yes, but not as much as it once did.

To study the accuracy of this axiom, also known as the Halloween indicator because it suggests buying stocks right after Oct. 31, my research assistants (Keya Patel and Amir Murad) and I pulled all data on various stock classes going back to the 1950s. These groupings were U.S. growth stocks, U.S. value stocks, large- and small-cap U.S. stocks, and international stocks.

With these groupings, we then looked at two periods: before 2000 and after 2000 through 2023. And within each of these date ranges, we looked at average returns and volatility for the period from May to October versus the rest of the year (from January to April and November to December).

Those who heeded the advice saw especially strong results in the 20th century. For instance, for large-cap stocks between 1950 and the end of the century, investors who held stocks outside of the May-to-October period saw an annualized return of 19.62%. Over the time frame, large-cap stocks held during the May-to-October period delivered an annualized return of 6.72%. This is a difference of 12.90 percentage points on an annualized basis.

What’s more, this outsize performance came with less risk. The average volatility of large-cap stocks outside of the May-to-October period was 12.44% from 1950 to 1999. But the average volatility during the May-to-October period for large-cap stocks was 14.14%. This means holding stocks over the summer/fall months yielded lower returns with higher risk—exactly in line with the adage.

Jumping to the 2000 to 2023 time frame, we see similar, if diminished, returns. But the risk increases.

For instance, investors who held stocks outside the May-to-October period earned an annualized return of 13.29%. Over the same time frame, investors who held large-cap stocks during the May-to-October period could expect an annualized return of 8.64%. This is a difference of 4.65 percentage points on an annualized basis—a positive return but nowhere near as good as in the 20th century.

When we turn to volatility, we see that the summer/fall months no longer are the riskier ones. During the period outside of May to October, the average volatility of large-cap stocks was 17.50%. But the average volatility of large-cap stocks during the May-to-October period was 14.31%. This means holding stocks during the May-to-October period yielded lower risk compared with the rest of the year.

Results were similar across all stock styles investigated.

In all, it appears that there is still some truth to “sell in May and go away” in the 21st century as you can indeed score higher returns by selling before summer starts and going away until after Halloween. But heeding the advice now comes with greater risk.

Derek Horstmeyer is a professor of finance at Costello College of Business, George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va. He can be reached at

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