Getlink: The Channel Tunnel's Phoenix Story

I. Introduction & Episode Roadmap

Picture the scene beneath the English Channel on a gray November morning in 2024: every four minutes, like clockwork, a train hurtles through one of humanity's greatest engineering achievements. Freight shuttles laden with lorries destined for European supermarkets. Passenger carriages filled with tourists and businesspeople. And threading through it all, invisible but essential, a 1,000-megawatt electrical pulse connecting two national grids. This is the rhythm of the Channel Tunnel—and the heartbeat of Getlink, the €8+ billion infrastructure company that operates it all.

Getlink S.E., formerly Groupe Eurotunnel, is a European public company based in Paris that manages and operates the infrastructure of the Channel Tunnel between France and the United Kingdom, operates the LeShuttle railway service, and earns revenue on other trains that operate through the tunnel (Eurostar passenger and DB Schenker freight).

The numbers are staggering. Since it opened in 1994, more than 518 million people and 106 million vehicles have travelled through the Channel Tunnel. This unique land link, which carries a quarter of trade between the Continent and the United Kingdom, has become a vital link.

But here's the central paradox that makes Getlink one of the most fascinating business stories of the past four decades: how did a project that nearly bankrupted its shareholders—not once, but twice—transform into an infrastructure champion that generated €1.6 billion in revenue and €317 million in net profit in 2024?

Getlink achieved group revenue of €1,614 million and a net profit of €317 million in 2024.

The answer involves one of history's most dramatic corporate restructurings, a turnaround CEO who rescued the company from oblivion, and an underappreciated asset optionality that turned unused tunnel space into a €280 million-per-year electricity business.

Today, Getlink operates through three core segments: Eurotunnel (the shuttle services and railway network), Europorte (French rail freight), and ElecLink (the electricity interconnector). Through its subsidiary Eurotunnel, the company is the concession holder until 2086 for the Channel Tunnel infrastructure. That 61-year runway gives the company extraordinary optionality—and makes it one of the most defensible infrastructure assets in Europe.

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II. The Dream: 200 Years of Cross-Channel Ambitions

Long before Jacques Gounon took the reins or Margaret Thatcher shook hands with François Mitterrand, the idea of connecting Britain and France captured the imagination of engineers, entrepreneurs, and empire-builders alike.

Proposals for a cross-Channel tunnel date back as early as 1802, but concerns over national security delayed development.

The first serious proposal came from French mining engineer Albert Mathieu-Favier in 1802—during the Napoleonic Wars, no less. He envisioned a tunnel with horse-drawn carriages and an artificial island in the middle of the channel for changing horses and ventilation. Napoleon himself was intrigued. The British government, understandably, was less enthusiastic about giving their enemy a land route to invade.

This pattern would repeat for nearly two centuries. Every generation produced new proposals—and every proposal foundered on the same fundamental British anxiety: the Channel wasn't just water, it was the last moat, the final barrier that had protected the island from invasion since 1066.

The Victorians came closest. In 1881, actual drilling began on both sides of the Channel. The first digging would commence in 1881 on both the French and the English sides. Both sides had successful first digs, however a year into digging, pressure from British media and politicians would cause the English side to end construction.

The 1970s saw another near-miss. Construction started on both sides of the Channel in 1974. On 20 January 1975, to the dismay of their French partners, the then-governing Labour Party in Britain cancelled the project due to uncertainty about the UK's membership in the European Economic Community, doubling cost estimates amid the general economic crisis of the time.

Everything changed in the 1980s with the unlikely partnership of Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand—a Conservative and a Socialist, an island skeptic and a continental integrationist. What they shared was a vision of Europe as an economic powerhouse, and the pragmatic recognition that a fixed link would benefit both nations.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did not object to a privately funded project. In 1981, Thatcher and French president François Mitterrand agreed to establish a working group to evaluate a privately funded project.

The breakthrough came on February 12, 1986. The Treaty of Canterbury was signed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, French President François Mitterrand and French Minister of Foreign Affairs Roland Dumas on 12 February 1986.

The treaty officially established the concession that granted the Eurotunnel group the power to build and operate the tunnel for 55 years (later extended to 65 years, then again to 99 years), after which time ownership would revert to the two national governments.

Groupe Eurotunnel was established on 13 August 1986 to finance, build, and operate the Channel Tunnel under a concession granted by the French and British governments.

Thatcher famously remarked at the signing ceremony that the project had "brought to the brink of fruition a project that has challenged engineers, entrepreneurs and governments on both sides of the channel for generations." Mitterrand predicted that "there will come a time soon when the cross-channel fixed link will be part of the geological scenery of our planet."

Both were right—and both wildly underestimated what would come next.

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III. The Build: Engineering Marvel, Financial Disaster (1988–1994)

On January 4, 1988, giant tunnel boring machines began gnawing through the chalk marl beneath the English Channel. What followed was one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century—and one of its most spectacular financial disasters.

The tunnel was constructed between 1988 and 1994 by TransManche Link (TML) under a contract issued by Groupe Eurotunnel; construction costs would overrun considerably, from TML's original estimate of £4.7 billion to the final cost of £9.5 billion.

The scale of the undertaking defied comprehension. At the peak of construction activity, roughly 15,000 people were employed while in excess of £3 million was being expended each day.

On the 4th January 1988, tunnelling started on both sides of the Channel, at Folkestone and Sangatte. 11 tunnel boring machines (TBMs) were used in total: six reasonably conventional TBMs were launched from the UK side, and five more complex TBMs (to deal with the more challenging tunnelling conditions that were expected) were launched from the French side.

The engineering precision was staggering. The teams constructing the tunnels only had a measly tolerance of 150mm to play with. This consisted of 55mm for steering the TBM, 55mm for the manufacturing and placement of the lining segments and 40mm of topography allowance. In other words, the tunnellers were guiding a 1000 tonne TBM towards a moving target not much bigger than the palm of your hand.

When the British and French teams finally met in the middle on December 1, 1990, they were off by only 36.2 centimeters—after boring 50 kilometers through geology that could have shifted by meters. The two tunnelling efforts met each other with an offset of only 36.2 cm (14.3 in). A Paddington Bear soft toy was chosen by British tunnellers as the first item to pass through to their French counterparts when the two sides met.

But the engineering triumph masked a financial catastrophe in the making.

What made the Channel Tunnel unique—and uniquely risky—was its financing structure. This was no government infrastructure project. Private funding for such a complex infrastructure project was of unprecedented scale. An initial equity of £45 million was raised, then increased by £206 million private institutional placement, £770 million was raised in a public share offer that included press and television advertisements, a syndicated bank loan and letter of credit arranged £5 billion.

The project became the largest privately-financed infrastructure endeavor ever attempted. And when costs began spiraling, there was no government bailout coming.

Why did costs double? At the 1994 completion actual costs were, in 1985 prices, £4.65 billion: an 80% cost overrun. The cost overrun was partly due to enhanced safety, security, and environmental demands. Financing costs were 140% higher than forecast.

The bi-national governance structure added layers of complexity and cost. Every decision required approval from two governments, two regulatory frameworks, and two safety authorities. Design changes mandated by regulators after construction had begun—better fire safety systems, enhanced security measures—all added to the bill.

On 6 May 1994, the completed tunnel was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II and President François Mitterrand, regular services commenced later that same month.

Queen Elizabeth II, riding through the tunnel she had helped make possible, called it "a monument to the joint efforts and talents of our engineers, technicians and construction workers, who faced and overcame many difficult and unexpected problems."

But for the shareholders who had bought into the dream, the nightmare was just beginning.

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IV. The Lost Decade: Near-Death Experience (1994–2006)

The champagne had barely gone flat from the opening celebrations when the financial reality set in with crushing force.

In its first year of operation, Groupe Eurotunnel lost £925 million, which was attributed to disappointing revenue from both passengers and freight traffic, as well as heavy interest charges on its £8 billion of debt.

A loss of £925 million in the first year. Not because the tunnel wasn't working—it was an engineering marvel—but because the financial structure built to fund it was fundamentally unsustainable. The company was drowning in debt service on the very borrowings that had made construction possible.

Making matters worse, the operational ramp-up was painfully slow. The poor fiscal performance can also be partially attributed to the phased opening of the tunnel; various services awaited approval from the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority, some of which did not receive permission to commence until over a year after the tunnel's official opening date.

Eurotunnel's troubles date to the project's launch in the 1980s. The costs of digging the 30-mile undersea rail tunnel between Britain and France were massively underestimated, and traffic predictions proved optimistic.

Traffic forecasts that had seemed reasonable in the euphoria of the 1980s proved wildly optimistic. Ferry operators, fighting for survival, slashed prices. Budget airlines emerged as unexpected competitors. The revenues simply couldn't cover the mountain of debt.

On 10 July 1997, a financial restructuring plan was approved by Groupe Eurotunnel's shareholders. This first restructuring bought time but didn't solve the fundamental problem: the company remained overleveraged, unable to generate sufficient cash flow to service its obligations.

The early 2000s became an exercise in survival. The current chairman and CEO has been with the company for only a year and a half, following a decade of senior management turbulence in which the company has seen nine different CEOs and chairmen.

Nine different CEOs and chairmen in a decade. The revolving door at the top reflected the impossibility of the task: how do you turn around a company crushed by debt that cannot be reduced, generating revenues that cannot be increased fast enough?

Eurotunnel's capital structure is staggeringly complex, and a large fraction of its debt has come to be held by U.S.-based hedge funds that specialize in investing in distressed companies.

Distressed debt investors had begun circling, buying up bonds at pennies on the dollar, seeing either a chance for recovery or—more likely—an opportunity to influence restructuring outcomes to their benefit. The shareholder base, largely French retail investors who had believed in the dream, faced the prospect of being wiped out entirely.

In April 2004, a dissident shareholder group led by Nicolas Miguet succeeded in taking control of Groupe Eurotunnel's board.

The boardroom coup of 2004 reflected the desperation of shareholders watching their investment evaporate. But regime change couldn't change the mathematics of an unsustainable capital structure.

However, during February 2005, Jean-Louis Raymond, the Chief Executive appointed as a consequence of the boardroom coup, resigned and Jacques Gounon took complete control, becoming both Chairman and Chief Executive.

Into this chaos stepped Jacques Gounon—the man who would ultimately save the company.

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V. The 2006-2007 Restructuring: The Phoenix Moment

Jacques Gounon arrived at Eurotunnel with a résumé that suggested competence in complex, regulated industries, but nothing that quite prepared observers for what would follow.

Jacques Gounon CBE, born 25 April 1953, is a French senior civil servant and business manager. Gounon is a former pupil of École Polytechnique in Paris and chief engineer of the Ponts et Chaussées.

The Polytechnique-Ponts pedigree was impeccable—the French civil service elite. He had worked on major infrastructure projects, including the reinforcement and reconstruction of the Wilson bridge in Tours which partially collapsed in 1978. He had led Cegelec and held senior positions at Alstom. He understood both engineering complexity and political navigation.

In 2004, Gounon joined the Eurotunnel Council. On 14 June 2005 he became CEO of TNU. On 9 March 2007 he was appointed chairman and chief executive officer of GET SA.

By the summer of 2006, Gounon faced what appeared to be an impossible decision.

During July 2006, shareholders voted on a deal that would have seen half the debt, by then reduced to £6.2 billion, exchanged for 87% of the equity. However, this plan failed, and on 2 August 2006, Groupe Eurotunnel was placed into bankruptcy protection by a French court for six months.

A Paris court accepted Eurotunnel's request for bankruptcy protection after talks on restructuring its $11.6 billion debt failed.

The filing for bankruptcy protection was a calculated gamble. Under French law's "procédure de sauvegarde," the company could freeze creditor claims while negotiating a restructuring. It was aggressive, it was risky, and it worked.

Jacques Gounon, Eurotunnel's chairman and chief executive officer, expressed "great satisfaction" with the decision, saying he was "convinced" that the company would reach an agreement.

The negotiations that followed pitted Gounon against a fragmented group of creditors—banks who had made the original loans, hedge funds who had bought distressed debt at deep discounts, and bondholders caught in the middle. Each had different interests, different time horizons, different definitions of acceptable outcomes.

In May 2007, a restructuring plan was approved by shareholders, whereby Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup agreed to provide £2.8 billion of long-term funding and the balance of the debt being exchanged for equity, and the shareholders agreed to waive numerous perks, such as unlimited free travel, that they had previously been entitled to.

The deal was brutal but necessary. Original shareholders saw their stakes massively diluted. Those "unlimited free travel" perks—promised when the shares were sold in the 1980s—were cancelled. But the company emerged viable.

Following the restructuring, Groupe Eurotunnel was able to announce a small net profit of €1 million in 2007, reportedly for the first time in the company's existence.

One million euros. A rounding error for a company of Eurotunnel's scale. But it represented something extraordinary: after 13 years of losses, after two restructurings, after coming within months of liquidation, the Channel Tunnel was finally profitable.

Half-year earnings for 2008 rose to €26 million, while net profit was €40 million; this allowed Eurotunnel to issue its first-ever dividend of €0.04 per euro value.

The Eurotunnel Group returned to profits in 2008. He is recognised as the man who straightened the accounts of the Channel Tunnel.

From 2007, he launched a new commercial policy and applied the principle of differential pricing, already widely used by airlines. Faced with the return of profits, he launched an investment campaign to increase infrastructure on both sides of the tunnel.

Gounon's approach combined operational discipline with commercial innovation. Yield management—pricing tickets dynamically based on demand—had transformed the airline industry. He applied it to shuttle tickets. Cost controls, delayed by years of financial distress, were finally implemented. Customer service improved. Reliability increased.

Colette Neuville, senior independent director, stated: "Jacques Gounon has run the company for over 15 years after rescuing it from bankruptcy. Under his leadership Getlink has been transformed and experienced remarkable growth, succeeding in surpassing the objectives set in 2007, despite the difficulties that it faced of fire, migrants and Brexit."

The phoenix had risen from the ashes.

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VI. The Growth Era: Diversification & Expansion (2007–2017)

With the balance sheet repaired and profitability restored, Gounon and his team turned their attention to growth. The strategy was clear: build on the core Eurotunnel franchise while diversifying into adjacent businesses that could leverage the company's infrastructure expertise.

The return to financial health allowed Groupe Eurotunnel to announce, on 28 October 2009, the anticipated voluntary redemption of some of its convertible debt. By anticipating to November 2009 the reimbursement of debt due in July 2010, it aimed to issue up to 119.4 million new ordinary shares, and thus shore up its capital while reducing its debt load.

The first major diversification came in rail freight. Europorte is a European rail freight company, a subsidiary of Getlink; operating in France and through the Channel Tunnel. The company was formed in 2009 as an entity encompassing the previous operations of Europorte 2 and the France-based businesses of Veolia Cargo.

The SNCF and Eurotunnel have teamed up to acquire Veolia Cargo, the rail freight businesses of the Veolia group.

Jacques Gounon, Chairman and CEO of Eurotunnel, commented: "I am very pleased that our offer, presented in partnership with the SNCF group, was selected by Veolia. It marks a decisive step in the development of Europorte 2 and the sustainable growth of Groupe Eurotunnel. From a strategic point of view, the rail freight sector holds great potential for the future, particularly in light of environmental considerations."

The rationale was compelling. Eurotunnel already operated trains through the tunnel; why not control the locomotives and services on either side? The Veolia acquisition brought established operations, an experienced workforce, and relationships with industrial customers across France.

Six months later, another acquisition expanded the footprint across the Channel. In June 2010, the company acquired British rail freight company First GBRf for £31 million from FirstGroup.

This acquisition, completed without any increase in debt, is in line with the Group's development strategy which, confident that the sector will continue to expand, aims to develop a leading position in the European rail freight market in the future. As a result of the complementarities between its French rail freight subsidiary, Europorte France, and GBRf in terms of geographic cover and customer type, Groupe Eurotunnel now has a high performance potential which will enable it to offer customers a complete service, especially across the Channel.

The vision was a seamless cross-Channel freight rail network—goods loaded in Manchester, hauled by GBRf to the tunnel, handed to Europorte locomotives for the journey through, and delivered to customers in France or beyond. Vertical integration of the cross-Channel supply chain.

Not every diversification attempt succeeded. In 2012, Eurotunnel made a bold move into ferry operations—directly competing with the same ferries that had undercut its business for years.

In 2012, Groupe Eurotunnel acquired three Channel ferries formerly belonging to the liquidated SeaFrance ferry service, establishing MyFerryLink to operate them, although this was discontinued due to monopoly allegations after a brief period.

P&O and DFDS say it will own more than half of the cross-Channel market if MyFerryLink is allowed to continue.

The competition authorities weren't convinced. In its ruling in June, the commission's deputy chairman Alasdair Smith was very clear: "It cannot be good for competition when Eurotunnel, which already holds a market share of over 40%, moves into the ferry business."

MyFerryLink was eventually wound down—a costly lesson in the limits of diversification when regulators are watching. The episode demonstrated both Gounon's ambition and the constraints that competition law placed on a dominant infrastructure operator.

On 20 November 2017, Groupe Eurotunnel changed its name to Getlink.

The rebrand reflected a company that had evolved far beyond its original identity as a single-asset tunnel operator. Getlink—a name suggesting connection, linkage, networks—positioned the company for its next chapter.

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VII. Atlantia Entry & Strategic Shareholder (2018)

In early 2018, a new player entered the Getlink story—one with deep pockets, a long time horizon, and an appetite for infrastructure assets.

Atlantia informs that it has reached an agreement for the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of Aero 1 Global & International S.à.r.l., an investment vehicle fully controlled by funds managed by Goldman Sachs Infrastructure Partners which owns 85,170,758 shares in Groupe Eurotunnel S.E (Getlink), representing 15.49% of the share capital and 26.66% of the voting rights of the company.

Atlantia will pay a total consideration of €1,056 million for the acquisition corresponding to Euro 12.40 per Getlink share.

Goldman Sachs Infrastructure Partners had been a crucial stabilizing shareholder through the post-restructuring years. Now they were cashing out to Atlantia—the Italian infrastructure giant controlled by the Benetton family, with operations spanning toll roads, airports, and major infrastructure assets across Europe and beyond.

Atlantia's CEO, Giovanni Castellucci, commented: "The investment in Getlink represents an interesting financial opportunity for the group. It is a very well managed business with strong track record and competent management. We are proud to become Getlink's largest shareholder and we look forward to contribute to the success of the company and its management team."

Getlink chairman Jacques Gounon said: "The arrival of Atlantia, a major player in the infrastructure world, is a fantastic news, a sign of stability and very positive for our shareholders and our staff. This position shows great confidence in the future of Getlink and opens up very constructive opportunities for development."

What did Atlantia bring to the table? First and foremost, patient capital. Infrastructure investments are measured in decades, not quarters. Atlantia's toll road concessions ran for similar timeframes; they understood the economics of long-duration assets.

Second, operational expertise. The Benetton family's Autostrade per l'Italia managed thousands of kilometers of Italian highways. They knew how to optimize traffic flows, manage maintenance cycles, and extract value from regulated infrastructure.

Third, political navigation skills honed across multiple jurisdictions. Managing relationships with governments—French, British, Italian, Spanish—was core to their business model.

Getlink operates three tunnels under the channel and two terminals under a concession agreement ending in 2086.

That 2086 end date represented extraordinary optionality. Sixty-plus years of concession runway meant any improvements, efficiency gains, or new revenue streams would compound over decades.

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VIII. Brexit: The Existential Test That Became an Opportunity (2016–2021)

When British voters chose to leave the European Union on June 23, 2016, the cross-Channel transport industry faced an existential question: what happens when your business model depends on seamless trade flows between two entities that are about to erect barriers?

For Getlink, Brexit represented the ultimate stress test. The company's revenues depended on frictionless cross-Channel movement—trucks carrying just-in-time manufacturing components, tourists enjoying visa-free holidays, freight operators choosing the fastest route to market.

In June 2020, the company dropped its listing on the London stock exchange; it remains listed on the Euronext Paris market. Since the Brexit vote, Getlink and its subsidiary Eurotunnel have been preparing for the changes to come. Two hundred ninety new truck parking spaces at the Coquelles terminal were added, all the truck controls have been grouped into a single point, the Pit-Stop, and three additional control lanes at the Coquelles terminal and two lanes at the Folkstone were created.

The company's response was characteristically thorough. Rather than waiting for political clarity that never came, Getlink invested massively in infrastructure that would be needed regardless of the final Brexit outcome.

A smart border created in collaboration with Customs to ensure fluidity and speed for our LeShuttle Freight customers. The Customs-SIVEP Center to perform additional veterinary and phytosanitary checks. An extended Pit Stop with all truck inspections consolidated at a single point. Eurotunnel Border Pass, adopted by 60% of Freight customers allows drivers to complete customs formalities digitally and paperlessly, without disembarking from the truck.

The "smart border" concept was elegant: digitize everything possible, automate what couldn't be digitized, and create systems that made Eurotunnel the path of least resistance for goods crossing the Channel.

The Eurotunnel Border Pass service is being offered to Eurotunnel customers as part of the €47 million invested by the Group in Brexit preparations.

€47 million invested before anyone knew what the final Brexit deal would look like. It was a calculated bet that complexity would favor the organized—and that in a world of new friction, the operator who minimized that friction would win market share.

The pandemic hit at precisely the wrong moment. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, turnover fell 24% to €815.9m.

But Brexit and COVID, while painful, also validated the strategic position. As ferries dealt with the same disruptions, the speed and reliability of the tunnel became more valuable, not less. Transit time through the tunnel was measured in 35 minutes; ferry crossings took hours. When every minute mattered—for perishable goods, for pharmaceutical supply chains, for just-in-time manufacturing—that difference was decisive.

Since the implementation of Brexit on January 1, 2021, Eurotunnel has been deploying digitized services and infrastructure for its freight and passenger customers, streamlining administrative and customs procedures, and facilitating the border crossing between France and the United Kingdom at its terminals.

Brexit, which had seemed like an existential threat, was becoming a competitive advantage. The investment in smart borders created barriers to entry that ferry operators struggled to match.

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IX. ElecLink: The Hidden Gem (2012–2022)

If diversification into rail freight and ferries showed Gounon's willingness to expand, ElecLink demonstrated something rarer: the ability to extract transformative value from assets already owned.

ElecLink is a 1,000 MW high-voltage direct current (HVDC) electrical interconnector between the United Kingdom and France, passing through the Channel Tunnel. ElecLink commenced operations on 25 May 2022. The 51-kilometre (32-mile) DC cable runs via the Channel Tunnel between HVDC converter stations.

The concept was brilliantly simple: the Channel Tunnel was already there, already maintained, already secured. Why not run power cables alongside the rail lines?

Recognised as a Project of Common Interest by the European Commission, ElecLink enables the strengthening of cross-Channel electricity exchanges and accelerates the energy transition committed to by European countries.

ElecLink is the first UK interconnector to be entirely funded by private finance, without being underwritten by electricity consumers.

The project required no new tunneling, no new rights-of-way, no new environmental approvals for subsea cables. It leveraged existing infrastructure for an entirely new revenue stream.

Siemens Energy was awarded an engineering, procurement, and construction contract worth approximately £270m (€315m) for the two convertor stations of the project in February 2017. The consortium of Balfour Beatty and Prysmian was awarded a contract worth £188m (€219m) for the manufacturing and installation of the DC cables in the tunnel as well as for the underground AC cable system in the UK.

Work commenced on the project in 2017. The foundation stone of the Folkestone converter station was laid in February 2017.

The path to operation wasn't smooth. In 2019, the Anglo-French Channel Tunnel Intergovernmental Commission (IGC), which oversees the safety of the Channel Tunnel, suspended part of the project's consent due to concerns about safety of the HVDC cables within the tunnels. This decision prevented the cables from being installed.

Safety concerns about running high-voltage cables through an operational railway tunnel required additional engineering solutions and regulatory approvals. COVID added further delays. But on May 25, 2022, ElecLink finally commenced commercial operations.

ElecLink went into operational and commercial service on 25 May 2022, with the first commercial exchanges of electricity via the cable installed in the Channel Tunnel: a world first!

The timing was fortuitous—or perhaps prescient. The 2022 energy crisis, triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, sent European electricity prices soaring. ElecLink's 1,000 MW capacity—enough to power 1.6 million homes—became extraordinarily valuable.

Beyond its commercial success, ElecLink embodies an operational and technical prowess with more than 11.5 TWh of electricity transported since entering service on 25 May 2022 and a remarkable availability rate at above 96%. With a capacity of 1 Gigawatt, the equivalent in electricity consumption of a city the size of Lyon or Birmingham, ElecLink has increased the electricity transfer capacity between the UK and France by 33%. This additional capacity was immediately taken up by the market, demonstrating the strong need covered by this new cross-Channel interconnection.

In 2023, ElecLink's first full year of operation, revenue reached €558 million, +33% compared to 2022.

€558 million in revenue from an asset that didn't exist a decade earlier—extracted from infrastructure that had already been paid for. This was asset optionality in its purest form.

The energy crisis windfall wouldn't last forever. The Group's results for the 2023 financial year have improved significantly compared with 2022, thanks to the full-year impact of ElecLink activity. But as electricity prices normalized, so would ElecLink revenues.

In late 2024, the interconnector faced its first significant operational challenge. A fault was detected on the ElecLink electricity interconnector between France and the UK, leading to a suspension of activity since 25 September 2024.

The investigations into the incident have enabled the identification of the fault, linked to the deterioration of the structure which supports the cable, outside the Tunnel in France.

Works to restore the cable are now finalised and ElecLink is carrying out the final phase of assessment and testing, enabling the interconnector to be gradually brought back into service from 5 February 2025. During this final phase, which is scheduled to end on 10 February, ElecLink will perform checks that may lead to short interruptions to complete the return-to-service programme.

The outage was costly—estimated impact of €25 million for the first five weeks of 2025 alone—but manageable. As at 31 December 2024, the Group had secured revenue for 2025 of almost €168 million subject to the effective delivery of service from 5 February 2025.

ElecLink's strategic importance, reinforced by the very crisis that temporarily shut it down, remains undiminished.

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X. Current Operations & The Getlink of Today (2022–2025)

Three decades after the tunnel opened, Getlink has evolved into a mature, diversified infrastructure operator with a clear strategic identity.

Group's consolidated revenue at €1.614 billion in 2024, down 12% at a constant exchange rate compared to 2023 as a result of ElecLink's lower contribution. Eurotunnel: revenue up 3% to €1.166 billion.

The Group's net consolidated result for the 2024 financial year was a profit of €317 million, compared to a profit of €332 million (restated) in 2023, down by €15 million.

Yann Leriche, Getlink's Chief Executive Officer, declared: "Eurotunnel and Europorte have achieved record revenues in 2024, a result of our efforts to strengthen our operational and commercial excellence."

The segment breakdown reveals a balanced portfolio:

Eurotunnel remains the core business. This segment includes the activities of the Eurotunnel sub-group companies. Eurotunnel, which represents the Group's core business, operates and directly markets its Shuttle Services in the Tunnel and also provides access, on payment of a toll, for the circulation of the Railway Companies' High-Speed Passenger Trains (Eurostar) and Rail Freight Services through its Railway Network.

Europorte has grown into a substantial French rail freight operator. Europorte, Getlink's rail freight business, is the leading private operator in France. A key player in the low-carbon mobility sector in France, it also operates in Switzerland, Belgium and Germany, as well as at the gateway to the English Channel.

ElecLink provides the electricity interconnector revenues, now normalizing after the extraordinary energy prices of 2022-2023.

The leadership transition in 2020 brought new energy while preserving institutional knowledge. Yann Leriche has today become CEO of Getlink, in accordance with the decision taken by the board of directors on January 30, 2020. Jacques Gounon will remain Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Yann Leriche, 47, was previously CEO of Transdev North America, starting in 2017, in charge of the group's American and Canadian operations, which have 17,000 employees, generate US$ 1.4 billion in revenue, and serve over 100 cities and urban areas with seven different means of transport. He was also in charge of the worldwide development of Transdev's autonomous vehicle activities. He joined the Group's Executive Committee in 2014.

Prior to this, Yann Leriche had held several posts at Bombardier Transport where he became head of the Direction of Transport Systems "Guided Light Transit". A graduate of École Polytechnique (1997), l'Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées (1999), Yann Leriche also holds degrees from the Collège des Ingénieurs (2000) and ESCP‐Europe (2006).

Leriche brought experience in operational excellence, autonomous vehicles, and transit systems transformation—skills increasingly relevant as Getlink positioned for the next phase of development.

Looking ahead, the infrastructure is being prepared for growth. The tunnel is only used at about 50% capacity, despite also accommodating LeShuttle vehicle-carrying trains between Folkestone in Kent and Calais in northern France.

Fifty percent capacity utilization represents enormous upside potential. And now, for the first time in 30 years, competition may be coming to the tunnel's passenger rail services.

The decision by the Office of Rail and Road means Richard Branson's company can start work on its plan to introduce a rival service from 2030, running trains from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Virgin Trains has just won approval from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to share Eurostar's London depot – a move that brings Richard Branson's company one step closer to launching a rival service between London and Europe by 2030.

For Getlink, a Virgin Trains entry would mean more trains paying tolls for tunnel access—pure incremental revenue on existing infrastructure. Competition that benefits the infrastructure owner while passengers benefit from lower prices and more choices.

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XI. Competitive Landscape & Market Dynamics

Understanding Getlink's competitive position requires examining three distinct markets: cross-Channel vehicle transport, rail freight, and electricity interconnection.

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Cross-Channel Transport: Tunnel vs. Ferries

The cross-Channel "Short Straits" market pits Getlink's shuttle services against ferry operators competing on the Dover-Calais and related routes.

For trucks, LeShuttle Freight maintains a market share of 36%. DFDS (across two ports) is at 26.9%, P&O at 23.7% and Irish Ferries at 13.4%.

LeShuttle remains dominant on the passenger market, with a market share of 58.4%, far ahead of the ferries which are respectively at 17.9% for DFDS (for the two ports of Calais and Dunkerque), 15% for P&O and 8.7% for Irish Ferries.

The competitive dynamics are fascinating. Ferry operators have lower fixed costs but higher variable costs (fuel). The tunnel has enormous fixed costs (the infrastructure) but minimal variable costs for incremental traffic. This creates predictable competitive behavior: ferries discount aggressively when oil prices are low or demand is weak, while Getlink's pricing power increases when speed, reliability, or environmental considerations matter most.

The cross-Channel truck market continues to be depressed, impacted both by the continuing effect of Brexit and the impact of the weakened economic climate in the United Kingdom, and in a market that is highly competitive.

Recent regulatory developments could reshape the competitive landscape. Following a CMA probe, P&O Ferries and DFDS have offered commitments to address concerns that their capacity sharing agreement could lead to higher prices and fewer sailings. In November 2021, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation into an agreement between ferry companies P&O Ferries and DFDS A/S.

If P&O and DFDS coordination faces regulatory constraints, it could benefit Getlink as the only integrated alternative.

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The Environmental Edge

Perhaps Getlink's most sustainable competitive advantage is environmental. When compared with ferry travel, crossing the channel on LeShuttle emits 52 times less carbon dioxide. Travelling by EV is even kinder on the environment.

A truck crossing the Channel on our freight service emits 14 times less carbon emissions than by ferry. Thanks to all its activities, LeShuttle Freight avoids about 1.7 million tonnes of CO2e every year.

As carbon pricing, emissions trading schemes, and ESG mandates increasingly influence corporate supply chain decisions, this environmental advantage becomes a genuine competitive moat. Companies targeting net-zero commitments face pressure to optimize transportation emissions. The tunnel offers a path to significantly lower Scope 3 emissions for cross-Channel goods movement.

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High-Speed Passenger Rail

For 30 years, Eurostar has held a monopoly on high-speed passenger trains through the tunnel. Now that's changing.

Virgin Trains is set to launch international services through the Channel Tunnel after its application to share Eurostar's east London depot was approved. Regulator the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) granted access to Sir Richard Branson's company to use the Temple Mills site for maintaining and storing trains.

The billionaire entrepreneur pledged to "shake-up the cross-Channel route".

If successful, Virgin's cross-Channel expansion could transform the way travellers move between the UK and Europe — potentially sparking price competition, more frequent departures, and a fresh, modern take on the once-exclusive Eurostar experience.

For Getlink, this is almost entirely positive: more trains mean more tolls. The company doesn't compete with passenger rail operators; it provides the infrastructure they must use. Competition that grows the market benefits the infrastructure owner.

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XII. Playbook: Business & Investing Lessons

Getlink's transformation from financial disaster to infrastructure champion offers several enduring lessons:

Infrastructure Moats Are Real—Once Built. The Channel Tunnel cannot be replicated. The political, engineering, and financial barriers to building a second fixed link are insurmountable. This gives Getlink pricing power and resilience that few businesses can match. But—and this is crucial—the moat only protects the operator once the asset exists. The original shareholders who funded construction received minimal benefit from the moat they created.

Project Finance Gone Wrong: A Cautionary Tale. The original Eurotunnel financing demonstrates the dangers of overleveraging infrastructure projects based on optimistic traffic forecasts. When costs doubled and revenues disappointed, there was no equity cushion to absorb the shock. The lesson for infrastructure investors: be deeply skeptical of traffic forecasts and demand significant equity cushions.

The Turnaround Playbook. Jacques Gounon's rescue of Eurotunnel offers a masterclass in corporate restructuring. Key elements: willingness to use bankruptcy protection as a tool rather than a stigma; disciplined focus on operational excellence once financial restructuring was complete; patience with diversification but willingness to retreat when regulatory or competitive realities required it.

Asset Optionality. ElecLink demonstrates how infrastructure assets can generate value beyond their original purpose. The tunnel was built for trains; now it carries electricity worth hundreds of millions annually. This suggests a framework for evaluating infrastructure investments: what are the second-order uses that could emerge?

Regulatory Navigation. The MyFerryLink episode shows the limits of diversification for dominant infrastructure operators. Competition authorities will constrain expansion when market power becomes excessive. Successful infrastructure investors must map regulatory constraints as carefully as competitive dynamics.

Concession Value. The extension to 2086 gives Getlink extraordinary duration. Every improvement, every efficiency gain, every new revenue stream compounds over decades. For long-term investors, this time horizon justifies patience with short-term setbacks.

Patience Pays. Shareholders who bought Eurotunnel stock in the 1980s and held through two restructurings saw their stakes massively diluted. But shareholders who purchased after the 2007 restructuring have benefited from 18 years of compounding in a stabilized, profitable infrastructure asset. Entry timing matters enormously in distressed situations.

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XIII. Porter's Five Forces & Hamilton's 7 Powers Analysis

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Porter's Five Forces

Threat of New Entrants: Very Low

No competitor can build another Channel Tunnel. The £9.5 billion construction cost (in 1994 pounds), the bi-national political agreements required, and the decades-long regulatory approval process create insurmountable barriers. For the core infrastructure business, the moat is essentially permanent.

For ancillary services (rail freight, electricity interconnection), barriers are lower but still substantial given established relationships and scale economies.

Supplier Power: Low to Moderate

Key suppliers include electricity providers, equipment manufacturers, and skilled labor. None holds significant power over Getlink. The company's scale and long-term contracts with suppliers (Siemens for ElecLink, rolling stock manufacturers for shuttles) provide negotiating leverage.

The one exception is Eurostar as a major customer/supplier in the railway ecosystem—although the arrival of Virgin Trains competition should improve Getlink's position.

Buyer Power: Moderate

Individual passengers have low power; they choose between tunnel and ferry based on price, convenience, and timing. Large freight operators and travel agencies can negotiate volume discounts, but no single customer represents a meaningful share of revenues.

Eurostar's historical monopoly gave it negotiating power over access charges, but this should moderate as competition emerges.

Threat of Substitutes: Moderate

Ferries remain viable substitutes for vehicle transport, particularly for price-sensitive customers tolerant of longer journey times. Air freight competes for high-value, time-sensitive cargo. But the tunnel's speed, reliability, and increasingly its environmental credentials limit substitution for premium traffic.

Competitive Rivalry: Moderate to High

Ferry operators compete aggressively on price, particularly in weak demand periods. The P&O/DFDS capacity-sharing agreement, while under regulatory scrutiny, represents coordinated behavior that could intensify or moderate competition depending on regulatory outcomes.

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Hamilton Helmer's 7 Powers

Scale Economies: Strong

The fixed costs of tunnel infrastructure are enormous; marginal costs of additional trains are minimal. This creates powerful scale economies that improve with volume. Competitors cannot match this cost structure without comparable infrastructure.

Network Economies: Moderate

Limited direct network effects, but indirect effects exist through logistics networks built around tunnel reliability and smart border systems.

Switching Costs: Moderate

Freight customers who have integrated Eurotunnel Border Pass and Sherpass systems into their operations face meaningful switching costs. Passenger switching costs are low.

Counter-Positioning: Present

Getlink's electric-powered, low-carbon transport directly counter-positions against diesel-powered ferries as carbon regulations tighten. Ferry operators face a dilemma: matching Getlink's environmental profile requires massive investment in vessel electrification.

Branding: Moderate

LeShuttle has reasonable brand recognition for reliability and speed. Not a dominant factor in B2B freight decisions.

Cornered Resource: Strong

The Channel Tunnel itself is the ultimate cornered resource—a unique, irreplaceable asset that competitors cannot access or replicate.

Process Power: Building

Smart border systems, AI-enhanced customer service, and operational optimization create ongoing process advantages that accumulate over time.

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XIV. Bull Case & Bear Case

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Bull Case

The Ultimate Infrastructure Play. Getlink operates an irreplaceable, regulated infrastructure asset with 61 years remaining on its concession. No competitor can build a rival tunnel. As traffic grows with trade normalization and new rail operators enter, revenues compound on fixed infrastructure.

Environmental Tailwinds. With 73 times less CO2 emissions for a tourist vehicle transported by LeShuttle and 12 times less for a lorry compared to a ferry crossing, the Tunnel is the ecological choice. As carbon pricing intensifies and corporate net-zero commitments multiply, the tunnel's environmental advantage becomes increasingly valuable.

ElecLink Optionality. Even as electricity prices normalize from 2022-2023 peaks, ElecLink provides €200-300 million in annual revenues from an asset built on existing infrastructure. Future optionality (second interconnector? data cables?) remains underappreciated.

Competition Grows the Pie. Virgin Trains entry means more trains paying tolls. Unlike Eurostar, Getlink benefits when competitors succeed on its infrastructure.

Underlevered Balance Sheet. With €1.7 billion in cash at year-end 2024 and upgraded credit ratings, Getlink has financial flexibility for acquisitions, buybacks, or dividend increases.

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Bear Case

Brexit Structural Damage. Despite smart border investments, UK-EU trade has fundamentally shifted. Some freight has permanently migrated to direct Ireland-Continent routes, bypassing the UK landbridge entirely. This volume may never return.

Ferry Competition Intensifies. If ferries successfully electrify or shift to LNG, the environmental advantage narrows. Price wars in periods of weak demand can compress margins.

ElecLink Revenue Volatility. The energy crisis windfall is over. The Group's revenue is down 12%, consequence of the expected normalisation of electricity markets and the suspension of ElecLink's activity in the last quarter. ElecLink revenues may normalize to €200-250 million range—still valuable, but not the €558 million of 2023.

Infrastructure Aging Risk. The 2024 ElecLink cable fault demonstrates that even well-maintained infrastructure can fail unexpectedly. Major tunnel repairs or safety upgrades could require significant capital.

Eurostar Concentration Risk. Despite Virgin Trains entry, Eurostar remains the dominant passenger rail customer. Eurostar's own financial challenges or service reductions would impact Getlink's railway network revenues.

Regulatory Overreach. As a dominant infrastructure operator, Getlink faces ongoing regulatory scrutiny. Price controls, access requirements, or environmental mandates could constrain profitability.

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XV. Key Metrics for Investors

For fundamental investors tracking Getlink's ongoing performance, three KPIs stand out as essential:

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1. Eurotunnel Traffic Volumes (Trucks and Passenger Vehicles)

This is the core business. Monthly traffic data reveals market share trends, pricing power, and economic health of UK-EU trade. Watch for: - Truck volume trends relative to total Short Straits market - Passenger vehicle recovery patterns (leisure vs. business) - Seasonal patterns and weather sensitivity

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2. ElecLink Capacity Utilization and Revenue per MWh

ElecLink revenues depend on both utilization (how often the cable operates at capacity) and electricity price spreads between UK and France. Tracking: - Cable availability rate (target: >95%) - Revenue per MWh transported - Forward capacity auctions as indicator of future revenues

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3. EBITDA Margin and Free Cash Flow Conversion

Given the capital-intensive nature of infrastructure operations, margins and cash generation reveal operational efficiency and reinvestment capacity: - EBITDA margin trends by segment - Capex as percentage of revenues - Free cash flow after maintenance capex

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XVI. Conclusion: The Long View

Standing at the English Channel in late 2025, the world looks very different than it did when Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand signed the Treaty of Canterbury nearly four decades ago. Britain has left the European Union. Climate change has reshaped transportation economics. Electric vehicles are replacing internal combustion engines.

And yet the Channel Tunnel endures—more vital than ever, carrying more trade, generating more revenue, and now transmitting electricity between two national grids.

The Getlink story offers lessons that extend far beyond infrastructure investing. It's a tale of ambition and hubris, of financial engineering gone wrong and operational excellence that ultimately prevailed. It demonstrates both the dangers of overleveraging mega-projects and the remarkable value that accrues to patient operators of irreplaceable assets.

For investors, the key insight may be this: the original Eurotunnel investors paid for the creation of an extraordinary moat—and received minimal reward for their risk. Today's Getlink shareholders inherit that moat, benefit from the operational improvements of the past 18 years, and hold an asset with 61 years of concession remaining.

The Channel Tunnel was Napoleon's dream, Thatcher's gamble, and Gounon's turnaround triumph. Now it's a mature infrastructure asset throwing off cash, investing in the future, and preparing for the next chapter of European connectivity.

The tunnel endures. So does the opportunity.

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Note: This analysis is based on public information and is not investment advice. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and consult financial professionals before making investment decisions.