Croatian Đuro Đaković is doing well in Bohemia. We’re heading towards producing a thousand wagons a year, says director Maroušek

Three years ago, Czech industrialists Jaroslav Strnad and René Matera acquired a majority stake in the Croatian railcar manufacturer Đuro Đaković in Slavonski Brod. Since Strnad and Matera acquired the wagon manufacturer from the state just before it went bankrupt, the number of wagons produced has tripled and EBITDA growth has been 20 per cent higher year-on-year.

How is Đuro Đaković doing this year?

I’d say we’re doing well; we’re fulfilling the restructuring plan and should be approaching the 1,000-wagon sales mark this year. By way of comparison, when we took over the business in 2021, the figure was 260 wagons. Just like the previous two years, we will have a positive EBITDA this year too; we estimate growth of around 20 per cent (in 2023, EBITDA was 234 million crowns).

How did you get the company back into the black?

Thanks to a series of measures, significant investments and the know-how regarding bogie supply that we brought to the company. Đuro did not previously manufacture bogies and used to purchase them from suppliers in Germany and France. Since 2022, the production facility has been able to supply bogies for all the carriages we manufacture.

How much did you invest in the company during the restructuring?

Over the past three years, it was almost 400 million crowns. Next year, we plan to invest around 125 million crowns, which will mainly go towards the automation of wagon surface treatments and digitalisation.

What annual production target are you aiming for in Đur?

Looking ahead, we want to reach two thousand wagons a year. However, we won’t be manufacturing them all in Croatia. We are looking at other locations in Europe. We also want to increase the defence sector’s share of the company’s turnover.

CE Industries covers the entire railcar production cycle in the railway business – development, design, manufacturing and servicing across several European countries.