Unexpected resignation at state-owned railway company

Tapio Simos, 58, leaves VR Ltd.

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An unexpected resignation took place in the top management of the Finnish railway conglomerate, the VR Group. Tapio Simos, the 58-year-old CEO of VR Ltd., which deals with passenger and freight traffic on Finland’s railways, announced that he had decided to resign.
      The VR Group was not forthcoming with information on the background of Simos’s departure. Mikael Aro, newly appointed as President and CEO of VR Group, says that VR and Simos had agreed that only Simos himself would comment on the reasons for the resignation.
      Helsingin Sanomat could not reach Simos on Monday.
     
Mikael Aro was chosen to the VR management in March, but has been working at VR for less than three weeks. However, he has had ample time to acquaint himself with his new employer, although he could not take on his new job until after his period of notice from his previous employer, the Danish brewing empire Carlsberg, ran out.
      Aro says that he met the members of the management of the company already in the spring, and had discussed their job descriptions with them. He had pondered various options for the development of the company with the board of the VR Group.
      In all of the options he would have wanted Simos to continue with the company.
      “I want to say that we had no disagreements with Simos. This was completely his own decision”, Aro says.
     
There may have been a possibility that Simos’s task in the organisation could have changed. Aro says that an idea had been put forward, that freight and passenger traffic might have been split into separate companies, thereby dividing VR Ltd.
      Under such a model, the VR lorry company Transpoint could have been merged with rail freight operations. Transpoint is now a part of the VR subsidiary Pohjolan Liikenne, which operates buses.
     
Talk about reorganising VR’s freight operations has been spurred by the recession, which has had its greatest impact on goods transport.
      The economic situation has especially affected freight services between Finland and Russia.
      “When a third of freight transport falls away in less than a year, it can be seen as rather large”, Aro says.
     
Mikael Aro promises to make public his new plans within a couple of months. “When a new boss comes, new policy lines can be expected within 100 days.”


Links:
  VR Group press release: Freight carryings by VR Group down one third in first half of year

Helsingin Sanomat