Belgian state takes full control of country’s largest freight operator
BELGIUM: Belgium’s sovereign wealth fund SFPIM has secured European Commission clearance to acquire full ownership of Lineas, ending the freight operator’s decade-long experiment as a majority-private company.
The Commission approved the transaction on 15 April under EU merger control rules, finding no competition concerns. SFPIM, which previously held 46.42% of Lineas alongside private equity fund Argos Wityu, will now hold 100% — the first time the company has been wholly state-owned since the Belgian state began divesting its stake in the former SNCB freight division.
Three decisions, three legal bases
The buyout is the third distinct EC decision in Lineas’s restructuring sequence, each resting on separate legal grounds.
In 2023 and 2024, SFPIM and Argos Wityu made capital injections into the company jointly. Following a third-party complaint, the Commission examined whether those moves constituted state aid; it concluded they did not, finding that the state participated on terms a private investor would have accepted.
The second decision came in January 2026, when Brussels cleared a EUR 61m emergency rescue loan notified by Belgium the previous August. That measure was assessed under EU rescue and restructuring aid rules and approved as a temporary liquidity instrument.
The third — the 15 April merger clearance — operates under an entirely different framework: EU merger control regulation, not state aid law.
Private capital exits, state absorbs the risk
The sequence reflects the progressive withdrawal of private capital from a company that could not return to profitability fast enough.
Argos Wityu, which had held a majority stake of 53.58 %, announced last year that it could no longer provide financial support. The EUR 61m rescue loan proved insufficient. Lineas subsequently entered a closed court-supervised reorganisation in December 2025, and an additional EUR 40m in public financing — drawn from federal and regional budgets — remains pending.
SFPIM moved to full ownership after Argos Wityu withdrew, leaving no private party able to sustain the company.
Lineas has reduced its EBIT loss from EUR 82m in 2022 to EUR 13.6m in 2024 and has set breakeven as its target for 2026. The company handles around 60 % of Belgium’s rail freight, with particular concentration around the port of Antwerp.
What renationalisation signals
Lineas was created to demonstrate that a liberalised European freight market could sustain privately owned operators outside the incumbent structure. Its return to full state ownership — under financial pressure rather than political choice — leaves that proposition unresolved.
Whether the Belgian state intends to seek new private co-investors once the restructuring concludes has not been confirmed.