Business
Know the Business
Getlink owns the only land link between the UK and continental Europe — a 99-year treaty-backed concession running through 2086 — and operates the trucks, cars and trains that cross through it, plus a 1 GW power cable threaded into the same hole. The cash engine is the Tunnel: ~75% of revenue and ~78% of EBITDA come from a single asset whose substitute would cost €20B+ and take 15+ years to build. The market is most likely under-pricing the inflation linkage on the rail toll and over-pricing the recurring power of ElecLink at the cyclical peak.
The single most important thing to internalise: Getlink is a concession utility wearing a transport-operator's clothes. Group EBITDA margin of 54% mixes a 56% concession with a 70% capacity asset (in a boom year) and a 20% rail-freight operator. Always read it by segment.
FY2025 revenue (€M)
FY2025 EBITDA (€M)
FY2025 FCF (€M)
Net debt 31-Dec-25 (€M)
1. How This Business Actually Works
Three revenue streams. Two are inflation-linked; one is a commodity-price call option. The cost base is overwhelmingly fixed, so each incremental crossing falls almost entirely to EBITDA — and each lost crossing falls almost entirely against EBITDA. That is the whole story.
The Tunnel is the asset that matters. Shuttle Services and the Railway Network jointly produce €1,149M of revenue and €667M of segment EBITDA on €531M of operating cost — a 55.7% segment margin and the cleanest concession-utility cash flow in European transport infrastructure. Truck Shuttle is the cyclical bit: 35.4% market share on the Short Straits, contractually defended price, but volume swings with EU/UK goods trade. Passenger Shuttle is more durable (56.1% car market share, +80 bps in FY25). The Railway Network is the highest-quality revenue line in the group — a regulated toll the Group collects every time Eurostar, DB Cargo, SNCF or any new open-access operator runs a train through the Tunnel, with no incremental capex required.
ElecLink is a different animal. It sells transmission capacity from auctioned 1 GW between France and Britain; revenue is a function of the FR-GB power-price spread, not Tunnel traffic. In the 2022–2024 energy crisis it printed €280M of revenue and a 56% margin. In FY2025 the market normalised, the interconnector was suspended from 25 Sep 2024 to 5 Feb 2025, and reported EBITDA held flat at €158M only because €55M of insurance compensation was recognised. Underlying ElecLink EBITDA in a normal year is materially below the €158M reported figure once the €80M profit-sharing provision and the €55M insurance line are stripped — important to remember when valuing the stack. As at 31 Mar 2026, ElecLink had secured €291M of 2026 revenue (89% of annual capacity) and €141M of 2027 revenue (36% of capacity), per the Q1 2026 release — up from €242M (81%) at the 15 Feb 2026 disclosure.
Europorte is small (11% of revenue, 4% of EBITDA) and is a transport operator, not a concession. Its 20% EBITDA margin is normal for European rail freight and should be valued as such. Strategically it feeds cross-Channel freight volume into the Tunnel; financially it is rounding.
The mechanic to remember: group revenue can move 30% peak-to-trough on volume, but ~70% of operating cost is fixed (maintenance, energy, regulated safety staff, depreciation). That is what produces 55%+ margins in good years and the negative operating leverage you saw in 2020 (revenue €816M, EBITDA collapsed accordingly) and 2021 (€774M).
2. The Playing Field
No direct "Getlink competitor": one fixed-link concession in this corridor, owned by Getlink through 2086. The peer set splits into two populations — modal substitutes on the Short Straits (ferries — DFDS is the listed comp) and listed concession peers (airports and toll-road groups whose cash-flow DNA, leverage and inflation-linked tariffs are economically similar). The right comparison is AENA, not DFDS: AENA earns a regulated yield on a captive monopoly with the same long-life concession dynamics as Eurotunnel; DFDS earns a thin asset-light ferry margin in a contestable market.
Three signals jump out of this table. First, Getlink's group EBITDA margin (54%) is materially closer to AENA (60%) than to VINCI / Eiffage (~17%) — confirming that group-level multiples vs construction groups are meaningless. Second, Getlink already trades at EV/EBITDA of ~16x, well above AENA's 10.6x. The market is pricing the 60-year concession runway and inflation linkage as a premium asset, plus the ElecLink optionality. The question for the underwriter is whether that premium is justified by the unique 2086 expiry (60 years remaining vs AENA's perpetual but politically more exposed Spanish airport tills), or whether the ElecLink contribution is being capitalised at a multiple that won't survive when capacity-auction prices normalise further. Third, DFDS — the direct ferry substitute — trades at EV/revenue of 0.7x. That is not a peer for Getlink; it is a useful anchor for what happens to economics when a transport business doesn't have a concession behind it.
Eiffage owns 29.40% of capital / 29.9% of voting rights (raised above the 25% threshold 23 Oct 2025 at 27.66%, then added a 1.74% market block in late March 2026 at avg €17.40/sh, max €17.70). Mundys (Edizione/Blackstone) holds 19.0% of capital / 24.8% of voting rights after the 31 March 2026 first swap tranche; the 24 April 2026 second-tranche option exercise — subject to regulatory approvals — would lift this to 25.0% capital / 29.9% votes. BlackRock holds ~6.3% of capital. Eiffage has board representation. This matters for valuation: any future bid premium is constrained by needing Eiffage's consent, and the controlling shareholders' long-dated horizon supports the dividend trajectory (€0.80 proposed for FY25 vs €0.58 for FY24, +38%).
3. Is This Business Cyclical?
Yes — but not in the way the share price suggests. The asset is contractual; the revenue line is not. Volume can swing 30%+ in a recession or trade shock, tariff is contractually defended (rail toll formula locked to inflation through 2052, Shuttle pricing dynamic but anchored to a market-clearing rate), cost base is fixed. Result: revenue and EBITDA collapse together in deep events, then snap back — asset unchanged, capacity unaltered.
The pattern: this is a low-frequency, deep-amplitude cycle. The 2020 event was severe (EBITDA -39%), the recovery was fast (FY2022 already above FY2019), and ElecLink in 2022–23 then bolted on a one-time energy-crisis premium that flattered the consolidated reading. FY2024 and FY2025 are the normalised picture: €820–850M of post-normalisation EBITDA from Eurotunnel + Europorte + a more sober ElecLink. That €820–850M is the right starting point for valuation — not the €953M of FY2023.
The other thing this chart hides: leverage has fallen through the cycle. Net debt was €3,576M at end-2024 and €3,392M at end-2025; the Eurotunnel debt has been upgraded to BBB+ by S&P (from BBB) and the holdco to BB+ (from BB). The cycle hits revenue but the concession bonds keep amortising, so cycle troughs are less dangerous for equity now than they were a decade ago.
4. The Metrics That Actually Matter
Five metrics. If you watch only these, you have the business.
The metrics readers usually focus on — group EBITDA margin, consolidated revenue growth, P/E — are dominated by the swing in ElecLink revenue (€280M in 2024 → €225M in 2025) which has almost nothing to do with how the actual concession is doing. The Eurotunnel segment grew revenue 4% and EBITDA 5% in 2025; that is the signal. The headline -1% revenue is the noise.
The one metric the market under-watches: Eurostar passenger growth, because the toll is high-incremental-margin and is set to compound as new open-access operators (Virgin/Evolyn, FS Italiane) launch services from 2030. The company is guiding to +10M Eurostar passengers in the medium term vs 11.8M today — almost a doubling of Railway Network volume with no Tunnel capex.
5. What Is This Business Worth?
The right lens is sum-of-the-parts, but only just. ~78% of EBITDA comes from a single concession-utility cash flow that should be valued as one engine; the other 22% sits in two materially different businesses (a power-spread call option and a thin-margin rail-freight operator) whose multiples diverge from the core by 3–8x EBITDA. Forcing them into a single group multiple either over-values the rail operator or under-values the Tunnel.
A gross EV of €7.6–€9.9B less €3.4B of net debt implies equity of €4.2–€6.5B, or ~€7.6–€11.8/share against today's €18.52. The gap requires one of three underwrites: (a) Tunnel concession at 14–17x EBITDA — a premium to AENA (10.6x) that requires belief in open-access HSR growth and the post-2052 toll formula; (b) ElecLink capitalised at peak rather than mid-cycle; (c) the Eiffage/Mundys structure pricing strategic-bid optionality. Know which one before paying €18+.
Where the SOTP can be wrong: if the Railway Network toll formula gets renegotiated downward in 2052 (a 27-year-out event, but priced into terminal value today), the AENA-like multiple is too generous. If new open-access HSR operators add 5–8M passengers per year by 2032 with no incremental Tunnel capex, the multiple is too low. Both scenarios are real; neither has been resolved.
6. What I'd Tell a Young Analyst
Concession utility wrapped in volume optics. Watch the monthly traffic release — trucks, cars, Eurostar passengers — that is where the cycle reveals itself first, and disclosure is more frequent than any peer's. Don't anchor on group EBITDA margin; read the Eurotunnel segment alone, because that is the asset.
The market most often treats ElecLink's good years as run-rate. Strip the €55M insurance and restate ElecLink at €100–130M mid-cycle EBITDA — group normalised is closer to €800M than €860M, already in the company's 2026 guide. The market may under-price the Railway Network: a contractual toll on third-party trains that costs Getlink nothing incremental, with two HSR operators preparing to launch and a +10M passenger medium-term target. High-margin, low-capex, mostly outside management's control.
Three thesis-breakers. One, a Eurostar slot-allocation decision against Getlink (unlikely under Open Access, but watch ORR/CAA 2026–27). Two, two or more new ferry vessels on Dover-Calais (DFDS / Irish Ferries / P&O) — compresses Truck Shuttle yield inside 18 months. Three, any move by Eiffage above 30% capital (triggers a mandatory tender under French law; Eiffage already 29.40%). Until then: own the Tunnel through the cycle, mark ElecLink to mid-band, watch deleveraging compound to the next refinancing window.