Adrien Aumont — Our second opportunity isn’t a winning lottery ticket, or a dinner date. It’s an email. It’s a response from a request to a public fund from our investment bank; a product of their hard working teams. It’s a real stroke of luck. This French fund is a major – but often silent – player in sustainable and responsible investment. Its name, which we can’t disclose for confidentiality reasons, isn’t well known to the general public. But in financial circles, everyone has heard of it.
Our investment bank knows this fund well. Specialising in green projects, it’s often collaborated with the team. So naturally, it had sent them the Midnight Trains file a few months before. And they’re interested - very interested. They’re of the same generation as us, and in tune with the times. Unlike many of the financiers we encountered, they immediately understood the relevance of the subject. Everyone believes in the need to relaunch night trains to connect major European cities to compete with short-haul planes. Better yet, they understand the need for intimacy and comfort needed for the upgrade to night-time transport. In fact, like us, they’re convinced that the night train is the future of decarbonising long-distance travel.
Nicolas Bargelès — Despite their convictions, the public giant’s teams aren’t idle. Like their private counterparts, they question us about the nature of the model, how it works, the choice of manufacturer and so on. This happens in multiple video or in-person meetings. There are still two major differences. The first is that the teams don’t challenge us on the relevance of the project. They believe in it. The second is that they push the investigation to another level. For example, they contact our former colleagues and/or employers. The ones before Midnight Trains to check that there are no skeletons in the closets.
Romain Payet — Quite quickly, this fund gave us a letter of interest, a document indicating that they’re ready to support us if a certain number of conditions are met before a certain deadline. Along with the fund, which took charge of the financing of the OpCo in the previous episode, it’s the second stroke of luck which falls in our laps. It represents more than the combination of the hotel giant and the French investment giant. In short, just a few weeks after their fall, we’re back on track.
As for the amounts promised by this public giant, they’re very significant. They can go up to eight figures in the OpCo and eight figures in the AssetCo, respectively the operating company and the company which will carry the assets (the trains). On the smaller side of eight figures, but eight figures all the same. It would be out of order to complain. But there remains a specificity in the way this fund operates. By the nature of its mandate from the French State, it can’t be the main investor in Midnight Trains, in either structure. It must be a follow-on investor, so that France's role among private actors remains limited. The fund intends to invest a little less than the majority fund in the OpCo and a few million less than the future main investor in the AssetCo. It’s the latter that interests it the most since its mission mainly consists of investing in assets.
Adrien Aumont — The only problem is that we no longer have a main investor for the purchase of our first two trains. Fortunately, this is where our third stroke of luck comes along. We refuse to do an interview regarding information that’s leaked to the specialist press. We didn’t see it coming, but an investor from Northern Europe offers to help us buy our trains. Sometimes life sends a signal that’s so obvious, it’s almost impossible to miss.
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