Liverpool city region train operator Merseyrail publishes its latest annual accounts which reveal a £17m dividends windfall, meaning shareholders have now pocketed more than £260m since the franchise began. Tony McDonough reports
Merseyrail shareholders have pocketed more than £260m in dividends since the concession began in 2003, new figures reveal.
Liverpool city region’s train operator has posted its accounts for the 12 months to January 3, 2026, on Companies House. They show a 5.5% rise in revenues to £235.1m with pre-tax profits falling 16% to £26.2m.
However, it is the shareholder dividends figure which is most interesting. This year’s £17m payout means the total for the duration of the concession now totals £262m. In the previous year shareholders pocketed £28m.
That concession comes to an end in 2028 when Liverpool city region mayor Steve Rotheram and the Combined Authority bring the network back under public control. Mr Rotheram is also reversing deregulation of the city’s region’s buses.
Known as Merseyrail Electrics 2002, the company has two shareholders – Serco Group and Transport UK. The latter business was created in August 2022 following a UK-led management buyout of Abellio, the overseas division of Netherlands Railways.
Over more than two decades of the concession shareholder payouts have averaged more than £11m a year. Highest payout was £42m for the 12 months to January 6, 2024, when Merseyrail reported record pre-tax profits of just under £44m.
Merseyrail operates 613 train services every day Monday to Saturday and 375 on Sundays. During the 12-month period an average of 86,000 individual journeys by passengers were recorded adding up to 31m across the year. 2025 also saw the launch of Tap and Go payments on the network.
Writing in the annual report, finance director Christopher Maher said: “Passenger habits continue to have a stronger focus on leisure journeys compared to commuter journeys.
“With a large proportion of companies operating a hybrid working model, fewer passengers are using the network to commute compared to historic trends.
“However, Merseyrail has seen more positive growth in the number of commuters using the network in the past two years compared with the growth seen in the leisure market.”
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He added passenger journey growth had also been supported by the opening of Everton FC’s Hill Dickinson Stadium although, has has been widely reported, many Everton fans believe the capacity at both the station and on the line is inadequate.
“Revenue was also positively supported by high volume of passenger journeys during the Liverpool FC parade (in May 2025), which was the busiest operating day of the year,” added Christopher.
“Train performance remained strong during the year with consistently high results compared to industry averages, demonstrating resilience across the network.”