AS anticipated by Railnews.co.uk on 7 October, the German government has said it is delaying indefinitely an initial public offering of 24.9 percent of Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway — which owns Britain’s EWS and Laing Rail, operator of the Chiltern franchise and which also has a joint venture with MTR to operate the London Overground concession.

The IPO had been due to be launched on the Frankfurt stock exchange on 27 October.

The sale was expected to raise between €5 billion and €6 billion (£3.9bn-£4.7bn). But estimates of the proceeds had been cut in recent days as the DAX index of Germany’s 30 largest publicly-traded stocks plummeted.

Citing “extreme uncertainties” in global financial markets, Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said Berlin will proceed with the IPO when the market environment is conducive to a successful sale.

The government is said to be now looking to a market flotation by the spring at the latest because it wants to avoid the controversial offering being caught up in the campaign for the German general election in September 2009.