The company has 349 people earning more than $100,000 a year, up from 195 last year but it said the increase was because it acquired KiwiRail Mechanical Services Ltd during the year.
The annual report also discloses that the railway infrastructure assets were valued by an independent valuer at $5.835 billion in June 2009 on a depreciated replacement cost basis. The Government brought the rail network back for $1 but was later criticised for over-paying when it bought back the railway operating business from Toll Holdings Ltd of Australia.
Toll New Zealand is still KiwiRail's largest customer. The annual report said the relationship between the two had been redefined but it did not go into details.
The annual report also profiles Fonterra as a major customer. During the 2009/10 year KiwiRail signed a long term agreement with the dairy co-operative. Fonterra wants to reduce the number of its warehouses from 80 to around 45. It is channelling greater export volumes through the ports of Auckland, Tauranga, Napier and Lyttelton.
Fonterra's general manager strategy, trade and operation, Nigel Jones, is quoted in the KiwiRail annual report as saying five years ago 30 percent of Fonterra's volume moved on rail and the rest on road. "Now, these ratios are reversed," he said.
Fonterra has spent $100 million integrating rail into its distribution network. It would not have done this if it did not believe it was a commercial solution.
The annual report also reveals that as a part of the previously announced plan to re-nose and lengthen the Aratere ferry KiwiRail is buying the Cook Strait ferry back.
The vessel had previously been sold and leased back. KiwiRail is collapsing the operating lease and will take ownership of the vessel at a cost of $35.8 million, allowing for a partial refinancing.
