European rail mega-merger is about business not politics, Siemens and Alstom CEOs tell CNBC

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German ICE train manufacturing company Siemens President and CEO, Joe Kaeser (L) shakes hands with French railway transport company Alstom CEO, Henri Poupart-Lafarge following a press conference announcing the union between French railway transport company Alstom and Siemens on September 27, 2017 in Paris.

After more details of the deal were released on Wednesday, shares of Siemens were up 2 percent while Alstom shares were up 6.2 percent.

Kaeser said there was a lot of work to complete the deal and he said regulatory matters needed to be dealt with. “There is a lot to do, then we go after the synergies,” he said, which are estimated to amount to around 470 million euros ($551.8 million) annually and expected four years after the deal has closed.

As a result, Kaeser said there was bound to be redundancies as a result of the companies merging.

“Of course after the combination of businesses there will also be redundancies, there are two companies, two CEOs, two finance directors, two HR departments and you only need one. So of course there will be synergies relating to the combination of the businesses.”