Brightline, the nation's only private passenger rail service, is shuffling its leadership with the appointment of a new CEO and chief financial officer as the company looks for ways to pay off debt.
Nicolas Petrovic has been tapped to serve as the CEO of Brightline Holdings, the parent company of Brightline Florida, which runs the company's existing passenger service between Miami and Orlando, and Brightline West, the division behind an upcoming high-speed rail between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Mauricio Anderson has been named CFO of Brightline Holdings and Brightline Florida, while Brightline West deputy CFO Bruce Snyder has been promoted to CFO.
In his new role, Petrovic will be based in Miami and focus on driving long-term value and sustained growth for the company's Florida operations, the company said in a press release.
Brightline Holdings' outgoing CEO Michael Reininger, who led the company's initial expansion throughout South Florida, will assume a new role as managing director of Brightline West. Patrick Goddard, president of Brightline Florida, and Sarah Watterson, president of Brightline West, remain in their current roles.
Petrovic pulls into the new station after decades of work in the European passenger rail and transportation industries and will help coordinate the overall strategy and growth between Brightline's growing rail network across the country. He joined Eurostar in 2003, and from 2010 to 2018 served as CEO of the high-speed passenger service connecting London, Paris and Brussels. Petrovic later served as CEO of Siemens France between 2018 to 2021, and most recently as CEO of the Etihad Rail Mobility, the United Arab Emirates' national rail network.
“As Brightline continues to pioneer a new era in American transportation, the insights that [Petrovic] brings from around the globe will strengthen our operating company as it continues to grow and expand, while [Reininger] concentrates his focus once again on implementing an unprecedented infrastructure development," said Wes Edens, Brightline's founder and chairman of Fortress Investment Group, the parent company and owner of Brightline, in the release.
For his work at Eurostar, Petrovic was awarded France’s highest civilian award, the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2016, recognizing exceptional merit in service to the nation.
“With the tools and experiences from a global peer group, I believe Brightline will continue to show the way forward for profitability and customer experience that will firmly position the business in America’s transportation landscape,” said Petrovic in the release.
Six stations currently line Brightline's Florida route in Miami, Aventura, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach and Orlando International Airport. While Brightline West held a ceremonial groundbreaking on its California-Nevada line in 2024, the Florida division is gearing up for a new route meant to link Tampa and Orlando.
In December, Brightline sold a Fort Lauderdale parking garage for $18.5 million. The money will go toward paying off existing debts, legal fees and to help raise additional funds for the proposed route along the Interstate 4 corridor. Parts of the highway see nearly 200,000 vehicles a day, according to the Florida Department of Transportation.
But while the company is full steam ahead on expanding its rail network, ratings agencies have cast doubt on the ability of Brightline to pay off its debt. Last month, S&P Global Ratings downgraded $2.2 billion of Brightline's existing debt citing a "material deviation" from expected growth numbers and in spite of a 13.1% increase in ticket revenue and a 12.2% increase in riders, according to Brightline's third-quarter investor presentation. Fitch Ratings reported a similar downgrade in May.
Brightline's growth throughout South Florida has helped catalyze development in the neighborhoods around its stations. Some areas have seen new dense multifamily development as apartment builders bank on the promise of a car-free commute to lure renters. In other cases, Brightline and its affiliates have built their own major mixed-use facilities, like MiamiCentral Station's Parkline Apartments, which the rail line sold to Harbor Group International for $450 million in 2022.
Some trains running along Brightline's existing Florida route hit 125 miles per hour — the globally recognized definition of high-speed rail — for a portion of the route near Orlando. Much of the ride along the southeast coast is typically moving at around 80 miles an hour or less. The company's Los Angeles to Las Vegas route will be fully electric and will run mostly at 125 miles per hour. The route is expected to cost $21 billion and represents one of the largest private infrastructure investments in U.S. history, the company said.