Berlin - The hard-driving chief executive of Germany's national railways company, Deutsche Bahn, issued a rare apology Friday, telling employees he was sorry that
corporate security investigators had been allowed to access payroll data.

Hartmut Mehdorn, 66, has run the railways system since 1999, paring costs and shrugging off crises including strikes and financial setbacks that would have crushed
someone less determined.

Critics sensed victory this week after a disclosure that the company's own anti-crime department may have flouted privacy rules.

A departure by Mehdorn might imperil government plans for an initial public offering of 24.9 per cent of Bahn's train-operating division. The company's tracks and stations
are not to be sold.

The anti-corruption department had been trying to discover employees or their relatives who obtain lucrative supply contracts with the huge company without disclosing
that they are insiders.

The investigators obtained the names, home addresses and bank account numbers of 173,000 of Bahn's 220,000 employees in 2002 and 2003 and used a computer to
compare the data with supplier lists. News reports said the comparison did not reveal any corruption.

Mehdorn admitted Friday that labour leaders should have been told.

"I apologize for this to all the employees," he said at a meeting in Frankfurt with the company labour relations council.

Rail unions welcomed the apology but said they would insist that the company's supervisory board meet next week to review the "scandal." The federal government, which
owns the company, agreed.

Earlier this week Mehdorn invited public prosecutors to study the data use and determine if it broke any law. dpa