Caetano for Yeates
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• W S Yeates, the Loughborough-based coach distributor, is to sell Portugese-built Caetano coach bodies.
Salvador Caetano (UK) will continue to sell bodies from its Northampton base and sees the appointment of Yeates as underlining its long-term plans to stay in the British market.
Yeates will provide service facilities for Caetano bodywork from its premises in Loughborough and Salisbury, strengthening Caetano's existing service support from the Northampton centre.
In announcing Yeates' appointment to sell Caetano bodywork Yeates' chairman Charles Yeates revealed a 2200,000 plan to upgrade and modernise the company's bus and coach service, parts and repair facilities in Loughborough over the next 12 months. This will include new paint-spray bays, a new parts department, and new reception and office accommodation. "Despite the downturn in the market we have achieved a steady increase in body repair work," says Yeates, "and this investment will enable us to further improve our position," he adds. The Yeates-Caetano link comes at a difficult period in the coach business. Demand for new vehicles has dropped dramatically in recent years and this has hit some dealers badly — Roeselare Sales, the Jonckheere distributor, went out of business in 1985 to be replaced by a new Jonckheere-directed operation, and Salvador Caetano (UK).
Yeates is one of Britain's biggest new coach dealers and by adding Caetano coachwork to the company's existing portfolio — Hestair Duple, Plaxtons, Mercedes-Benz integrals and chassis from Bedford, Daf, Leyland and Volvo — company chairman Charles Yeates is looking for an increase in its business.
Yeates claims that new coach sales this season "are running at over 75% above last year's level." The main beneficiaries of this increase will be Plaxtons and Volvo, but with Hestair Duple sales picking up too.
One obvious conclusion to be drawn from the new association with Caetano is that it is a reaction to the purchase by Plaxtons of rival dealers Kirkby but Yeates firmly denies this: "We are Plaxtons' biggest dealer, we have a good relationship with Plaxtons, and we see no reason why this should change."
He has reduced his shareholding in Plaxtons but this was a simple business decision he claims: "We had invested in Britain's leading coachbuilder. The shareholding was reduced because we did not want a large investment in a group embracing coachbuilding, coach distribution, and GM, MANVW and Leyland Truck franchises."
Caetano coaches were first sold in Britain in 1967 and the company claims that there are now over 1,300 of its bodies in service with British operators.