NIX sells nine
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• Nine more National Bus Company subsidiaries have been sold, bringing the total so far privatised to 28.
Canterbury-based East Kent Road Car has been bought by a nine-man management team led by managing director John Berkshire, 42. There were two other bids for the cornpany, including one from French bus and coach operator Jean Claude Galliene.
East Kent, which was founded in 1916, will be offering its 890 workers the chance to become shareholders. The company runs 320 buses and coaches throughout east Kent, including coach services to London under contract to National Express. In recent months the company has launched minibus networks in Canterbury, Ashford, Folkstone and Dover.
NBC has also completed the sale of its eight engineering companies to Frontsource in the most acrimonious NBC sale to date.
Frontsource chairman Robert Beattie was initially appointed to advise NBC on how to sell its engineering companies. He resigned from that position when he decided to make his own bid for the companies, in competition with separate bids from engineering company management teams.
David Mitchell, minister of state for transport, days he chose the bid from Frontsource because it was the highest offer and because it included plans to develop the businesses uniformly. According to Mitchell, Frontsource intends to offer each of the eight individual management teams the chance to acquire controlling interests in their own sections of the group.