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Alexanders debt crash
Page 18
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• Alexanders (North East), the company set up last December by a group of former Northern Scottish senior managers, has collapsed with substantial debts.
The recently-privatised Grampian Region Transport company has stepped in to take over part of the Aberdeenbased operation; Stagecoach subsidiary Magicbus (Scotland) has taken over the Inverness Traction minibus operation.
Alexanders was set up to compete with Northern on the routes north of Aberdeen to Fraserburgh and Peterhead. In April it launched a second route, south to Stonehaven, which lost money and will not be operated by Grampian.
Ironically, Alexanders step ped in to rescue Inverness Traction in April, when that company was in financial trouble. IT was set up by former SBG employees, in this case to compete with Highland Scottish, and referred Highland to the Office of Fair Trading earlier this year. The OFT ruled that Highland did act anticompetitively.
Alan Amoore of Peat Marwick McLintock was appointed receiver at Alexanders earlier this month. He said at the time that prior to his appointment the directors had been in talks with bus companies to try to realise some of the Alexanders company assets.
The Grampian take-over of the Aberdeen-based business includes the former Glenhire coach operation, which is to be transferred to Grampian's subsidiary Mair's Coaches.
Atmore says: "The sums received will go towards meeting some of the liabilities, but they are not likely to go far towards solving what was a pretty serious problem."