Staff buys SBG company
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• A third Scottish Bus Group company is set be sold to its management and employees, following the announcement that the Eastern Scottish staff buyout team is the preferred bidder having beat off strong competition from other outside bidders.
Eastern has formed a new company, SMT Omnibuses, which will herald the return of the SMT name to the 400-bus fleet after an absence of 25 years.
Managing director Andrew Gall is delighted with the news: "It justifies all the effort and long hours we have put in to get the right package together," he says. "Management and staff from the outset have been convinced that we are as capable as any of taking the company into the private sector."
The sale is expected to be completed by the end of September.
One other SBG company, Kelvin Central, is still up for sale, and there are five other companies which have yet to be advertised.
0 Meanwhile a management/ employee buyout team has taken over Scottish Bus Group subsidiary Lowland Omnibuses, which is the first SBG firm to be sold in the privatisation programme.
Scottish Transport Group chairman Ian Irwin, who handed over the company last week, says: "This is a signifi cant event in the history of Scotland's bus services. Lowland is the first SBG company to pass into private ownership after more than 40 years of nationalisation.
"I am particularly delighted that Douglas Pelting and his team are the new owners, and that the ownership structure will ensure the fullest possible participation and commitment by all employees in the success of the business."
Pelting, managing director of Lowland Omnibuses, says that his company has a firm commitment to the people of the Borders and East Lothian: "This company and its predecessors have been serving this area for nearly 70 years, and with many of the staff now owning a stake in their company I confidently expect to provide a quality service for many years to come."
Lowland has 125 buses and 275 staff; last year it made a profit of 1400,000 on a turnover of £5.5m.