Haulier buys MacBrayne lorries
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AN ANGLO-SCOTTISH and Continental haulier has paid £450,000 for MacBrayne Haulage,. the Scottish Transport Group's road haulage subsidiary.
The new owner is Kilcionan Transport, a 25-vehicle long distance haulier based at Tur riff, Aberdeenshire, which runs from Scotland to England and to the Continent.
The price paid for MacBrayne falls well short of the £980,000 net asset value placed on its 27 articulated, 23 rigid, 99 trailers, 15 shunt units, miscellaneous handling equipment and 41,000 sqft depot and head office complex in Glasgow by the Scottish Office's financial advisers.
But informed observers suggest that Kildonan's price for the firm is more in line with reality, given the company's poor trading perform ance (it lost £229,000 after tax last year), the condition of its fleet, and the paucity of freehold property.
Although MacBrayne Haulage has depots at stra tegic points throughout the Scottish Highlands and Western Isles, these are all rented, most of them from STG ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne.
Neither Kildonan proprietor Billy Walker nor his fel low director, Robert Ross, was prepared to discuss their plans for MacBrayne when CM contacted the company last weekend, as they had only gained official control of the business on Tuesday last week.
Shadow Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar last week called on the Government to seek no-redundancy commitments for the company's employees.
The Government's decision to sell MacBrayne Haulage stems from a Monopolies and Mergers Commission efficiency audit on Caledonian MacBrayne in 1983. It
showed that the haulage company enjoyed too close a relationship with the ferry line, notably in the form of .preferential shipping rates.