First Group Disposals

[gilesbus1]

RE: First Group Disposals
At Preston the loan that Rotala took, was based on the value of the fleet, the fleet was sold off to get the deposit and is leased back from a finance house.

I cannot see most of the First operations now being attractive no matter what First says to outside operators having seen the failure at North Devon and at Lothian to sell operations.

The issuew is unfortunatly all these opeartors are loss makers and are covered and hemmed in by other operators who also ruin accross routes that are already operated, therefore there operational value is low as it would be very hard to turn a loss leader where all the fleet needs replacing into a sucess, given that other operators run across routes and that it cannot sell to the other operator as it sparks an MMC investigation.

The only losers will be staff and passengers as the only way out looks to be for First to close all the depots in those locations and leave t6own by therefore allowing the others to register what is commercially viable over the top of what was the FirstGroup routes.

The other thing the MMC allows by its action is a Darlington and Inverness type attack on the operations which it can do little to stop, no wonder First is garded despite the leak about what it wants to sell as any such attack would no doub't lead to the immediate closure of a depot that was considered unviable and would creatate exactly the situation that the MMC do not want to see.


In result the MMC will cost upto 3,000 jobs as a result of its silliness over these issues, eitrher through depots having to close or through staff at other firms no longer having bus links to get to work, no wonder the recession wew've been in single 2008 shows no sign of ending.

The other danger is that if another operator engaged on a Dralington or Inverness style attack on operatiosn ovewr one of these depots then the operations would possibly close with immediate effect and would create exatly what the MMC dsoesn't want to see but almost definately put it in a position where it cannot or has limitewd powers to punnish the offenders.

Both senario;s would lead to the Government having indirectly to pay out for some loss making services to be tendered as well so hardly the best outcome, as all these opeartiosn are loss leaders the MMC should yhave no powers to investigate sales to direct rivals as it is the cheapest and best way for the operations to continue without major cuts in services or major investment in tenders or job losses all in which the sttae and UK tax payer pick up the bill for.