Christmas comes early for National Express
West Midlands-based transport group National Express has sealed a brace of takeovers as it hailed encouragingly strong early Christmas trading for its coach business.
In a trading statement this morning it said that, along with the new acquisitions, continued positive trading was sustaining "year end momentum".
It has bought a school bus and coach business with 204 vehicles, based in Cincinnati, Ohio. This acquisition strengthens the National Express presence in Ohio, enabling it to grow the business further, as well as improve services to customers. National Express is a major operator of school buses in the USA.
It has also bought a small Madrid bus operator, with 73 vehicles, that provides staff transfers for a large local airline and national bank headquarters. It also has an urban transport contract in Azuqueca, Guadalajara; and a school bus services in Madrid.
It expects both businesses to deliver returns of 15% to 20%.
The company, which is the biggest bus operator in the West Midlands as well as running train services in Germany, said: "We continued to see a good trading performance across all of our divisions during October and November, in line with the trends set out in our most recent trading update.
"We are encouraged by strong early Christmas trading in both our UK and Spanish coach businesses, with advanced sales higher than last year.
"Overall, we remain on course to deliver our profit, free cash flow and leverage targets for the full year."
