FirstGroup : strikes £3.3bn deal to sell iconic yellow school buses in US
April 23, 2021 at 03:31 am EDT
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Train and bus operator FirstGroup has announced this morning the sale of two of its US divisions for £3.3bn to EQT Infrastructure, a year after putting the businesses up for sale.
Bosses at the firm said the cash raised from offloading First Student, the operator of famous yellow US school buses, and First Transit will be used to pay down debt, top up the group’s pension schemes and hand back cash to shareholders.
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FirstGroup, which runs the Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway, South Western Railway and TransPennine Express, alongside city centre bus routes, said £300m of the cash would be used to repay Covid-19 loans taken out during the crisis.
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The post FirstGroup strikes £3.3bn deal to sell iconic yellow school buses in US appeared first on CityAM.
FirstGroup plc is a private-sector provider of public transport services in the United Kingdom. The Company operates through two divisions: First Bus and First Rail. First Bus is a regional bus operator in the United Kingdom with a fleet of approximately 5,000 buses. It operates over 4,900 buses and serves two-thirds of the United Kingdom's 15 conurbations. First Rail is a rail operator that operates a fleet of approximately 3,800 rail vehicles. First Rail operates four major United Kingdom train operating companies, including Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway (GWR), Southwestern Railway (SWR) and TransPennine Express (TPE), and two open access passenger rail services, Hull Trains, and Lumo. The Companyâs subsidiaries include First Aberdeen Limited, First Beeline Buses Limited, First Cymru Buses Limited, First Eastern Counties Buses Limited, First Essex Buses Limited, First Hampshire and Dorset Limited, First Manchester Limited, and First Midland Red Buses Limited.