As you will know, Go-Ahead plc has just been taken over by a consortium of Kinetic, Australia and Globalvia, Spain.

We can just await developments with interest.  For example, this article quotes that They also see opportunities for Go-Ahead to "increase its footprint in the regional UK bus market"

So, could they buy out additional operators or subsidiaries of other groups?  Time will tell.

Go-Ahead sale to Kinetic and Globalvia completes - routeone (route-one.net)

Can see no reason why they wouldn't continue to expand by acquisition. It's the easiest way to make all the lines in the financials go upwards.

NatEx may be rethinking their own posession of uk regional operators now their list of potential mergers is decreasing, so that's an obvious target.

Perhaps DB may be willing to let go of some more of Arriva?

I thought the company that bought Go-Ahead is an asset-stripping company only interested in the trains and GAL.

(15 Oct 2022, 5:55 pm)streetdeckfan wrote Perhaps DB may be willing to let go of some more of Arriva?

i hope not!

(15 Oct 2022, 5:56 pm)F114TML wrote I thought the company that bought Go-Ahead is an asset-stripping company only interested in the trains and GAL.

Kinetic runs around 4,000 buses in Australia and New Zealand

(15 Oct 2022, 5:56 pm)F114TML wrote I thought the company that bought Go-Ahead is an asset-stripping company only interested in the trains and GAL.

I think you're thinking of Stagecoach who were being bought by an asset management company.

The GoAhead lot aren't any better mind being owned by a pension fund and two asset management companies.

(15 Oct 2022, 5:55 pm)streetdeckfan wrote Perhaps DB may be willing to let go of some more of Arriva?

They probably will be, whether the competition commission would allow it in all but a few areas is another matter

(15 Oct 2022, 9:24 pm)Ambassador wrote They probably will be, whether the competition commission would allow it in all but a few areas is another matter

I feel like for GNE Belmont Depot & Which ever depot runs all the Whitley Bay / Blyth services.

Stagecoach would take one of the Northumbria Depots, however I doubt SC would want to expand.

(15 Oct 2022, 9:39 pm)Unber43 wrote I feel like for GNE Belmont Depot & Which ever depot runs all the Whitley Bay / Blyth services.

Stagecoach would take one of the Northumbria Depots, however I doubt SC would want to expand.

I doubt either will expand. GNE are no longer the founding member looked upon with nostalgia and mild embarrassment… they are now the heavily loss making arm of an international consortium who will care even less than the previous regime if kibblesworth has a bus service.

it goes one of two ways….they appoint new management and try to recover the current crisis or they order more cuts (which is likely in scenario A too)

I genuinely don’t see this as being good news

(15 Oct 2022, 9:39 pm)Unber43 wrote I feel like for GNE Belmont Depot & Which ever depot runs all the Whitley Bay / Blyth services.

Stagecoach would take one of the Northumbria Depots, however I doubt SC would want to expand.

It's more likely to go the other way. If I was a investor I'd be wanting to dispose of GNE as it makes no money and never has or barely does. 

Buying dodgy depots like Durham which is one Arriva's weaker depots won't help especially considering some of it is stuff GNE dumped years ago at Bishop Auckland anyway.

(16 Oct 2022, 6:38 am)Storx wrote It's more likely to go the other way. If I was a investor I'd be wanting to dispose of GNE as it makes no money and never has or barely does. 

Buying dodgy depots like Durham which is one Arriva's weaker depots won't help especially considering some of it is stuff GNE dumped years ago at Bishop Auckland anyway.

Hmmm. I have to say, when they spun off. EYMS from GNE and didn't give Bensham it's own proper MD, I did wonder if a sale was on the cards given the "efficiency" savings being made there which don't appear to be taking place on the same scale elsewhere at Go Ahead.

(16 Oct 2022, 6:54 am)DeltaMan wrote Hmmm. I have to say, when they spun off. EYMS from GNE and didn't give Bensham it's own proper MD, I did wonder if a sale was on the cards given the "efficiency" savings being made there which don't appear to be taking place on the same scale elsewhere at Go Ahead.

Yeah I was thinking the same and the cuts all feel like it's streamlining it in the first place to get arid of it. GoNorthEast and GoNorthWest are two bizarre companies to lump together considering how distant they are to each other and aren't really the same; one being urban and the other sub urban. The only thing in common really is how weak they both are.

(15 Oct 2022, 5:46 pm)Starscream wrote Can see no reason why they wouldn't continue to expand by acquisition. It's the easiest way to make all the lines in the financials go upwards.

NatEx may be rethinking their own posession of uk regional operators now their list of potential mergers is decreasing, so that's an obvious target.

While GA did could not make Diamond Bus work out for them, maybe it would be different if they purchased former West Midlands Travel from National Express.

In practice, I think it is unlikely National Express sell it, as one of their reasons for taking it over had been to have a more continuous revenue stream rather than just coach work skewed more towards the summer.

Stories in The Sunday Times (subsequently denied by GAG), that this fairytale investment could be coming to an end.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/goahe...-gp960bcj0
In case you can't get behind the paywall...

Train giant Go-Ahead back up for sale a year after takeover
The pension fund behind the operator’s owners Kinetic Group and Globalvia mulls offloading public transport interests
Go-Ahead runs one in four train services in Britain, including Southern and Great Northern
Go-Ahead runs one in four train services in Britain, including Southern and Great Northern
DOMINIC LIPINSKI/PA
Oliver Gill
Saturday February 24 2024, 6.00pm, The Sunday Times
Britain’s biggest train operator is poised to change hands after its owners ordered a strategic review little more than a year after taking it private in a £650 million swoop.

Ontario pension fund OPTrust has hired advisers as it seeks to offload public transport interests including Go-Ahead Group, the former FTSE 250 company that operates the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern lines. Altogether Go-Ahead runs one in four of Britain’s trains as well as bus routes up and down the country.

Australian transport operator Kinetic and Spanish infrastructure investor Globalvia swooped on Go-Ahead in October 2022. OPTrust co-owns Kinetic and has a 40 per cent stake in Globalvia.

OPTrust has hired investment bankers at RBC and Macquarie to explore a potential sale of its stakes