Keeshin / Coach USA

[Amtrak41]

When I visit Chicago, I usually see Keeshin / Coach USA transits, suburbans, and coaches. Where are they bringing commuters from ?

[Busjack]

Either they are Pace routes 755 and 855,* run on a contract basis, or much more likely, corporate shuttles.

*See the Pace route description pages, including exciting video.

[Busjack]

Generally reported, Coach USA declared bankruptcy. As suspected. the 90-some companies, such as Van Galder, are separate entities, but owned by Coach USA, and are not franchisees.

[artthouwill]

18 hours ago, Busjack said:

Generally reported, Coach USA declared bankruptcy. As suspected. the 90-some companies, such as Van Galder, are separate entities, but owned by Coach USA, and are not franchisees.

It was bound to happen.   The miracle is that it took this long to happen.   If the operations in other parts of the country were ran as abysmally as the Chicago operations this had to be the outcome.   Maybe some of the larger operations like Lenzner and Van Galder can buy back their companies

  Chicago us so ruined Keeshin has no company to buy back ( not that he would since he's in his 80s).  The Shoup family was unable or unwilling to resume the Tri State Airport service it once owned before selling to Travel ways ( Vector) then buying it back from them due to bankruptcy and reselling the Airport service to Coach USA.   However.they still operate Cardinal Charters and Tours.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, artthouwill said:

 Maybe some of the larger operations like Lenzner and Van Galder can buy back their companies

As indicated in the news reports, this is a fairly prearranged bankruptcy, with stalking horse bidders. In this case, there are several buyers willing to buy certain business units, unless someone offers a higher bid. It appears that a couple of private equity firms have been identified.

The only scenario I know about similar to what you describe is when Central Grocers went bankrupt and whoever owned Jewel made a stalking horse offer for Strack and Van Til, but the families out bid Jewel. However, they recently sold out to Hy-Vee.

All of this is now private equity. Like many of the charter bus companies, Stagecoach Group didn't own Coach USA; it was sold to Variant Equity. So it doesn't have to do with any mismanagement at Chicago Doubledecker or the like, but just a bad bet by some fund.

[artthouwill]

44 minutes ago, Busjack said:

As indicated in the news reports, this is a fairly prearranged bankruptcy, with stalking horse bidders. In this case, there are several buyers willing to buy certain business units, unless someone offers a higher bid. It appears that a couple of private equity firms have been identified.

The only scenario I know about similar to what you describe is when Central Grocers went bankrupt and whoever owned Jewel made a stalking horse offer for Strack and Van Til, but the families out bid Jewel. However, they recently sold out to Hy-Vee.

All of this is now private equity. Like many of the charter bus companies, Stagecoach Group didn't own Coach USA; it was sold to Variant Equity. So it doesn't have to do with any mismanagement at Chicago Doubledecker or the like, but just a bad bet by some fund.

It was ALWAYS a bad bet which is why it was sold to Stagecoach to begin with.   Ciach USA gad massive debt then and Stagecoach started selling off companies before introducing Megabus.     Eventually Stagecoach figured out it couldn't make it work and sold to Variant as you stated.  It took them a few years,  but they soon realized that they were in a pickle which was exasperated by the pandemic.  The most profitable companies ran contracts for New Jersey Transit, commuter runs, casino line runs and shuttle contracts. The P anemic nearly wiped out these services.  Overall each company was operated differently so some were better managed than others while the bean counters only cared about profitability or the lack thereof.   Chicago operation was a microcosm  of what was wrong the whole time.