Private operators (corporate changes, etc.)

[Busjack]

In addition to the corporate changes mentioned in connection with stickers and numbering on privately owned but Pace specification paratransit vehicles (starting here), it was reported that Transdev (formerly Veolia) is taking over First Transit. This doesn't include First Student. Locally, this means that paratransit operations might be consolidated, but not whatever feeders remain. What's surprising is that neither US operation is owned by First Group, but by EQT Infrastructure, a private capital group.

[Busjack]

On 2/10/2023 at 2:39 PM, artthouwill said:

  NORTHWESTERN  had a route operating between the Evanston campus and the downtown campus which was a Pace route,  but Pace actually contracted with Royal American to operate the service.   Eventually Pace bowed out ( or was cut out) and Royal American contracted with Northwestern directly.  Royal American sold to Free Enterprise and apparently still operate that service.   I don't know what carriers operate on campus only service for each campus.  

Free Enterprise also operates the downtown campus to downtown Metra station shuttles for Northwestern University and CTA sort of competes with the 120 and 221 rush service .  Northwestern doesn't subsidize that.

 

I thought I saw something else under the driver's window. It's hard to tell, because the Intercampus Shuttles are wrapped for NM Medicine.

BTW, Free Enterprise is part of National Express. Wracking my brain, the sign may have said "We Drive U." That's the NEX entity that operates university shuttles. Free Enterprise System is apparently now only a charter coach business in Indiana.

 

1

[Busjack]

6 hours ago, artthouwill said:

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. 

in light of my prior post above. your point just seems endemic of the state of the charter industry. For instance, as implied above, the Northwestern buses are (according to my eyes) stickered "We Drive U America." Their website says National Express Transit rebranded itself as Mobico Group. The announcement says that only the parent company's name changed, but brands such as We Drive U and Durham Student Services will remain. Apparently:

• NEXT consolidated its shuttle services, while you indicated that Coach USA did not consolidate operations.
• We Drive U's local revenue depends on Northwestern and Loyola.
• Also, Mobico owns CDT. It's website says that it's North American operations are in the school, transit and shuttle sectors, and I can't figure out what happened to charter.

Similarly, First Student was acquired by private equity on July 22, 2021. To the extent the purchasers may have expected that Pace might have brought back its feeder routes`, that was dashed by the 2022 budget, which permanently suspended them, so that would have been a bad bet. Maybe school bus traffic has come back.

My conclusion is one can't tell who owns what any more.

 

[strictures]

Anytime private equity buys something, their bean counters destroy it, so the PE investors can get their money back as soon as possible. 

The company, the employees & the customers be damned!  The investors are the gods that must be satisfied with the sacrifice of all the others!

[Busjack]

2 hours ago, strictures said:

Anytime private equity buys something, their bean counters destroy it, so the PE investors can get their money back as soon as possible. 

The company, the employees & the customers be damned!  The investors are the gods that must be satisfied with the sacrifice of all the others!

It's not just private equity, it was leveraged buyouts in the 90s that led to bankruptcies (think Wieboldts and Sam Zell's Tribune). Problem now is about every deal you hear today is private equity. For instance, Subway (the sandwich) was sold to "affiliates of" Roark Capital,* which also owns or has investments in Jimmy John's, Baskin Robbins, Dunkin, Culver's, Arby's, Sonic, Auntie Annie's, BWW, Carvel,  The Cheesecake Factory, Jamba Juice, and others. No wonder so many of the commercials sound the same. But maybe the converse of draining companies, Osprey Capital (Hoffmann Companies) bought Oberweis out of bankruptcy.

The main difference here is that UK companies are trying nearly every means to unload their U.S. charter bus operations. Mobico's 2023 annual report describes the business problems it has in the US sectors in which it still is doing business.

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*Remember when NABI was owned by "affiliates of Cerberus"?