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FirstGroup buys London coach firm Anderson Travel

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Transport giant FirstGroup has bought London coach firm Anderson Travel to boost its First Bus business.

The deal – for an undisclosed sum – will see FirstGroup add around 40 coaches operating in central London and at Heathrow Airport across the mini coach, contracted school, private hire and tour services markets.

Anderson Travel founder and majority owner Mark Anderson will continue to head up the day-to-day operations of the business through the firm’s integration with First Bus.

It adds to other recent acquisitions by FirstGroup in the coach market.

FirstGroup chief executive Graham Sutherland said: “We will continue to identify and assess opportunities to diversify and grow.”

Anderson Travel runs its coaches services in and around London from a depot near Tower Bridge in central London and a new, smaller depot near Heathrow Airport.

It made underlying earnings of around £1 million in the year to June 2023 on revenues of £7.3 million.

FirstGroup has been bolstering its bus business amid Labour plans to renationalise the UK railways.

Labour has pledged to renationalise nearly all passenger rail services within five years, with plans to fold existing private passenger rail contracts into a newly-created public body as they expire.

FirstGroup runs three major UK train operating companies – Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway and South Western Railway – as well as two open-access passenger rail services, Hull Trains and Lumo.

Its First Bus division serves more than a fifth of the population in the UK with a fleet of around 4,800 buses carrying more than a million passengers a day.