Any new investment for Diamond

[Discodave]

Possible but with wardles you can tell the arriva influence (fleet livery) better taking the whole group and reorganising it dump redditch/worestershire ops leave them to first brum area routes to the blue diamond garage and use tividale and hill top for black country area.  Then Arriva maybe a contender in the Midlands as long as the mmc/competetion bodies do not mind

[winston]

Possible but with wardles you can tell the arriva influence (fleet livery) better taking the whole group and reorganising it dump redditch/worestershire ops leave them to first brum area routes to the blue diamond garage and use tividale and hill top for black country area.  Then Arriva maybe a contender in the Midlands as long as the mmc/competetion bodies do not mind

That's what I said a complete takeover of Rotala Group would be more likely, and run as a separate business unit within Arriva similar to TGM or Wardles (your example). I doubt Arriva would have any issues with MMC in a takeover, now NX that's another matter......

[Discodave]

sorry should have said full take over with the corporate livery as long as regulation bodies do not mind with the reorganising of routes

[Ash]

Rotala seem to start off well new investments in terms of new centro's and at one time had 27 of them which quickly reduced in numbers. Then only in 2010 23 new mcv evolutions and some of the key routes had brand new branding and for me the company looked on the up in terms of marketing and investment and now with the sales of vehicles services like the 404E are getting older buses than they did in the petes travel days, in the 2000 the 404E at least had W reg darts then X reg darts now it sees R,S,T reg darts and solo's that are unreliable. Similar with the 16 diamond bus (birmingham coach company) invested using the 51 reg cadets now its lucky to see a a newer or same age vehicle. 

[Liberator9]

I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!

[winston]

I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!

Go-ahead wont be interested in any part of the Diamond business, its a case of been there & done that, and lost a tidy amount of money in the process.....

[MW]

I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!

Go-ahead wont be interested in any part of the Diamond business, its a case of been there & done that, and lost a tidy amount of money in the process.....

I don't mean to be rude, but are you Patrick Brown's father?

How do you know if they're interested or not. Look at Stagecoach London. Need I say more.

[Tony]

Stagecoach in London was a completely different case. Stagecoach London was always profitable, but made lower percentage profits than the rest of Stagecoach. Some Australian bankers came in and made Stagecoach a silly money offer which Stagecoach accepted. The bankers then made a complete mess of running it resulting in losses and Stagecoach came back and bought it for a fraction they sold it for.
Stagecoach therefore made a bigger profit from the sale and repurchase than they would have done if they had just taken the profits from running it continually.

It would be very difficult for Go-Ahead to buy back Diamond for less than they sold it for as I think it was sold for a nominal amount with Rotala taking on some of the debts. Go-Ahead openly admitted they lost several million pounds during there time of running Diamond.

[winston]

I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!

Go-ahead wont be interested in any part of the Diamond business, its a case of been there & done that, and lost a tidy amount of money in the process.....

I don't mean to be rude, but are you Patrick Brown's father?

How do you know if they're interested or not. Look at Stagecoach London. Need I say more.

You're not rude; you just have a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way!

I believe Go-Ahead Group lost in excess of £10 Million on the sale of Go West Midlands to Rotala, under Rotala ownership the business has shrunk further still and even now isn't very profitable. If Go-ahead couldn't make it work the first time around, why would they want to come back for a second go? The economy & unemployment levels are worse now than when they were here the last time & passengers numbers are still in decline. Would you throw more money after bad......?

Stagecoach London is in a totally different league to Diamond; Stagecoach sold the profitable London business for circa £250 Million and made a big profit on the original purchase price of East London & Selkent. Under Macquarie profits had fallen substantially & they were looking to offload the business, Stagecoach agreed to re-purchased the East London bus group for £53 Million, with past experience of the business & a low purchase price they could justify its repurchase/change in direction to shareholders

[Isle of Stroma]

I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider.

Ah, you mean like the previous operator, who for one reason or another, dumped the route??

Blue Diamond just ignore you

I wouldn't be so sure of that if i were you....

At least NXWM respond!

Yes, as i mentioned above, they decided not to operate your service any more.

[MW]

Blue Diamond just ignore you

I wouldn't be so sure of that if i were you....

I would.

I tried to get their 37 at least 5 times in the bus stop and they ignored me. They assume that OAP's only want to use their service along the way. That's a fact.

[BN]

I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!

Go-ahead wont be interested in any part of the Diamond business, its a case of been there & done that, and lost a tidy amount of money in the process.....

I don't mean to be rude, but are you Patrick Brown's father?

How do you know if they're interested or not. Look at Stagecoach London. Need I say more.

You're not rude; you just have a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way!

I believe Go-Ahead Group lost in excess of £10 Million on the sale of Go West Midlands to Rotala, under Rotala ownership the business has shrunk further still and even now isn't very profitable. If Go-ahead couldn't make it work the first time around, why would they want to come back for a second go? The economy & unemployment levels are worse now than when they were here the last time & passengers numbers are still in decline. Would you throw more money after bad......?

Stagecoach London is in a totally different league to Diamond; Stagecoach sold the profitable London business for circa £250 Million and made a big profit on the original purchase price of East London & Selkent. Under Macquarie profits had fallen substantially & they were looking to offload the business, Stagecoach agreed to re-purchased the East London bus group for £53 Million, with past experience of the business & a low purchase price they could justify its repurchase/change in direction to shareholders

You mention the big boys taking over Blue Diamond services, Arriva, Stagecoach etc. What about de courcey?

[winston]

I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!

Go-ahead wont be interested in any part of the Diamond business, its a case of been there & done that, and lost a tidy amount of money in the process.....

I don't mean to be rude, but are you Patrick Brown's father?

How do you know if they're interested or not. Look at Stagecoach London. Need I say more.

You're not rude; you just have a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way!

I believe Go-Ahead Group lost in excess of £10 Million on the sale of Go West Midlands to Rotala, under Rotala ownership the business has shrunk further still and even now isn't very profitable. If Go-ahead couldn't make it work the first time around, why would they want to come back for a second go? The economy & unemployment levels are worse now than when they were here the last time & passengers numbers are still in decline. Would you throw more money after bad......?

Stagecoach London is in a totally different league to Diamond; Stagecoach sold the profitable London business for circa £250 Million and made a big profit on the original purchase price of East London & Selkent. Under Macquarie profits had fallen substantially & they were looking to offload the business, Stagecoach agreed to re-purchased the East London bus group for £53 Million, with past experience of the business & a low purchase price they could justify its repurchase/change in direction to shareholders

You mention the big boys taking over Blue Diamond services, Arriva, Stagecoach etc. What about de courcey?

Rob,

I'm not quite with you? Do you mean The big boys being interested in De Courcey?

[hartshill busman 724210]

Rob. nice one to hang out there.. :-\...but if in the great scheme of things would you open a new operating centre in miller st etc?

[winston]

Rob. nice one to hang out there.. :-\...but if in the great scheme of things would you open a new operating centre in miller st etc?

De Courcey will also start operating the NEC car park shuttles soon with new Citaro's, at the end of the day, the bigger the business the larger the price tag the business should be able to command if it was ever put up for sale. I would have thought any sale of Travel De Courcey will depend on Mike DeCourcey's retirement plans and whether or not he has any family who could continue to run the business on his behalf, should he wish to take a backseat. If he hasn't and he decided to retire, I would have thought that both Stagecoach & NX would be interested and possibly Arriva & Rotala