Shockwaves were sent through the bus industry with the news that FirstGroup is to acquire Ensignbus. Richard Sharman visited the Purfleet depot on the day of the announcement to find out more and discuss some of the defining moments the company has had
FirstGroup announced early on 8 February that it had signed an agreement to purchase Ensign Bus Company. The unexpected move, which sent shockwaves through the industry, will see First Essex take control of Ensignbus’ commercial bus services, rail replacement, private hire contracts, and seasonal open-top bus service 68 in Southend-on-Sea. In addition, the dealership side of Ensignbus, which undertakes vehicles sales, conversions and refurbishments, will also move to FirstGroup ownership. The well-known Ensignbus heritage fleet is not included in the deal.
Some 200 employees will move to First Bus employment, and Ensignbus’ fleet of 55 buses will also be acquired by First Essex. Some of the vehicle types have not been operated by First Bus before, such as BCI Enterprises, open-top Ayats Bravo Citys and a unique Wrightbus Hong Kong demonstrator that recently returned from KMB in Hong Kong.
[wlm_nonmember][…]By subscribing you will benefit from:
- Operator & Supplier Profiles
- Face-to-Face Interviews
- Lastest News
- Test Drives and Reviews
- Legal Updates
- Route Focus
- Industry Insider Opinions
- Passenger Perspective
- Vehicle Launches
- and much more!
Ensignbus’ commercial bus operations comprise a local network complementary to First’s existing operations in Essex alongside business-to-business (B2B) divisions that include rail replacement and private hire contract operations. FirstGroup says the acquisition of the business will enhance its existing local commercial operations in Essex as well as providing a number of growth opportunities in the B2B sector and dealership markets.
Commenting on the news, Ensignbus Chairman Peter Newman said: “I want to thank all of our employees at Ensignbus for their ongoing hard work to deliver great service for our passengers across all of our communities in Essex, and we will be supporting them fully as they move to their new employer. We’re pleased that First Bus, with its reputation for customer service, innovation and sustainability, will take the Ensignbus business forward as a going concern and we wish them a successful future. We will continue to serve our communities and operate our network as usual until the completion date.”
Business as normal
Graham Sutherland, FirstGroup’s Chief Executive Officer, explained: “The acquisition of Ensignbus, a long-established, high-performing business, will allow us to not only to grow our B2B offering, but to also enhance our operational footprint in Essex, and we look forward to welcoming Ensignbus employees to the Group. This is a strategically and financially accretive growth opportunity for us, and one that is fully aligned to our balanced capital allocation policy.”
Managing Director for First East of England Piers Marlow told CBW: “We are buying a very successful and well respected business that is in a very strong position. First Bus already has a presence in Essex and we see this deal as a win-win for both parties in that we pick up the business as a going concern and run it alongside our existing business locally and nationally in terms of the dealership side of the of the operation. We are very happy and honoured to have this opportunity.”
Talking about the future of the operation, Piers said: “At the moment local services buses will continue to be branded as Ensignbus, although they may be rebranded as First Essex further down the line. Our initial feeling at the moment though is that we want to await the decision from the Competition and Markets Authority, then be able to spend some time here and get a real grip on the business itself.
“In regards to the bus sales side, we want to look at what our options are in the future as to if it can be expanded or focused in a different way, but at the moment and in the near future it is business as normal. Ensignbus’ sales side has a large customer base and we want to continue working with them under First Bus ownership. We will also look at own fleet UK-wide and decide if there are things we can do with vehicle disposals, rectification projects and refurbishments down the line, but our key focus will be working with existing customers.”
Heritage fleet
In regards to the large heritage fleet, Peter explained: “The entire heritage fleet will stay here for the next 12 months whilst we find a new depot, as we are retaining them. In the interim period, some of the heritage fleet will go on loan to First Bus, and in that time they can use them on private hires or TV work etc, but after that period they will return to us.
“We are now in the process of looking for premises for the heritage fleet. We will then decide how we run it. Ideally if the premises are acceptable, we might turn it into a museum. We want to keep rebuilding heritage vehicles as we do now, so that will allow us to take on a few people, and maybe an apprentice.
“We could have local school kids come down and see the evolution of the bus, we could have open days. There are so many options, but we cannot decide exactly what we are doing until we know where that location will be.
“In regards to the yearly enthusiast running day, last year’s may have been the last. We had 29 buses from our fleet and five visiting vehicles. When we owned the place, that was our perogative to utilise our engineering facilities to get the vehicles ready and so on, but we cannot ask anyone else to take that on as it is a huge event to organise. It is early days yet and plans will become much clearer in the coming months.”
50 years of Ensignbus
Peter Newman, along with sons Ross and Steve, are a family that needs no introduction in the industry. I sat down and spoke with Peter about the deal and some of the key moments in the history of the company.
“Whilst it is well known that we celebrated 50 years of operation last year, it will actually be 51 years on 23 February, so myself, Ross and Steve are very proud of this achievement,” he explained. “The sale of Ensignbus to FirstGroup is not a knee jerk reaction, I am 83 now, so we have been looking at our options for some time. Myself, Ross and Steve work as a team, we all do different things within the business and rely on each other to maintain the level of service that we do.
“We have always said that if one of us decides for any reason, that enough is enough, and it could have been Ross or it could have been Steve, then it would all go. On this occasion it happened to be me because of my age. There are times when you have got to look at it and make the right decision. Business is changing, and there will be many more changes to come, with a lot of upheaval.
“If we were greedy, we could have sold the various parts of the business off, the private hire, services, engineering, bus sales and so on until we had an empty yard as this property is worth a fortune. Luckily, we are not like that and want to see the business we built continue.
“Fifty-plus years is a long time to be in the bus business, but looking back we have had many highlights. We were particularly proud of what we achieved with the London Pride open-top sightseeing operation as we introduced many features for tourists that were not there before, and are still used today. I like to think that we revolutionised the London tour market.
“Prior to London Pride, tours were only operated by London Transport and had limited stops. We introduced electronic ticket machines, hop on-hop off, tri-axle double deckers, 24-hour tickets, two-way radios, five different routes which all interconnected, local fares, and we ran on Christmas Day.
“I believe the way the London open-top tour market is now is because of how London Pride innovated back in the 1980s and ‘90s, and it is hard to believe that we sold it 25 years ago!
“The other thing that I think was a great achievement was building the City Sightseeing brand with the experience gained from London Pride. We ended up building a worldwide sightseeing brand, because at the time there wasn’t such a thing. You had airlines, hotel chains and so on, but the open-top tour market was fragmented. Our plan was to bring them all together so that tourists could recognise a global brand.
“That ambition certainly helped the sightseeing market worldwide, but things have changed a lot since we sold City Sightseeing. Back in the early years big was beautiful, but now it is all about being local and independent. But that doesn’t just go for sightseeing, that also applies to things like shops too.
“City Sightseeing was never set up as a profit making organisation, the only way it made money was on the tickets that were sold. There was no cost for an operator to join, no yearly fee, all that we asked was that they painted vehicles in City Sightseeing livery and we took something like 15% of the ticket value. If no tickets were being sold, we didn’t make any money.
“Every year we would have a conference for all the operators involved in City Sightseeing, and it would be held at a different location each year around the world. We would discuss new ideas and concepts that would benefit us all.
“Throughout our years operating open-top tours, it was always my goal to rationalise the number of operators in one town or city so that there was never an issue with local authorities. We did that in London by buying six operators and during our City Sightseeing ownership we purchased Guide Friday which then saw further rationalisation. The purchase of Guide Friday also led to us operating local buses under the Cambridge Blue and Stratford Blue names.
“I think the thing that I am most proud of though, is our achievement of running local buses here is Essex for the benefit of the local community. We operate bus services from 0400 to 0100hrs knowing that factory and shop workers can always catch a bus. People are much more likely to use the bus when they can make repeat journeys that fit in with their shift patterns, no matter what time of the day or night. All of our services are also commercial, which makes it even more of an achievement.
“But on a final note, I believe the independent bus operator running bus services is becoming a dying breed in the UK, mainly because of politics, but there will be opportunities in the future as there will be some big operators withdrawing from some areas because as some franchising methods expand they will concentrate on those areas. So I believe there will be some opportunities for school bus operators, if you like, to also run bus services in some areas in the future.”
