Arriva Takeover

Originally posted by Metroline1511 Originally posted by unsy according to form there are a few admirers to take over the arriva empire and to what it says in todays echo is that one of them is metroline owners comfortdelgro but it would be left with the monoply commision as they own a large percentage of the london operations if they where to buy arriva as the price as been estimated at a whopping £1.6 billion If Comfort DelGro do buy Arriva it would set the cat among the pigeons beyond Trafalgar Square throughout north and west London in view of how many buses would be under common ownership! It would probably lead to Metroline or, preferably, Arriva London North being divested, most likely to Abellio.

well it states that comfortdelgro do 14% of bus routes in london and arriva do 20% of the routes in london so if they do buy arriva i think they would rather keep 20% as that means they 6% more dominant in london but could they keep some of the routes what metroline do at the momment to increase there power base in london and say get rid of 4% or 5% of the metroline routes to make the manopoly commision let a deal go through and would this mean that arriva would operate under metroline or still operate under arriva with arriva being a brand name as they say with passengers

I would think if Comfort Delgro did buy Arriva they would sell off the Arriva Subsiduaries in London whole as a divestment rather than any of their own operations which are the core of the group. Although they might make representations to keep certain depots that might bolt on, or might not bolt on in the hope these could be added to Metroline.

DB have tried to buy Arriva before but without success, so they are obviously keen. Other interested parties might be NedRail as it gits in with their recent purchase of National Expresses London operations and also with their train operatiosn quite nicely and the share holding in London and on rail is probably not large enough to merit any divestments.

Also Ned Rail and Arriva have many area's in Northern England where NedRail operate Trains and Arriva operate Buses and that might allow for joint ticketing arrangements.

Gilesbus1

I hope they don't change much. I like Arriva - I'd hate it if they mucked it up.

Originally posted by CX58EWW I hope they don't change much. I like Arriva - I'd hate it if they mucked it up.

Sir CX58 I think they could stilll be Arriva, or DB Arriva in this country at least.

Infamy141

I don't think there would be much change it, would more or less be business as usual and any transaction anyway might not occur overnight it may take months to complete because of the size of the transaction and the money involved, I doub't there would be any livery changes or anything else, at least initially although Arriva logo's may be changed to DB logo's given time. DB have a corporate livery similar to Veolia's Red & Grey according to buses so over time maybe that may be introduced hear as well.

As far as vehicle buying policy presumably its too early to say but VDL may still feature heavily as Arriva are the VDL Dealership for the UK, so presumably that as well would pass to DB and would need orders to maintain it as a profitable business unit. Unless DB see it as not a core business unit and try to sell it on.

Gilesbus1