Stagecoach name secured for 5 years

Infratil has been given five years to hitch up the Stagecoach name and drive it off into the sunset.

The investment company, which is listed on the New Zealand stock exchange, yesterday said it had paid the British owners of Stagecoach $250 million and would take over the business at the end of this month.

It would be allowed to keep using the Stagecoach name for five years.

Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) chief executive Alan Thompson told a meeting of the Auckland Regional Land Transport Committee about some of the positive aspects of Infratil buying Stagecoach.

"It is too early to say exactly what it means for passenger transport but it will be fabulous to have principals living in the same time zone, rather than be separated by 12 zones and having to make phonecalls to other parts of the world."

Stagecoach is expected to receive $48 million in public subsidies for Auckland buses alone this year, a combination of Land Transport New Zealand and Auckland Regional Council money channelled through ARTA, which contracts public transport services.

A big upsurge in the amount of taxpayer and ratepayer money going into public transport services was yesterday hailed by Infratil as one of the reasons it bought Stagecoach.

Managing director Lloyd Morrison said the company was a long-term investor and was prepared to put its own money into Stagecoach to improve the company.

"We're buying back the family silver," said Morrison, referring to the sale of the formerly publicly owned bus companies to Stagecoach.

Stagecoach NZ managing director Ross Martin said staff were pleased that Infratil was a locally owned company and that profits would no longer go overseas.