FirstGroup’s new chairman has warned that the Brexit vote may slow growth in its bus and rail businesses, and called on the UK government to give urgent priority to tackling urban congestion to keep city bus travel viable.
Wolfhart Hauser, chairing his first annual meeting in Aberdeen and giving the floor entirely to shareholders, told them the business had to be proactive in winning new customers “especially with the situation with Brexit where we may not grow as we would have expected in the past”. He added later: “Look what the top line is doing in UK bus and UK rail, there is no guarantee that it goes up without doing anything.”
In a reference to the new Prime Minister’s agenda, he noted that FirstGroup was the “only FTSE company with an employee director on the board”, adding that the government would now be “watching carefully how that is working in FirstGroup”.
Mr Hauser, a German corporate growth specialist appointed when John McFarlane departed prematurely to chair Barclays, fielded all shareholder questions and did not call once on the usually vocal chief executive Tim O’Toole. He opened the meeting with a plea to UK central and local government, saying the group’s bus business faced “a growing threat that we are largely powerless to resolve on our own, namely the problem of urban congestion”.
The chairman went on: “If the trend is allowed to continue, our urban buses will no longer represent a viable mode of transport for the majority of customers, for me it is strange that tackling congestion isn’t higher up the local and national agenda...given the impact of this problem on jobs, local economies, the urban environment.”
Mr O’Toole last week warned that a more challenging economic outlook for the UK business following the EU vote might offset sterling-related gains this year in the Aberdeen-based group’s bigger US operations.
On the group’s successful retention of its Trans-Pennine cross-Border rail franchise, following failed bidding contests for four other territories including both west and east coast lines, Mr Hauser said it was a welcome success “after all the losses we had in bidding for rail contracts”. But in an allusion to reports that Virgin Rail may struggle to meet promised returns on the east coast route, especially in Brexit conditions, Mr Hauser commented: “If you look at how those rail contracts we lost are now performing financially, our management did the right thing.”
The chairman also lambasted UK rail investment. “If you go to France or Germany or Japan you are even more disappointed when you come back here and see the rail infrastructure,” he said. “The embarrassing thing is it is not all about huge investment, you go to a station and wait for a train and you stand like an idiot because the seats are like you had 50 years ago – even the cheapest airport will give you better seating in the waiting area.”
On FirstGroup’s own UK transport investment, Mr Hauser said improving the product and then marketing it better was critical. “We really have to do a lot more...the whole board are really pushing hard to move faster, we did a lot of good things but it is not enough.”
Responding to contributions from shareholders and transport campaigners David Redgewell and Ron Steven, Mr Hauser said: “In bus we really have to say that our ticketing system is horrible. We have plans and we will start already in Aberdeen with a more modern system.....there are a lot of opportunities for smartcard ticketing, buses can get down the time people are boarding to a third of what it is today. If you go onto Union Street to board a bus you wait three or four minutes before the bus starts going.”
Mr Hauser said the business had to attract “the young generation which is using smartphones and Instagram – where do we have followers saying ‘travel by bus it’s the greatest thing in the world’?.....we have to be a lot more active in these areas”.
On devolution across the UK and its benefits for transport, Mr Hauser said: “We have to be the driving force, not wait for politicians to say do this or that, we have to be two steps ahead.”
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