THE bus company run by Rangers International Football Club shareholders Alexander and James Easdale has returned to profit, according to its latest set of accounts.
The financial statement for McGill's Bus Services shows turnover grew from £15 million to £27.7m in 2012.
Writing in the accounts the directors - listed as the two Easdale brothers and Ralph Roberts - attributed the increase in turnover to the acquisition of Arriva's routes across Renfrewshire in March last year.
While the exact value of that deal has never been revealed the accounts show McGill's recorded charges totalling £12.4m for the purchase of tangible and intangible assets.
The increase in turnover helped turn around the £552,727 loss reported in 2011 with the accounts recently filed at Companies House showing a pre-tax profit of £659,404 for 2012.
The directors said: "The company has a modern fleet of buses due to continued investment in this area and the directors are of the opinion that the additional comfort which passengers enjoy will increase the company's passenger numbers in future years."
However the directors pointed out trading profitably remains difficult mainly because of fuel costs but said they were committed to running the business as efficiently as possible. The Greenock company employed an average of 589 people across the year, up from 317, which saw staff costs increase from £7.2m to £13.1m. Net debt was steady at £3.7m.
The accounts show James Easdale was owed £326,335, up from £227,425, by the company as an interest free loan with no fixed repayment date.
Alexander, or Sandy as he is known, was due £173,124 which was down from £233,336.
McGill's runs around 350 buses across more than 40 routes covering Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire areas.
It is thought to employ around 700 people across depots in Greenock, Inchinnan, Johnstone and Barrhead.
According to the most recent McGill's annual return its entire share capital is owned by Arranglen which is a company majority owned by James Easdale.
James Easdale is a non-executive director at Rangers International Football Club while Sandy recently suggested he has control of around 24% of the proxy votes to be filed before the RIFC annual general meeting later this month.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article