TRANSPORT company McGill's Bus Service, which is controlled by brothers Sandy and James Easdale, has reported a sharp rise in profits.

 

Annual accounts now available at Companies House for the Greenock business show turnover increased from £33.9 million to £35.3m for 2014.

That was helped by it stepping in to run bus routes which became available when Henderson Travel ceased trading in October last year while the business also attributed the warm weather to greater "patronage" during the summer months.

The McGill's accounts show pre-tax profits increased 83 per cent from £1.75m to £3.2m.

Writing in the accounts the directors noted it had achieved savings by outsourcing procurement of mechanical parts and other materials.

Managing director Ralph Roberts said it had also benefited from the closure of its loss-making Dumbarton depot in the previous year as well as a small impact from lower diesel prices towards the end of 2014.

Along with that its investment in buses, which saw 24 purchased during 2014, also helped to trim costs.

Mr Roberts said: "In the early years of new vehicles you tend to get lower operating costs, maintenance is low and sometimes they burn less diesel.

"They also tend to promote a more attractive proposition for people to travel by bus and we had seen uplift in patronage on routes where new buses went in."

Mr Roberts said the bumper profits recorded during the financial year had allowed it to continue investing in new vehicles with 40 bought so far during 2015.

The accounts show cost of sales at the business went down year-on-year from £27.2m to £26.6m while it also shaved its net debt from £2.55m to £866,080.

Staff costs increased from £16.1m to £16.4m even though average monthly employee numbers dropped from 699 to 681. Mr Roberts said the company had awarded a 3.5 per cent wage increase in the year and current staff numbers were now 895.

Total directors' emoluments, including pension contributions, went from £148,000 to £96,662.

In January it was revealed McGill's was to be paid more than £9m to take on the package of contracts which became available when Hamilton-based Henderson Travel collapsed.

McGill's stepped in to keep 53 services running across Lanarkshire, Glasgow and East Dunbartonshire.

Mr Roberts said McGill's is considering setting up a new depot in Lanarkshire later this year and also retains an interest in making acquisitions in the UK and overseas.

Along with that it is mulling an expansion of open top bus tours after seeing success in Inverclyde from a service it ran to target cruise ship passengers moored at Greenock Ocean Terminal.

Mr Roberts said: "It has been proving exceptionally popular with cruise ship passengers and locals.

"We have seen the rapid uptake and are certainly looking at other areas to introduce open top tours."

While Mr Roberts said 2015 had not yet quite matched the performance recorded last year he was confident on the outlook.

He added: "We are trading pretty much to plan and the accelerated investment [in new vehicles] will hopefully reap dividends in the second half of the year."

The accounts note McGill's is a subsidiary of Arranglen, which is controlled by James Easdale.

Along with McGill's the Easdale brothers have a shareholding in Rangers, own window manufacturer Blairs and have commercial property interests.