ANYONE doubting Sir Brian Souter’s ability to charm an audience would have had their opinion tested to the full at the Stagecoach annual meeting in Perth yesterday.

Few other business leaders could surely have investors eating out of the palms of their hands had their company endured the kind of year Stagecoach has so far had.

By Christmas, the company Sir Brian founded with sister Ann Gloag in 1980 will find its focus reduced to solely running buses in the UK after it effectively withdraws from rail franchising and selling off its US division.

Its diminution follows after a bruising spell for the business, which is now taking legal action against the UK Government after being dumped out of the running for three major rail franchise bids - spelling the end of a largely-successful time running trains since the 1990s.

With its share price continuing to toil – and significant concerns over directors’ pay expressed by some yesterday – one might have assumed Sir Brian would have come in for a tougher time from investors at Perth Theatre. Not a bit of it. Revelling in the “cosier” setting offered by the theatre, compared with the draughtier surroundings of usual venue Perth Concert Hall down the road, Sir Brian even got a round of applause at one stage. The one-time bus conductor, who hosts AGMs with the jovial demeanour of a Friday night chat show host, was in no mood to let clouds of despondency cloak proceedings. “It has not been annus horribilis,” he quipped just before the soup was served, “but it has not been far from that in the last year.”