It has not been a particularly good week for transport group National Express.
The bus and train business missed out on the Scotrail franchise on Wednesday, with the contact to run the service awarded to Dutch group Abellio.
Now it has also lost its finance director. Jez Maiden, who has been in the job at National Express since 2008, has resigned to join chemicals group Croda. While it searches for a permanent successor, the company has appointed Matthew Ashley, finance director of its bus subsidiary, to the post temporarily. Analysts at Liberum said:
This appears to be a case of leaving to join a bigger company [which is] disappointing for National Express.
Meanwhile FirstGroup, which was the incumbent of the Scotrail franchise until Wednesday’s announcement, has received some better news. The government said it would award a direct contract for the Great Western route, run by FirstGroup, for three and a half years. That means a negotiation with FirstGroup rather than putting the franchise out to competitive tender.
The Great Western route accounted for around 15% of FirstGroup’s annual revenues and chief executive Tim O’Toole said:
We are very pleased that, after a consultation process in which the Department for Transport sought the views of stakeholders and user groups across the line of route, the DfT intend to negotiate a direct award with us.
This is the first good franchise news for a while, since FirstGroup not only lost out on Scotrail but also saw the Thameslink and Great Northern routes handed to Govia.
In a still falling market National Express is down 3.7p at 225.7p and FirstGroup has edged 0.6p lower to 107.7p.
