14th Jul 2005 11:00
FirstGroup PLC14 July 2005 Embargoed until 11:00am on Thursday 14 July 2005 FirstGroup plc Extracts from presentations made to shareholders at the Group's Annual General Meeting in Aberdeen today: "The Group reported another year of excellent progress across all divisions. Ourstrategy remains to increase shareholder value by continuing to grow our corebusinesses and explore opportunities to develop in new markets. We are committedto a progressive dividend policy supported by a share buy back programme. I am delighted with our performance in North America where we have delivered asixth year of strong growth. During the year we acquired Cardinal bus companywhich operates over 2,000 yellow school buses in Canada and California. We nowoperate over 20,000 yellow school buses in North America. In First Transitdollar turnover increased by 15% and we were very pleased to win new contractsto operate and manage transit systems in states such as Virginia, Massachusetts,Ohio, Georgia, California, Pennsylvania and Texas. First Services had a verysuccessful year almost doubling in size and profit. In August we made thestrategic acquisition of SKE Support Services which provides us with entry in tothe growing Federal market, one of North America's largest procurers of supportservices. In UK Bus we are seeing further growth in areas where we can work with LocalAuthorities to implement bus priority and other traffic management measures. Wecontinue to focus on service quality and improving vehicle reliability andduring the year we made significant investment in our maintenance andengineering functions. We expect to see the full benefit of this increasedinvestment over the next few years and are encouraged to see that during theyear lost mileage was significantly reduced. In Rail we had an excellent year with turnover exceeding £1 billion andoperating profit increased to £68 million. These excellent results reflect thestrong operating performance and increased passenger volumes across all of ourtrain operating companies, as well as the start up of First ScotRail last year.We commenced operation of this franchise in October and, despite adverse weatherconditions at the start of this year, the handover went smoothly. We are makingan enormous effort and investing to improve fleet reliability and performance.Looking forward we have been shortlisted for four new enlarged rail franchises:Greater Western, Integrated Kent, Thameslink/Great Northern and Docklands LightRailway. We have a highly experienced bid team and we are developing excitingproposals for the future of these railways. Overall trading in the first three months of the year is in line with ourexpectations. Contacts on 14 July 2005: Moir Lockhead, Chief Executive 01224 650102Dean Finch, Finance Director 07788 178 942Rachael Borthwick, Head of Corporate Communications 07771 945 432 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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