MUSICAL CHAIRS

摘要

The big change of ownership that many expected during 2009 never actually happened, but others, expected and unexpected, did, and some attracted the attention of the competition authorities while others did not.rnThe one that never happened was National Express, whose problems were exposed to a wider audience when it lost the East Coast rail franchise and its chief executive in quick succession. Equally quickly, First moved in with an approach to merge the businesses and later came merger plans from Stagecoach and a subsequently withdrawn takeover bid by a consortium involving the Spanish-based Cosmen family, major NatEx shareholders, which could have seen the NatEx UK bus and rail businesses sold to Stagecoach. In the event NatEx finished the year without changing hands, with a bold rights issue, restructuring plans and a new chief executive, Dean Finch.