Britain does a line in companies that take a hammering for perceived failings at home but are more respected abroad. Rolls-Royce, for instance, had to put up with investors dismissing it as a fragile maker of jet engines while it was in fact transforming itself into a global engineering, energy and services group, BAE Systems lost face at home selling out of Airbus, but used the proceeds to bulk up in America-the largest single market for defence systems. And for some years bt was held up as the model of a visionary telecoms company by foreign observers, even as its domestic customers grumbled about poor service and endless "you are on hold" music. Sir Moir Lockhead is chief executive of First-Group, yet another British firm that is derided at home but is in fact doing rather well abroad. Under his leadership First, which started out as a regional British bus operator, moved into trains and then transformed itself into one of the world's biggest transport companies by taking control of two American icons-yellow school buses and Greyhound intercity coaches.
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