RacsoMoquette
Member
A company called M40 Trains won the Chiltern Franchise initially, before it was brought by DB Arriva. Who was this company and who were they owned by? Plus did they bid or win any other post privatization rail franchises?
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Who were M40 Trains?
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Bletchleyite
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They were a management buy-out team led by Adrian Shooter in effect, I believe.
coppercapped
Established Member
The company was set up by Adrian Shooter and other ex-BR managers. It was financially backed by John Laing and 3i. It was set up specifically to bid for the Chiltern franchise and did not bid for any others.
swt_passenger
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Financed by infrastructure firm John Laing Group, and investment company 3i (aka Investors in Industry). Laing group bought out the railway management shareholders, and eventually sold to another firm, Henderson, and they sold on to DB Arriva UK. The wiki for M40 Trains Ltd seems to provide a fairly reasonable summary.
pdeaves
Established Member
The company itself still runs the Chiltern franchise, though as others have said the shareholding has changed.
Companies House info may be of interest (https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03005018/filing-history); latest annual report here https://find-and-update.company-inf...ing-history/MzQ4MzY3OTA3MmFkaXF6a2N4/document (sorry for the long link)
Companies House info may be of interest (https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03005018/filing-history); latest annual report here https://find-and-update.company-inf...ing-history/MzQ4MzY3OTA3MmFkaXF6a2N4/document (sorry for the long link)
M40 Trains ceased to be involved when Chiltern moved to the current National Rail Contract in December 2021, which is solely between the SoS for Transport and Chiltern.
According to their latest Annual Accounts, M40 Trains' principal activity is now "the operation of long term infrastructure assets relating to the Chiltern Railway franchise."
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