New head office being bought for European Travel Group

Durham based European Travel Group, which owns several coach companies across the north east of England, is set to purchase a new head office. The move is to see it incorporate all trading companies and store the group’s coaches. The development is being made possible after receiving nearly £900,000 from Santander Corporate & Commercial.

European Travel Group has been operating for five years and consists of Lee’s Coaches, Durham City Coaches and Enterprise Travel, employing over 80 staff. To complement its existing fleet the European Travel Group have invested in excess of £2.5m in new vehicles over the past 18 months to allow the group to service all types of work, from short local coach hire to European tours. European Travel Group also provides local educational based services and is responsible for transporting large volumes of students.

The funding will allow all three companies to operate under the same roof, as opposed to their own operating bases they currently inhabit. In the new building, the three operations will continue to be separate business entities, with the European Travel Group being the parent company. Operating in the same facility is expected to make the operations more efficient, with commercial and financial information all generated from the same facility. The site they are moving to is a 5.5acre facility, which comprises 26 trading units.

Director at European Travel Group, Derrick Collin, said: “The new head office will allow us to make significant savings across our business and streamline operations which in turn will enable us to focus on growth.”

 Further acquisitions?

Speaking to Bus and Coach Buyer, Derrick said there are more operator acquisitions planned for the European Travel Group. He said this may see it enter a “slightly different market”, hinting at the mini- and midi-coach sector. These are expected to be further south than the north eastern operations it comprises of.

European Travel Group was incorporated in September 2015. It started when Derrick, who had previously worked in supplying electronic equipment to pubs, looked for an investment that would be cash generating. He noted that the coach industry was “very undercapitalised”, so invested his capital in this sector.

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