After 15 years as an independent Britishowned manufacturer, Alexander Dennis has become part of the Canadian-based NFI Group in a £630million deal that creates an enlarged business of over 8,900 employees with global reach, especially in the highcapacity double-deck market.
NFI — the initials stand for New Flyer Industries — is one of the leading North American bus and coach builders, producing New Flyer transit buses, MCI coaches and Arboc ‘cutaway’ van-based vehicles for Canada and the United States. Until now it has had no presence in other markets.
Brazilian manufacturer Marcopolo acquired a 20% shareholding in NFI in 2013 as part of a long-term commercial cooperation agreement; it reduced this to 10.8% in 2016 but remains its largest single shareholder. Alexander Dennis’s principal shareholders — Stagecoach co-founders Sir Brian Souter and Dame Ann Gloag, merchant banker Sir Angus Grossart, and Alexander Dennis chief executive officer Colin Robertson and chief financial officer Michael Stewart — have elected to turn 10% of their proceeds of the sale into an equity stake in NFI.
Robertson and Stewart remain in place, continuing to run Alexander Dennis as a British-based business and charged with l…
