Actually, Stagecoach has already tried 3 times to purchase West Midlands Travel or its successor NXWM. First in 1991 when they were not allowed to bid. Secondly in 1995, as when it became public knowledge that NatEx were in discussions to buy out WMT, WMT received rival bids from Stagecoach, Badgerline and British Bus that they simply ignored. Thirdly, in 2009 when NatEx received a takeover bid from Spanish coach group Alsa and CVC, Stagecoach were willing to take over NXWM, NX Dundee and rail franchise c2c. Stagecoach even apparently had buyers for adjacent operations lined up.
It wasn't aware that WMT were approached by Stagecoach, Badgerline & British Bus during negotiations with NX. Originally WMT were planning a stock market floatation of there own & had expanded by buying North East Bus, County Bus & Coach & Westlink.
In fact you could make that four Stagecoach attempts:
1991 lost out to ESOP buyout for a lessor amount than Stagecoach offered
1995 lost out to NX via a merger of WMT & NX
2009 CVC Capital pulled out of ALSA takeover bid & bid collapsed
2009 Stagecoach then approached NX direct with a merger proposal. I believe that time Stagecoach came very close, as NXWM repaints were repainted allover white & without NX in the fleet-names, simply just 'West Midlands'
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Why on earth would Wellglade sell the biggest jewel in their metaphorical crown and purchase a couple of smaller operators instead? In the unlikely event that they do sell up I do however think that Wellglade as a whole would be a good fit for Go-Ahead
I agree most if not all of the large bus group would love to buy Wellglade as a group. I can't see Centrebus being that attractive to the large groups. Yourbus again only if someone wanted to weaken Trent Barton
