THE FIRM running many of Hampshire's buses is set to become the largest private operator of America's iconic yellow school buses in a £1.9 billion deal.
FirstGroup, which runs 49 services across Southampton and Hampshire, has bought up America's Laidlaw International, which also owns the famous Greyhound bus service.
The move will see it become the leading transport services company in the country and the operator of 63,000 yellow school buses in the United States and Canada. Laidlaw's educational service operates in 37 US states and six Canadian provinces, ferrying around two million pupils to and from school each day.
Through the Greyhound business, FirstGroup becomes the only provider of national inter-city bus services serving around 2,400 destinations throughout the US and Canada and carrying some 24 million passengers a year.
The takeover still requires regulatory clearances from authorities in the US and Canada.
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