The sibling founders of Stagecoach, Brian Souter and Ann Gloag, are stepping down from their positions in the company.
Founders Sir Brian Souter and Dame Gloag will be vacating their respective positions at Stagecoach as the company announced a decline in revenues. Souter will be stepping down as chairman but will remain on the board while Gloag will completely retire from the company.
The brother and sister founded the company in 1980 and led it to become one of the largest coach and bus operators in the United Kingdom.
According to Souter, now at the age of 65, he is looking to spend more time with his grandchildren and to pursue other interests. He will be replaced by his deputy Ray O'Toole, who will take over the position in January 2020.
While they have decided to depart from their roles in the Stagecoach, the family vowed to continue as significant shareholders in the company.
The announcement was made amidst financial reports showing a significant decline in revenues for Stagecoach as it scaled back its interests over the past 18 months, It went down from over £1 billion in the first half of last year to £800 million in the most recent six-month period.
Stagecoach and its beginnings
Souter and Gloag started the company with just a handful of second-hand buses in 1980 that ran inter-city services in Scotland. Dame Ann and her husband, Robin, purchased a school bus while Sir Brian used his father's redundancy money to buy two coaches.
Margaret Thatcher's deregulation of the bus industry in the early '80s helped grow Stagecoach and since then, it has become one of UK's largest bus and coach operators, with more than 24,000 employees.
It later diversified into trans but in April, Stagecoach was disqualified by the UK government from running West Coast main line services with Virgin due to issues with its pension commitments.
