Interesting times in Melbourne. The biggest family company of local bus services, Ventura, has put itself out there for a buy out. They have around 900 buses on 140 routes so the price will be big. Barring a new entrant arriving from overseas, there are only three realistic bidders for Ventura. That is Kinetic, CDC and Kelsian. Of course, Kelsian is going to be hampered by just having had a capital raise to buy the American operation. Meanwhile, Kinetic is hungry to buy almost anything it can get its' hands on whilst CDC is probably consolidating in preparation to float here and dilute it's Singapore roots. Kelsian has already faced a bidding war with Kinetic when Kinetic won the Go Ahead business in the UK a couple of years ago. At least we can say that Kelsian is disciplined and did not overbid in desperation on that occasion. Here's hoping that Kinetic is still swallowing the costs of the Go Ahead transaction and that there might be a chance of Kelsian obtaining Ventura at a realistic price. It certainly would improve the scale of Australian bus operations.
KLS Price at posting:
$6.08 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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