Another Press Association news release on the AA take over of BSM:
AA moves to buy driving school BSM
The British School of Motoring (BSM), the UK’s largest driving school, has been sold to motoring giant The AA, which bought it out of administration.
Administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said the move would preserve the 100-year-old BSM brand, safeguard 2,400 jobs and allow 30,000 customers to carry on taking their lessons.
The driving school has struggled since a £10 million management buyout in November 2009 led by joint managing directors Abu-Haris Shafi and Nikolai Kesting, the Mail on Sunday said.
Matthew Hammond, joint administrator and partner at PwC, said: “We are very pleased to have been able to complete a sale of the BSM business.
“The sale preserves the BSM brand and its 100-year history, and secures the immediate transfer of employees, driver franchisees, trainees and student drivers to a large, stable and successful company.
“The sale benefits instructors, students and employees and we are delighted to have achieved this.”
BSM is understood to have appointed PwC to advise it on a sale before it was bought immediately after entering administration.
The AA was being lined up as a buyer and is likely to have paid only a nominal sum for the business, according to the newspaper.
BSM has 2,100 franchised driving instructors across the UK, 135 employees at the head office in Bristol and a further 145 employees at 71 network centres across the UK.
Its operations will continue without interruption and its employees will transfer over to the new company.
The “nominal sum” is rumoured to be £1 according to the Daily Mail story. Apparently, BSM went into administration and the AA bought it instantly – within minutes.
EDIT: Also covered this morning in London Glossy, the FT, and Insider News. Nothing new – although the FT links the change from FIAT to Vauxhall as part of the sale, which appears to have been ongoing for some time – just the same story as above (or links to it in some other cases).
Continue to watch this space.