Hello Rainmakers,
A £50m buyout marked the end of a seven-year journey from family ownership to management control at Leger Shearings Group. Sheryl Moore charts the dealmaking, the rescue of a famous coach holiday brand and the business betting that nostalgia couple with premium experiences still sells.
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There was a time when the great British coach holiday meant a plastic bag of beef paste sandwiches, a comfort stop at Leicester Forest and a fortnight spent following a tour guide with a little flag. Adventure, apparently, was finding a different motorway service station on the way home.
Back in the 70s I was often dragged to Ilfracombe with my grandparents on a coach trip that appeared to last days on end. “Are we there yet?” became less a question than a cry for help. And despite the travel sickness, I never lost sight of the promised knickerbocker glory waiting at the end of the epic journey. I can’t remember much about Ilfracombe, but I’ve never forgotten the ice-cream.
The coach holiday may not be the sexiest corner of the travel industry. But write it off at your peril. Behind the stereotypes sits a serious business, built on repeat custom, logistical muscle and the enduring appeal of letting somebody else do the driving.
Few Yorkshire businesses know that better than Rotherham-based Leger Shearings Group.
Its latest management buyout, backed by £22m of NatWest funding, completes a succession story years in the making. But it also marks another milestone in the unlikely revival of one of Britain’s best-known coach holiday names.
Back in 2020, the wheels came off for Wigan-based Shearings. It was left for dead when its parent company, Specialist Leisure Group, collapsed into administration during the Covid pandemic. The group had also operated businesses including National Holidays, Wallace Arnold Travel and Caledonian Travel, alongside a substantial hotel portfolio. The collapse left a significant gap in the market.
Leger Holidays stepped in to buy the brand for a reported £500k along with its customer database and website, betting that a name with decades of holiday memories attached to it was worth saving.
Crucially, this was not a rescue of the former company in its entirety. Leger did not buy its coaches, hotels or workforce as part of the transaction. It acquired the brand assets and the opportunity to rebuild the holiday business around them.
The deal also provided access to an established customer base and a name with a long history in British coach holidays, dating back to 1919.
It was a gamble taken at a moment when travel had ground to a halt and the future of the entire industry was in doubt. Six years on, the rescued brand is part of a group reporting record forward bookings and investing in a more premium travel experience.
Not bad for an industry once synonymous with a flask of tea and a seat behind the toilet.
