Prairie Coach owner looking to sell
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/07/2019 (2442 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The owner of Brandon-based charter bus company Prairie Coach is looking to sell after 14 years in business.
Prairie Coach, based out of 147 12th St., was listed for sale on real estate broker Royal LePage’s website at the beginning of July for $975,000 and includes a fleet of five buses, a van, trailer, a tour company in Winnipeg, office equipment and all contracts.
Charter services run through the company include rentals by sports teams and bus tour vacations. The company employs 12 employees both full- and part-time.
Owner Niel Henry told the Sun he wants to retire at almost 71 years of age from the business he started in 2005. He said part of his motivation to move on is what he sees as an industry becoming too reactionary.
“I don’t like the way the industry and the world is going,” Henry said. “We are overregulated now. Extremely overregulated. Every time something happens, the politicians do a knee-jerk reaction.”
According to Henry, his technicians are spending more time doing paperwork than they are fixing vehicles.
He points to the tragedy surrounding the Humboldt Broncos bus crash as something that led to unnecessary regulations.
“It wasn’t a safety issue to begin with,” he said. “It had nothing to do with safety.”
Instead, Henry believes it was a case of driver error, not insufficient regulation. “That happens every day; just look at how many automobile accidents there are.”
What Henry did like about the job was the people he met along the way. “In the service industry you meet a lot of great people, do a lot of good things. In a lot of cases it’s fun. The work itself is fun. It’s the office work that’s gone in the crapper.”
In early October, Prairie Coach has a bus tour of the Maritimes and the northeastern United States.
Henry said he has yet to get any serious inquiries and added he has no strict timetable to sell the business.
“These things don’t happen in a hurry,” he said. “No point in putting a date on it, when it happens it happens.”
Any new owner will need to negotiate a lease with the owner of the building if they want the same location, as Henry currently has a handshake deal with the landlord.
While some business owners hope that new owners will keep things the same, Henry said he understands that people want to do things their way. “I’m not about to tell anyone what to do. If they’re putting up the money, it’s their choice.”
» cslark@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @ColinSlark