To previous warnings in recent months about the effects of lost rail franchises and the vagaries of the US school year, FirstGroup has added the British weather, terrorism in Paris and a shortage of American bus drivers.
The bus and train group issued a surprise profit alert yesterday that took its shares to an all-time low.
In an October-December trading update covering the third quarter of its financial year, FirstGroup wrongfooted investors by revealing that it expects operating profits for the year to come in “slightly lower” than the consensus figure of £308 million. Analysts had already been inking in large falls in revenues, which were down 9.5 per cent in the quarter, because of the loss of its ScotRail train franchise last year and