Brian Souter

Sir Brian Souter (born 5 May 1954) is a Scottish businessman.

With his sister, Dame Ann Gloag, he founded the Stagecoach Group of bus and rail operators.

He also founded the bus and coach operator Megabus, the train operating company South West Trains, his investments company Souter Holdings Ltd, and the Souter Charitable Trust.

Souter has been politically active in Scotland, and supported the Scottish National Party (SNP) financially.

Using his father's redundancy money, with his sister Ann Gloag and his brother-in-law Robin Gloag he established the Stagecoach Group in 1980, running buses from Dundee to London.

Following the deregulation of bus services in Great Britain, expansion continued, and in the late 1980s Stagecoach acquired National Bus Company subsidiaries in Cumberland and Hampshire, and the East Midlands, Ribble, Southdown and United Counties companies.

Stagecoach also bought bus operations in Scotland, Newcastle and London, with Manchester being added a few years later.

By the mid-1990s, Stagecoach developed its interests in Australia and New Zealand.

The company further expanded with the purchase of Citybus, an operator of buses and ferries in Hong Kong, and Coach USA, the largest bus and coach operator in the US and Canada.

Souter became Chief Executive, and later sold off much of Coach USA.

Stagecoach then bought a number of the new small bus companies and ran free or low-fare buses to put local rivals out of business.

In Darlington, Stagecoach subsidiary Busways offered bounties to recruit drivers from the existing bus service and offered free buses to deter the rival preferred bidder from taking over that service.

This practice was deemed as "predatory, deplorable and against the public interest" according to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.

In 1993, Stagecoach was valued at £134 million and was floated on the London Stock Exchange to access capital for new opportunities for buses and trains overseas.

On leaving school, he studied at the Dundee Institute of Technology (which became Abertay University in 1994) to become a commerce teacher.

On completion he studied at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, where he graduated with a CA Diploma in Accountancy and Economics.

Following his graduation, Souter became a Chartered Accountant at Arthur Andersen & Co.

During the privatisation of British Rail, Stagecoach bid successfully to operate the South West Trains franchise from 1996 followed by the Island Line Trains later the same year.

In 1998, Stagecoach purchased a 49% shareholding in Virgin Rail Group that operated the CrossCountry and West Coast franchises.

In 2000, when the Scottish Executive proposed to repeal Section 2A of the Local Government Act, which prevented local authorities from "promoting homosexuality", Souter started the Keep the Clause campaign to oppose their plans, spending £1 million of his own money to organise a private referendum across Scotland.

This campaign and other controversial statements have led opponents to accuse him of homophobia.

Stagecoach successfully bid to retain both when retendered in 2001 and 2006, before they passed to South Western Railway in 2017.

In 2007, Stagecoach commenced operating the East Midlands Trains franchise.

In 2009, Souter received a £1.6m bonus.

Stating "it was felt that in the present economic climate it would not be right for any individual to pocket a bonus package of £1.6million", he donated £900,000 to his own charity, the Souter Charitable Trust, which assists humanitarian projects in the UK and overseas.

Most of the remainder was given to the staff pension fund.

In 2011, he was knighted for services to transport and the voluntary sector.

The honour was criticised by Scottish Labour Party politicians and by gay rights campaigners.

In August 2012, it was announced that Souter would become chairman of Stagecoach Group on 1 May 2013, finance director Martin Griffiths replacing Souter as CEO.

From April 2015 until June 2018, Virgin Trains East Coast, in which Stagecoach held a 90% share, operated the InterCity East Coast franchise.

In October 2019, Souter announced the donation of 28% of the total shares in Souter Investments to charitable causes, with an estimated value of £109 million.

This was described in The Scotsman as "what could be the largest charitable donation by a Scot since ... Andrew Carnegie".

This came after Souter's charitable trust had already spent over £98 million supporting "13,000 worthwhile causes" over 13 years.

It was announced in December 2019 that Souter would step down from his role as chairman at the end of the year, but remain on the board as a non-executive director.

Shortly after Souter floated Stagecoach on the London Stock Exchange, he turned his attention to British railways.

Initial experiments consisted of a Scotland to London service branded Stagecoach Rail with carriages attached to the Caledonian Sleeper.

According to the Sunday Times Rich List in 2020, Souter and his sister Ann Gloag are worth £730 million, a decrease of £145 million from the previous year.

Souter was born in the Scottish city of Perth.

His father was a bus driver and as a child Brian often travelled on bus routes with his father.

At school he developed an interest in economics and accounts, about which he later said, "Changing my timetable from maths to include economics and accounts was one of the best things I've ever done."