LONDON (Reuters) - British outsourcing firm Serco on Wednesday said it had won a 800 million pound contract to run Scotland's Caledonian Sleeper rail franchise. The 15-year contract with the service, which links Scotland's main towns and cities with London, includes marketing, sales, passenger services, station facilities and fleet maintenance. The deal, which will see Serco take over from British transport operator FirstGroup, includes investment in new rolling stock and customer service.
It is part of a push by Transport Scotland to increase both business and leisure passengers from Britain and overseas. "With 3,000 Serco employees living and working in Scotland, we are tremendously excited to be delivering these new developments and meeting the vision of Transport Scotland," Serco Chief Executive Rupert Soames said in a statement.
The contract, which starts in April 2015, comes after a torrid 2013 for Serco when it was found to have overcharged the British government on a contract to tag criminals.
The scandal sparked a ban on new UK government work, the exit of long-serving boss Chris Hyman, and sent Serco's share price and profits tumbling.
The Sleeper contract is the second rail franchise deal FirstGroup has lost out on in a week, after it was ousted from an 8.9 billion pound deal to run London's commuter Thameslink deal on Friday, hurting its shares. FirstGroup said on Wednesday its medium targets were unchanged, adding it was shortlisted for several other rail contracts and the Caledonian loss represented just 2 percent of revenues at its First ScotRail unit.
(Reporting by Neil Maidment; editing by Jason Neely)