group: At this point, Virgin could easily have shouldered a few barren months or even years, according to The Guardian. By 2012, Branson's group had already pocketed around 180m in dividends from a public transport service that it had operated since 1997. I ... would happily run the extended franchise on a not-for-profit basis, or donate profits to charity, he wrote. Instead, Virgin managed to secure a two-year contract extension, the run-it-for-free pledge was forgotten and the firm has continued to make considerable sums from the London-to-Glasgow route. But this time the arbiter of that choice should be the taxpayer and government ministers, not private operators, who rarely seem to be held to account by the system. Its share of dividends now stands at more than 300m, and the issue of whether railways should be a not-for-profit enterprise ought to rear its head once again.
(news.financializer.com). As
reported in the news.
Tagged under group, service topics.