Technical and operational due diligence for the acquisition of Arriva’s Portuguese bus operations

VTM was appointed by an international investor, who was aiming to acquire Arriva’s Portuguese public mobility operations, to carry out a technical and operational due diligence of the Seller’s business case regarding the (at the time) recently won contract for the Lot 3 operations. Lot 3 operations comprises the municipalities of Almada, Seixal and Sesimbra, with a contracted volume of 19 million vehicle kilometres and 116 bus lines. VTM was responsible to prepare both the NBO and the BO.

The technical and operational due diligence exercise required VTM to understand how the main operational cost items, such as fuel, maintenance, human resources, and fleet, were forecasted and fed into the business case in order to determine whether those were in line with industry’s best practices. VTM, together with the Client and with the financial advisor, produced a revised business model which was than the base for the Client’s valuation of the Arriva’s future Lot 3 operations.

Despite the fact that our Client did not win the bid for Arriva’s Portuguese bus operations, the extensive work performed in close collaboration with the Client team and their advisors constituted a solid technical basis for asset valuation.