Optare secures future with refinancing deal

The deal involves Indian company Ashok Leyland increasing its holding in Optare to 75.1% allowing Optare to become fully integrated in Ashok's ambitious global bus strategy which seeks to maintain and improve on its top five place among the world's bus makers. Optare CEO Jim Sumner said the deal was great news for Optare's customers, employees and suppliers and represented a critical milestone in the turnaround of the business. He went on: "In addition, our recent move to a new factory in Sherburn gives us the capacity and modern assembly facilities necessary to capitalise on the additional sales our deeper partnership with Ashok Leyland will undoubtedly deliver." Vinod Dasari, managing director at Ashok Leyland said: "We see this as an important element in realising our vision of being among the top five bus manufacturers globally. Through leveraging the synergies of the two companies, we are confident that going forward we will be able to accelerate technology sharing, develop future-ready products and increase our global footprint to fast-track our growth in volumes." Ashok Leyland is the flagship of the Hinduja Group and a leading Indian commercial vehicle manufacturing company based in Chennai. It makes around 94,000 vehicles and about 17,000 engines a year. Optare is Britain's leading maker of advanced low-floor integral buses and employs around 500 people across the group, principally at its new assembly facility in Sherburn in Elmet, Yorkshire.