Tide (transportation company) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Tide ASA is a public transport company in Hordaland

Hordaland

is a county in Norway, bordering Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Telemark and Rogaland. Hordaland is the third largest county after Akershus and Oslo by population. The county administration is located in Bergen...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

which resulted from the merger

Mergers and acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling, dividing and combining of different companies and similar entities that can help an enterprise grow rapidly in its sector or location of origin, or a new field or...

of Gaia Trafikk

Gaia Trafikk

Gaia Trafikk was the largest public transportation provider in Bergen and Os, Norway until it merged with HSD forming Tide.Gaia was formed by the 1998 merger of Pan Trafikk, the bus company serving northern and southern Bergen, and Bergen Sporvei, the company serving Bergen's inner city...

and Hardanger Sunnhordlandske Dampskipsselskap

Hardanger Sunnhordlandske Dampskipsselskap

Hardanger Sunnhordlandske Dampskipsselskap , founded in 1880, was one of Norway's largest privately held public transportation providers. Its bus operation HSD Buss AS was founded in 1999, and serviced 15 million passengers annually in large parts of western Norway, predominantly in Hordaland...

(HSD). The company provides the public transit

Public transport

Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...

network in the city of Bergen

Bergen

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....

, and most of the bus service in Hordaland

Hordaland

. The company also operates the passenger- and car ferry routes previously operated by HSD and Stavangerske

Stavangerske

Stavangerske is a defunct Norwegian ferry operator based in Stavanger. A subsidiary of Det Stavangerske Dampskibsselskap , it operates car- and passenger ferries primarily in Rogaland county. The company's ferries with less than 100 seats are operated by Fjordservice...

.

The group has three daughter companies, Tide Buss AS that operates the scheduled busses, Tide Sjø AS
Tide Sjø
Tide Sjø AS is a Norwegian shipping company owned Tide responsible for the groups ferry transport. Tide operates automobile ferries and fast ferries in Rogaland, Hordaland, Sunnmøre and Trondheimfjord on contract with the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, Kolumbus and Skyss...

that operates ferries and fast passenger craft throughout western Norway and the leiseure travel company Tide Reiser AS that also operates express, airport and charter buses and chartered ferries and fast passenger craft. The largest owners are Det Stavangerske Dampskibsselskap

Det Stavangerske Dampskibsselskap

Det Stavangerske Dampskibsselskap ASA is a private Norwegian shipping company that operates internationally through the subsidiary DSD Shipping AS 13 vessels. The group also owns major parts of Tide and Nor Lines. DSD dates back to 1855 when it was founded. Head offices are located in Stavanger.In...

(75%) and Sparebanken Vest (10%). The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange

Oslo Stock Exchange

The Oslo Stock Exchange serves as the main market for trading in the shares of Norwegian companies. It opens at 9:00am and closes 5:30pm local time...

with head offices in Bergen

Bergen

Assets

At the time of the merger, Tide had a total of

1040 bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

es
30 car ferries
10 boats

The company has about 3000 employees. The total value of the company was estimated at NOK

Norwegian krone

The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...

800 million. The company has 39 million passengers per year, of which 25 million are in Bergen. The company operates the only trolleybus

Trolleybus

A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from overhead wires using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires and poles are required to complete the electrical circuit...

service in Norway

Norway

, Line 2 in Bergen, with eight trolleybuses. Another trolleybus service in Scandinavia runs in Landskrona

Landskrona

Landskrona is a locality and the seat of Landskrona Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 28,670 inhabitants in 2005.-History:The city of Landskrona was founded at the location of Scania's best natural harbour, as a means of King Eric of Pomerania's anti-Hanseatic policy, intended to compete...

, Sweden.

The merger process

Plans for mergers and takeovers in Hordaland's public transport business came forth in September 2005 when Connex

Veolia Transport Norway

Veolia Transport Norway is the Norwegian subsidiary of Veolia Transport, part of Veolia Corporation and operates through its subsidiaries buses, ferries and trams in the counties of Akershus, Finnmark, Nordland, Rogaland and Sør-Trøndelag, primarily through the purchase of former monopolists. The...

reported interest in purchasing Gaia. On November 8 Gaia and HSD suggested a merger between the two companies instead, but the city cabinet leader of Bergen, Monica Mæland

Monica Mæland

Monica Mæland is a Norwegian politician for the Conservative Party and has since 27 October 2003 been the Chief Commissioner of the City of Bergen.- Background :...

and the mayor of Os

Os, Hordaland

Os is a municipality in the county of Hordaland, Norway. Due to its proximity to Bergen, Os is experiencing strong population growth. -History:...

opposed the idea. The employess of both companies openly supported the idea in June 2006. Two other companies, Arriva

Arriva

Arriva plc is a multinational public transport company owned by Deutsche Bahn and headquartered in Sunderland, United Kingdom. It has bus, coach, train, tram and waterbus operations in 12 countries across Europe, employs more than 47,500 people and services over 1.5 billion passenger journeys each...

and Nettbuss

Nettbuss

Nettbuss AS is the largest bus company in Norway owned by the Norwegian State Railways . It was until 2000 known as NSB Biltrafikk. The company has 14 operating subsidiaries throughout Norway and in Denmark and Sweden....

, a subsidiary the Norwegian State Railways also showed interest in a takeover.

As majority shareholder in Gaia, the city council in Bergen decided to vote in favour of the HSD-Gaia merger on June 19, 2006. The name "Tide" was presented on June 27. Just a day before the Extraordinary General Meeting

Extraordinary General Meeting

An extraordinary general meeting, commonly abbreviated as EGM, is a meeting of members of an organisation, shareholders of a company, or employees of an official body, which occurs at an irregular time. The term is usually used where the group would ordinarily hold an annual general meeting , but...

s in both companies, Arriva

Arriva

submitted an indicative bid of NOK 380-400 million and the representative of Bergen's cabinet, Henning Warloe

Henning Warloe

Henning Warloe is a Norwegian businessman, magician, and politician for the Conservative Party of Norway .He was elected to the Norwegian Parliament from Hordaland in 2009....

, voted against the merger at Gaia's general meeting on June 29. As this was against the city council's resolution a motion of no confidence

Motion of no confidence

A motion of no confidence is a parliamentary motion whose passing would demonstrate to the head of state that the elected parliament no longer has confidence in the appointed government.-Overview:Typically, when a parliament passes a vote of no...

was proposed. This motion failed on November 20, 2006 A new general meeting was called for Gaia and on July 17, the merger was approved in that company as well. The Norwegian Competition Authority

Norwegian Competition Authority

Norwegian Competition Authority is Norwegian Government agency responsible for managing the Competition Act of 2004, including regulations imposed through the European Economic Community. This includes regulating cooperation that hinders competition, misuse of a dominant market position and...

approved the merger on October 25.

Initially, the buses in the new company retained their old colors, yellow for Gaia, red and white for HSD, with only the logo being changed. New buses will have a white livery.

The value of both the new brand name "Tide", as well as the new logo have been subject to some debate. "Gaia" and "HSD" were both well-established trademarks, and two experts on trademarks stated that the replacement name and logo were too anonymous. Tide itself have argued that the name is positive ("i tide" means "on time" in Norwegian), and that the logo represents both the land and sea based transportation. Another criticism of the logo is that it resembles the word "shit" when viewed in a mirror.

On May 2, 2007 the boards of Tide and Det Stavangerske Dampskibsselskap

Det Stavangerske Dampskibsselskap

(DSD) approved Tide's acquisition of Stavangerske

Stavangerske

AS, the ferry operating subsidiary of DSD. Jun 26, 2007 the Annual General Meeting of Tide approved the acquisition. At the same time there was an equity issue in the company aimed at new owners which successfully raised approx. MNOK 300. Effective from Jan 1, 2008 Stavangerske AS was merged with Tide Sjø AS. The new company will retain the Tide brand. Prior to this Stavangerske and HSD had won several tenders throughout Norway through their 50/50 joint venture

Joint venture

A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...

Norferger.

External links

Official webpage

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