Good morning, everyone. I'm delighted that you have joined us this morning as we have announced the recommended combination between National Express and Stagecoach. I will walk you through the combination highlights, both for our U.K. business as well as for the wider National Express Group. Tom Stables, who runs our National Express U.K. business, will talk you through the strategic rationale of the multitude of opportunities this combination yields in the U.K. Chris will then walk you through the attractive financial impact of the business, including the accelerated capacity for growth investment across the diversified portfolio. Finally, I'm really pleased to welcome Ray O'Toole as current Chairman of Stagecoach and former Chief Operating Officer of National Express until 2010. Ray has a unique perspective across both businesses and will take over from Sir John Armitt as Chairman of the combined group upon completion.
Moving to Slide 2, as I set out at our Capital Markets Day, a few weeks ago, we are very excited about our investment case and the long-term opportunity for the sector and public transport more generally. First, we benefit from long-term sustainable structural growth opportunities driven primarily from the necessary modal shift to public transport. We have favorable demographic trends, whether in Birmingham, the youngest city in Europe, with millennials more inclined to use public transport, or in Morocco with its rapidly growing cities, or in North America, where an aging population supports growth for our paratransit business. We have favorable socioeconomic trends with modal shifts into public transport, key to social mobility, connecting people with places of work, education, and healthcare. We have favorable sustainability trends, with public transport key to reducing global emissions.
Second, we have five compelling customer propositions to leverage this growth, which I will come on to again in a moment. Third, we believe we are the best-in-class operator, executing and delivering the services that our customers value and will pay for better than anyone else. Fourth, our balanced portfolio is a key differentiator for us, providing a diversification of growth opportunity across different geographies, markets, and forms of transport. Fifth, we're driving environmental leadership, an issue of vital importance to us all. Finally, we have a track record of delivering strong financial outcomes. We believe the combination with Stagecoach is fully aligned and consistent with this investment case. Moving to Slide 3 on our Evolved Strategy. We want to be the world's premier shared mobility operator, with services offering leading safety, reliability, and environmental standards that our customers trust and value.
Our vision is embedded in our purpose to lead the modal shift from cars to public transport. We will deliver this through our five compelling customer propositions. First, reinvigorating public transport, rebuilding confidence in the public transport system by offering high-quality operations that passengers want to use. Two, multimodal expansion, expanding the breadth of our product offering based on global know-how and local relationships. Third, operational transformation, driving growth by delivering transport solutions more efficiently than our competitors. Fourth, filling the transit gap, helping businesses and cities transition from the private car in places that are not well served by existing mass public transport. Fifth, consolidating and compounding fragmented markets to bring the benefits of scale and consistent service. These propositions are underpinned by our focused application of technology, which leads us onto the outputs of this strategy, superior outcomes for all our stakeholders.
What is exciting about the combination with Stagecoach is the applicability of each and every one of these strategic pillars, and in one step, our ability to deploy our combined capabilities across the wider U.K. platform. On Slide 4, let me walk you through how this combination accelerate our strategy, not just in the U.K., but also materially accelerating our strategy at the group level. Firstly, this is a highly synergistic combination with over GBP 45 million of cost synergies driving double-digit earnings accretion. Secondly, as Chris will outline, the combination accelerates our capital allocation flexibility, not only accelerating a reduction back to within our 1.5x-2x leverage target, but also giving us significant additional capacity for growth investments. Where primarily we will target ALSA and North America, where there is a rich pipeline of opportunity identified.
This, of course, all provides greater capacity for an attractive and growing dividend, which we are targeting to reinstate after completion of the combination. While this is a deal focused on the U.K., it is a real game changer for the other divisions and the group as a whole. Across our U.K. business, and I know Tom is very excited about this, our partnership with Stagecoach will bring significant benefits. We will build our scale and relevance, both influencing and benefiting from the positive change that we are seeing in an increasingly bus-friendly U.K. market. In one step, we will share in the benefits of Stagecoach's national U.K. footprint alongside our combined operational capabilities and well-aligned values.
This is no more the case than with our National Express Transport Solutions business, where we see a compelling opportunity to accelerate growth across the UK in the fragmented commuter, corporate shuttle, private hire, and ccessible transport segments. This is something we already do well globally across the group, but in the U.K., it has so far largely been limited to the West Midlands area. We now have the capacity to deliver these capabilities and access these attractive markets efficiently and effectively from a national U.K. Footprint. Finally, we are committed to leading environmental solutions at scale across the U.K. and are fully aligned with our city partners to do so. Zero-emissions vehicles are the future for our business and the cities, towns, and communities in which we serve, and we have the plans in place to accelerate the rollout.
All in all, this is a great combination for both National Express and Stagecoach shareholders. With that, let me pass on to Tom, who will talk further about the compelling strategic rationale for the combination. He will also walk you through our plans to integrate the two U.K. businesses smoothly and efficiently, and how we will ensure clear accountability to bring the best of both from these two very culturally aligned teams, whilst we maintain a disciplined focus on delivering our base business targets. For the rest of the group outside of the U.K., it is business as usual as we seek to deliver on the exciting plans I set out at the Capital Markets Day. Tom, over to you.
Thank you, Ignacio. This is an exciting time for public transport. This picture of a zero-emission electric bus is part of that future. A modern, clean, environmentally friendly bus, popular with customers and stakeholders, driving our growth and helping our cities thrive. I'm now going to spend a few minutes talking about the strategic rationale for the deal. Stagecoach is already a leading U.K. bus operator with about 7,900 vehicles serving more than 100 communities across the country. It has roughly a 26% market share outside London, and is the fourth-largest operator in the capital. Combining this with our scheduled coach network, the largest in the U.K., and our bus network in Birmingham, will further strengthen our U.K. transport offering. For me, there are six key reasons that make this acquisition so compelling.
One, it increases our scale and relevance in an increasingly bus-friendly market, accessing greater funding and reducing reliance on a single market. Two, it facilitates acceleration of our U.K. growth strategy. Three, it expands our reach across many of the U.K.'s large urban areas. Four, it enables implementation of real environmental and sustainability improvements at scale. Five, it delivers significant operational synergies, not least the flexibility with which I can operate our coach business across the U.K. Six, it brings together the best capabilities and talent of both organizations. The deal delivers compelling synergies, which Chris will talk more about in a second. The more exciting prospect is the growth it unlocks. The large depot network gives us the instant springboard to accelerate the growth of our Transport Solutions business and harness our combined capabilities to do so. I will talk to each of these reasons in more detail.
The combined group will have a diverse national platform. As a leading bus and coach operator in the country with a presence in the U.K.'s major urban areas and an established political approach, we will be in a strong position to benefit from the government's National Bus Strategy. The Prime Minister launched this great initiative at our Coventry depot, which will see GBP 3 billion of investment to make buses better. The policies adopted in the West Midlands are both popular politically, lower fares, greener buses, faster highways, and were bucking the national trend pre-COVID, delivering revenue and patronage growth. Our U.K. strategy is to grow our contract coach business, National Express Transport Solutions. This is a significant and very exciting market, and one we can win in, but it is fragmented.
NETS is already one of the largest players, and the combined footprint gives us operating depots the length and breadth of the country. Each depot can become a hub for our full range of services, including corporate shuttles, special education transport, private hire, holidays, and contract services. We believe being close to the client will improve sales, reduce our costs, and make us even more competitive, accelerating our growth. NETS is an established player in the south and southeast, and wins where we already have operational bases. The left-hand side of the page shows some recent successes with clients ranging from major retailers, leisure and events, through to government departments, to high-profile sporting events such as The Hundred cricket. We also know that we have missed out on some big national contracts recently, such as rail replacement, G7, and COP26, in part because of our geographically limited footprint.
With the national reach this combination will bring, we will enhance our position to win national contracts. Relationships with our city partners is fundamental to what we do. The National Bus Strategy will require commercial operators and local authorities to work closer together to release investment for zero-emission vehicles, bus priority, and cheaper fares. This is absolutely how we work already. Our bus alliance approach in the West Midlands has delivered tangible, popular, and proven results. Higher patronage, greener buses, and cheaper fares. It is no coincidence that the Prime Minister came to a National Express depot along with Andy Street to launch this strategy. We would like to deploy this model to additional regions with an approach fully aligned with our partners and allowing us to present a stronger voice to government. Customers and stakeholders want zero-emission vehicles. They are cheaper to run and maintain.
They are clean, and most importantly, customers are happier and will travel more, driving revenue growth. Our innovative availability model will enable us to roll out zero-emission vehicles at scale without committing capital upfront, and will bring the benefits of clean air to us all. Our combined National Infrastructure will enable us to refine how our coach services across the country are delivered, providing greater operational flexibility and efficiency. Having flexibility to run our coach network out of Stagecoach's large depot network will reduce unnecessary dead mileage, minimize double manning, and reduce spare vehicle requirements. This is a real efficiency saving to streamline our network. We will also deliver savings through a careful review of overheads and office locations. We have great talent across our businesses, which we will combine and deploy more widely. There are many examples, but I will highlight a few. Enhanced scheduling, optimization, and data analytics.
CitySwift is all of this, and an example of innovative use of technology. CitySwift optimizes bus networks to improve performance and reduce time costs through the use of advanced analytics and algorithms. Originally developed through our innovation center, deploying CitySwift has delivered a 45% reduction in late running and a 2% cost saving. That adds up. Environmental and safety leadership. DriveCam is one of the key safety systems used across all our fleets and has helped make National Express the safest operator in the U.K., as defined by Lytx and the British Safety Council, reducing accidents, injuries, and harm. This in turn has reduced our costs, repairs, absence, and insurance. We plan to introduce DriveCam across the Combined business and would expect the same positive impact. Enhanced technology and innovation. Here I can highlight a great example from Stagecoach, who have implemented significant technology programs across their network.
This includes, for example, the deployment of one of the biggest bus contactless infrastructures in the U.K. Across the piece, there is a lot of learning and experience for the combined teams to benefit from. Stepping back, this is of course predominantly a U.K. transaction. We have designed an approach that de-risks execution by maximizing the planning pre-close. We have the benefit of some time between now and closing, and we intend to make full use of it. The peak activity for the wider group resource is now, leveraging the integration and M&A experience we have across National Express Group. As we move through the planning, it will quickly become a U.K.-focused integration team, supported by expert external assistants to do much of the heavy lifting and working closely with the businesses to ensure delivery of the synergies most efficiently post-close.
This approach aims to ensure that this combination delivers its full potential, but also that it does not divert attention away from the other elements of the group strategy in North America and ALSA, and that the day-to-day business continues to be delivered. I'll now pass over to Chris for more detail on the financial impact.
Thanks, Tom. I will now fill in some of the financial details. Let's start with the basic dimensions of the transaction. This slide shows the pro forma shape and size of the proposed combination using the last pre-pandemic financial results. You can see that the Combined business would have generated GBP 4 billion in revenue and nearly GBP 400 million in EBIT, with gearing of just over 2x EBITDA. As Tom has pointed out, this scale would give us much more clout in an ever more bus-friendly U.K. market as the GBP 3 billion National Bus Strategy funding becomes available. This does not make us overweight U.K. You can see that the Combined business remains well-balanced and diversified, with the U.K. contributing broadly 45% of revenue.
With more of the future growth expected to come from North America and ALSA, this will likely settle back closer to 1/3 over the next 5 years. Let me now reiterate the basic transaction terms and key points. To remind you, Stagecoach shareholders will receive 0.36 new National Express shares in exchange for each of their shares, so they will own approximately 25% and National Express shareholders approximately 75% of the combined group. With no apologies for repetition, this is an unparalleled opportunity for value creation grounded in independently verified synergies of at least GBP 45 million per year. Now, that is a significant increase from our initial estimates, and as Tom said, there are revenue synergies to come on top of that.
Even without those revenue synergies, this equates to double-digit earnings accretion and double-digit returns in the first full- year. Critically, this transaction will generate additional capital capacity to invest in growth opportunities, primarily in ALSA and North America. With both lower pro forma gearing out of the box and double-digit earnings accretion from the synergies, we will have significant additional financial flexibility to accelerate investment in our growth pipeline. Now, in addition, it also accelerates our deleveraging and facilitates a return to paying a dividend as soon as possible. Let me now give you a little more color on those synergies. As I said, we have identified and have had independently validated pre-tax cost synergies that are expected to reach at least GBP 45 million annually.
Approximately 25% of that will be achieved by the end of the first year, 85% by the end of the second year, and a full run rate by the end of the third year. The sources of those synergies are as follows. Approximately 25% comes from network efficiencies and optimization, including our white coach operations utilizing Stagecoach's well-located depot network to enhance operational flexibility. Around 35% comes from shared operational best practice across the combined U.K. bus network, including rolling out industry-leading onboard safety systems to reduce collisions and insurance costs, enhanced scheduling, network, and route planning to improve efficiencies, and enhanced technology across the combined group to optimize the customer experience. Finally, approximately 40% comes from the rationalization of duplicate PLC costs, back-office IT processes, and combined procurement.
It's expected that these synergies will require one-off costs of up to GBP 40 million, split broadly equally across the first two years following completion. Now in addition, we are confident of realizing significant growth and revenue synergies that cannot be quantified for reporting under the Takeover Code. As Tom outlined, these include, for example, the regional expansion of private coach hire, corporate shuttle and accessible transport across the enhanced UK footprint. What does this all mean for the financial projections we gave at the recent Capital Markets Day? At the Capital Markets Day, I told you that we anticipate delivering revenue back to 2019 levels in 2022, and that we are targeting a further GBP 1 billion of revenue growth by 2027, and that this would deliver more than GBP 100 million of additional profit in 2027.
Following the completion of this combination, the compounding effect of reinvesting the synergies, coupled with lower pro forma gearing, creates at least half a billion pounds of additional investment firepower over that period to 2027. As I said at the CMD, we have a strong growth pipeline today with 1.5 billion of opportunities across the group. That means contracts coming up in the next 18 months on which we expect to bid, as well as acquisition opportunities in which we are in active discussion. Invested in opportunities such as those over the next five years, that additional firepower could boost revenue growth between 2022 and 2027 to at least one and a GBP 1.5 billion , and EBIT growth in that period to at least 200 million pounds. Now that really is compelling.
Let me finish with a few words on the transaction structure and expected timetable. The all share combination will be implemented by way of a court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement, details of which are contained in the Rule 2.7 announcement. The combination will be subject to a number of conditions and terms as set out in the Rule 2.7 announcement, including CMA approval and approval by both sets of shareholders. Now following Stagecoach's announcement of the disposal of their coach businesses, while we cannot rule out any remedial action being required to obtain CMA approval, we are hopeful of concluding the transaction as a Phase I process. Shareholder documentation for both Stagecoach, i.e. the scheme document, and National Express, our Class 1 circular and prospectus, will be published after CMA approval. Taking all of that into account, completion is expected around the end of 2022.
With that, I will now hand over to Ray.
Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'm very glad to be here with Ignacio, Chris and Tom following the announcement this morning of the recommended combination of National Express and Stagecoach. This is an exciting moment for both businesses as we seek to emerge strongly from COVID-19 pandemic. Having spent a good part of my career with both National Express and recently as Chairman of Stagecoach, I believe this is a very natural combination of two outstanding businesses and we have two teams who have a common purpose, culture and commitment to deliver high quality public transport for their customers and communities. This combination creates a strong platform for growth as one of the largest transport operators in the U.K. at a time where there are significant opportunities for the sector to support the government's sustainability objectives.
By building our scale in the U.K., we'll be in a position to fully embrace and support the public transport strategies of the local governments across the U.K., including the National Bus Strategy. We also remain committed to the scale of our ambitions to drive environmental leadership in the industry, starting in the U.K., but extending across the wider business. The combination also provides an opportunity to be a real strategic accelerator for the combined group, not just in the U.K., but across the combined group's international portfolio. With a strong balance sheet and enhanced cash flow potential, giving significant additional capacity for growth investment at a time when cities across the world are increasingly focused on modal shift.
The synergies of this combination are also significant, which, as Chris said, are at least GBP 45 million of cost synergies alone, delivering attractive value creation for both sets of shareholders. We believe the combined business will have a well-balanced board and senior management team, drawing on all the experience of the two companies, and in Ignacio, the strong leadership, vision, and capabilities to drive the business forward.
I am very excited to be joining as the proposed chairman of the combined group, and I have absolute confidence in its ability to deliver attractive growth, margins and cash flow potential. With that, strong sustainable returns for shareholders and a positive future for the employees of the combined business. I look forward to the transaction completing, which is expected around the end of 2022. With that, let me pass you back to Ignacio for the Q&A. Thank you.