Red driven to safety

Feb 23 2010 by Evening Gazette

THE embattled Red Driving School group has been rescued out of administration in a move that safeguards around 400 jobs.

LVG, which owns Red Driving School and Red Instructor Training and has a base in Billingham, has been bought by private equity firm Kelso Place, which has previously backed the Smythson luxury stationery brand.

The deal secures the future of the Red brand and Kelso said it had no plans for redundancies.

Red Driving School is the third largest in the UK, while the group’s instructor training division is the biggest in Europe, with a network of 22 colleges.

Kelso said it made a “significant equity investment” in securing the deal - said to be worth several million pounds. The driving school group collapsed last week due to funding woes, although administrator MCR stressed at the time that accounts showed the business was “healthy and profitable”.

Philip Weston, a partner at Kelso, said it planned to grow LVG following the takeover.