ABERDEEN, Scotland FirstGroup PLC, parent company of Greyhound Lines, Greyhound Canada, First Student, and a passel of bus and rail operations in the United Kingdom, has had a prospectus approved covering the issuance of more than $330 million in bonds.

Money raised through sale of the bonds will be used to retire existing company debt and general corporate purposes, FirstGroup said in its prospectus.

The unsubordinated fixed-rate bonds, which total 200 million British pounds and carry an interest rate of 6.875 percent, will neither be sold nor available for purchase in the United States. The bonds will trade on the London Stock Exchange.

Although the prospectus says there have been no significant changes in the financial position of FirstGroup and its various business units since its March 31 financial statement, it nevertheless contains interesting tidbits. To wit:

Fuel costs at Greyhound Lines for the year ended March 31, 2010, are expected to equate to 12 percent of revenue.

Greyhound has steadily improved its on-time performance since FirstGroup bought the company as part of its purchase of Laidlaw International in October 2007.

Greyhounds on-time performance "now consistently tracks" above 82 percent on its regularly scheduled service.

BoltBus, the "premium" curbside service operated by Greyhound, has carried nearly 1.4 million customers since its launch in March of last year.

Consolidation of corporate services, including information technology, real estate and finance, as well as personnel cuts at company headquarters and outlying operations, has reduced total company headcount by roughly 30 percent, producing "significant cost savings for Greyhound."

In Manitoba ...

WINNIPEG Greyhound Canada will keep running -- at least for now - in Manitoba. Greyhound routes in the province won't shut down Oct. 2, as announced last month. (See Sept. 15 Bus & Motorcoach News.)

The province and the company reportedly are negotiating, after Greyhound said it needed a subsidy to keep the routes open. Officials in Manitoba have said they want Greyhound to reveal which bus routes are unprofitable before offering the company any subsidies.