After shocking the market by purchasing Custom Coach a little over a year ago, and reviving its fortunes as the Custom Bus Group, Scott Dunn has again shaken the industry by buying Denning.
Dunn, who entered the Australian bus industry by purchasing the Telford Group after years in the British bus business, scooped up the remanants of Custom from the liquidators in early 2018 and has transformed the venerable brand with new efficiencies and better practices.
The new of its move to acquire Denning will give the group. More economies of scale and make the overall group an even bogger player in the Australian coach and bus market.
Dunn will acquire Denning in its entirety by the end of September and if the turn around at Custom is any indication a major revival is on the cards for the Denning brand which was once a dominant player particularly in the coach market.
“Denning is a great Australian brand and I am proud to welcome them to our group,” Scott Dunn told Truck and Bus News.
“They have great people and a product built to last the Australian conditions and it will provide us with a support network into Queensland for all our products as well as a school bus that is second to none in the market,” said Dunn.
Dunn said that nothing will change in regard to customers trading with Denning and that manufacturing will continue to operate from the Denning Manufacturing premises at Acacia Ridge in Brisbane./
“Nothing will change, not even the phone numbers or mailing address, “ said Dunn.
“It will be business as usual for Denning Manufacturing except that from the acquisition date the company will be owned by a larger company and will become part of the Dunn Group, there will be no change for customers and suppliers,” he added.
“This is an exciting time for our business, and we will now have bus and coach models to meet every market segment in Australia,” he said.
“It will also give Denning will have access to better stronger funding the necessary support to deliver growth for the business.”
“We will replace our current school bus with the Denning school bus model using both the Denning chassis as well as European chassis,” Dunn said.
Custom is set to launch an all new city bus at the upcoming Melbourne Bus Expo and Maintenance conference on 1 and 2 October. The new bus will be the first all new Custom model to be launched in a decade
