Leger Shearings chief: 'Agents can help us be number one'

How does Leger Shearings Group boss Liam Race describe the decision to purchase the Shearings coach touring brand in the middle of the worst crisis the travel industry has ever faced?

“A big gamble,” he reflects candidly.

In May 2020, Shearings went under after more than 100 years of trading when its then parent company, Specialist Leisure Group (SLG), entered administration in the teeth of the Covid-19 crisis.

The unexpected opportunity to “acquire the biggest brand in the coaching industry” was initially “a very difficult decision” for the management team admits Race, who was Leger’s commercial director at the time of the Shearings purchase in June 2020.

“It was very tough – cash flow management has been imperative throughout the pandemic with very little government support, which we were very aware of,” remembers Race. “But when we started to unpeel the opportunity, it became a really easy decision. We knew the power of the Shearings brand, and the passenger volumes were huge.”

Wind the clock forward a year, and Race heads up a new, expanded coach holidays specialist – Leger Shearings Group – having been promoted to chief executive in January, replacing Ian Henry, who is now the group’s executive chair.

The pandemic has obviously created many operational headaches for both the Shearings and Leger brands over the past year, but Race’s optimism about the company’s post-Covid expansion plans is infectious.

The company has already refurbished its HQ in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, and has launched a major recruitment drive. Race, meanwhile, stresses the vital role he believes agents will play to help Leger Shearings achieve its ambitious growth targets and become the “number one escorted coach touring company in Britain”.

THE FIRST YEAR

Race says the Shearings purchase created the opportunity to “transform” the business, with much of the work over the past year involving putting the “building blocks” in place to take advantage of pent-up demand as the UK emerges from the pandemic.

He’s quick to point out Leger and Shearings will continue to “operate very much independently” and target different types of holidaymakers, with Leger offering a more “premium” product with coaches seating up to 31 or 40 passengers and five-star accommodation, while Shearings remains a “value proposition” with up to 49 passengers on its coaches and three-star hotels. Shearings also has a wide portfolio of UK breaks, while Leger primarily offers European trips – including tours to battlefields on the continent.