Vintage Trains Community Benefit Society SHARE OFFER in a New British Mainline Railway Company
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Vintage Trains Community Benefit Society SHARE OFFER in a new British Mainline Railway Company Subscribe At www.VintageTrains.co.uk Vintage Trains Community Benefit Society Community Share Offer Contents The Share Offer .........................................4 Letter from the Chairman .........................7 What we’re going to do ..............................9 What we will use the money for ...............11 Projected Performance .............................12 About Us ...................................................21 Our Structure ...........................................22 The Board ................................................24 Shareholder Benefits ................................28 Community Benefits .................................30 FAQ ..........................................................32 www.VintageTrains.co.uk • 2 www.VintageTrains.co.uk • 3 Vintage Trains Community Benefit Society Community Share Offer The Share Offer: Opens: Friday 1st December 2017 Closing date: Thursday 31st May 2018 The board of directors of Vintage Trains CBS may choose to extend the period of the share offer by up to 6 months if they believe that by doing so they increase the chances of reaching the maximum target. Minimum target to be raised: £800,000 Optimum (and maximum) target to be raised: £3,000,000 Minimum share subscription per person: 500 x £1 shares Maximum share subscription per person: 100,000 x £1 shares Vintage Trains CBS All Members are entitled to one vote – regardless of how many shares they hold. Vintage Trains CBS (“the Society”) is a community benefit society registered in 2017 under the Co-operative and The trading subsidiary, Vintage Trains Limited, is expected Community Benefit Societies Act with the Financial to achieve a break-even position in the third year of Conduct Authority (registration number: 7668). operation (i.e. 2020) and move into positive net worth in 2023. We propose to offer Members non-compounding The Society is a community-owned social enterprise and interest from the next year, 2024, at 2%. Such interest by subscribing for shares issued by the Society in this share may be added to shareholder accounts or paid in offer you will become a Member of the Society. vouchers for the services provided by the Society and its subsidiary. The Society has exclusively charitable objects and a What is the Community Shares • Nothing in the documents is purposely incorrect, charitable asset lock, preventing Members from making a Members can also withdraw their shareholding, along with confusing or misleading. Societies are asked to sign a capital gain by selling or closing the business for a profit. any interest accrued subject to the approval of the board. Standard Mark? Code of Practice requiring them, among other things, Therefore, the Society will never be able to become We anticipate authorising share withdrawals after the to give the public a right of complaint to the privately owned and taken out of community ownership. business has moved into positive net worth. The Community Shares Standard Mark is awarded by Community Shares Unit. the Community Shares Unit to offers that meet national Vintage Trains Charitable Trust (charity registration standards of good practice. These standards ensure that: For more information about community shares, the Risk Statement number 1040904) will be the Parent of the Society, having Community Shares Standard Mark and the Community powers to appoint the majority of the Society board and Community shares are fully at risk! • The offer document and application form Shares Unit go to: have a majority vote on all matters. You could lose some or all of the money you subscribe. are easy to understand. www.communityshares.org.uk You have no right to compensation from the Financial What are Community Shares? Services Compensation Scheme, nor any right of • You are provided with all the facts you need to make complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. an informed decision. Community shares are withdrawable shares that cannot be sold, traded or transferred between Members, unlike Our business plan and rules are available on our website • The facts are supported by the business plan shares in a typical company. www.VintageTrains.co.uk/Shares for the Society. www.VintageTrains.co.uk • 4 www.VintageTrains.co.uk • 5 Community Share Offer The first initial public share offer in a new British main line railway company for over 100 years! We are recreating the time when it was a pleasure express steam trains for mile after mile. People from far to travel on a comfortable and fast train for a away already come to travel behind them and we have wonderful day out. Better still, not only is there a the expertise and the determination to run them in dining car, with excellent food and traditional everyday service. Pullman service, but the trains will be hauled by express steam locomotives. The neat part of this offer is that the money the public invests will allow us to expand. The increased profits We know we can do this because we already run express generated will all be ploughed back into the business. Those steam trains and we have a great team in place and a well who subscribe can expect to receive interest on their shares thought through financial plan. So, we will use money from from year 6 and we will provide a fund for them to withdraw the share issue to create a 21st-century British, publicly their money over time. This is additional to the benefits owned railway company, specifically to run express steam received as a shareholder. trains regularly on the main line as a leisure and tourist business. We will sustain British values. We will encourage people to visit great British institutions by actually travelling in one, We have a fleet of accomplished, reliable and powerful and to enjoy the experience, and by so doing to stimulate fully maintained and restored express steam locomotives. the local economy to everyone’s benefit. It is a bold proposal We have a train of comfortable carriages including to offer the public a share in preserving express steam trains luxury Pullman cars. With extra capital we shall offer to the for all to enjoy, rather than imprisoning them in museums. public more comfortable, fast, restaurant express trains to interesting places: to the seaside; through the superb scenery So, please subscribe to this offer and indulge in the of the Welsh Marches; to the Cotswolds, gliding past under pride of owning a part of a successful British main line a pennant of steam, whilst our patrons enjoy a delicious railway company that reinvests its profit as a reward for breakfast or a traditional Sunday Lunch. Let us take you to the community. York, or to Oxford, to North Wales or West Wales, so that whilst enjoying a champagne dinner on the return trip, you will luxuriate in the splendid scenery that only a train can give you the chance to appreciate. With this public share offer we invite you to own part of the magic of express steam train travel. We shall sustain local employment, encourage international tourism, and Michael Whitehouse keep alive in immaculate working condition our beautifully Chairman decorated steam greyhounds that effortlessly work Vintage Trains Community Benefit Society www.VintageTrains.co.uk • 7 Vintage Trains Community Benefit Society Community Share Offer What we’re going to do Our carriages will be branded in the famous ‘chocolate and cream’ We offer a unique proposition. We will livery used by both the Great Western be the only publicly owned main line Railway and British Railways railway company in Britain operating (Western Region). express steam trains. We will run Pullman, restaurant car and family event trains, initially from the City of Vintage Trains and our founders are world pioneers in Birmingham. We will also continue and increase promoting express steam trains and have been successful in doing so for over 50 years. We have our own express the popular Shakespeare Express summer steam steam locomotives, our own train of carriages, a skilled train from Birmingham to Stratford upon Avon. workshop and running depot at Tyseley and a tour promotion business, but we do not have our own licence We will work closely with West Midlands Trains, to operate on the national railway network, so we rely on the operator of the franchise services, which others to help us out. will provide connecting tickets from Midlands stations for all our trains. We now want to take control of our own destiny and run express steam trains ourselves. Alongside this we We will improve our train of carriages so they will maximise the amount of public benefit that we can continue to meet the standards required to run deliver from our activities, both nationally and around on the 21st-century national railway network. our depot at Tyseley in the City of Birmingham. We will improve our former Great Western We have applied for an operating licence, and to get this Railway depot at Tyseley in the City of we need to demonstrate that we have the people and Birmingham and offer public participation and systems in place to run a safe railway service – which we believe we do – and also that we have the financial activities outlined in our Community Plan. resources to run our trains sustainably, and this is where this share offer comes in. Subscribing via this offer will allow us to create a train operating company and to maintain our fleet of trading with British built equipment. We are planning to locomotives and coaches to national railway standards. do just that! Also, the City of Birmingham has embraced tourism in its strategic economic growth plans. Greater By doing this we will build an exciting future, and act Birmingham is experiencing a 15% increase in tourism decisively to protect Britain’s main line railway heritage per annum with 10.2 million trips to Shakespeare’s before the skills disappear forever. To support these core England and 4.5 million visitors to Birmingham’s activities we will run training courses, undertake route Christmas market each year.