Accountants Smith & Williamson’s Bristol-based corporate finance team and lawyers from the city office of Osborne Clarke have advised a family-owned transport firm operating across Yorkshire on its sale.
Hull-based East Yorkshire Motor Services (EYMS), which has carries more than 17m passengers a year and employs 700 people, has been sold to Go North East, part of the international transport organisation Go-Ahead Group. 
Smith & Williamson and Osborne Clarke worked with the Shipp family, who have owned EYMS for more than three decades, on the deal.
The Smith & Williamson team was led by Philip Moody and Matthew Pearson while Osborne Clarke was represented by corporate team partner Simon Spooner, who heads the firm’s international transport and automotive sector.
Smith & Williamson partner Matthew Pearson, pictured, said: “We have a long history of working with the Shipp family and were delighted to be able to structure a transaction that will see EYMS continue to thrive long into the future.”
EYMS owner and chairman Peter Shipp added: “After 56 years in the bus industry and 38 years with EYMS, selling the business that has been such a big part of my life was a major decision. 
“The combination of experience and sector knowledge that the Smith & Williamson team bought to the project was invaluable. They led the project from start to finish in a highly professional manner and were an absolute pleasure to work with.”
EYMS, which was established in 1926, runs more than 300 buses and coaches throughout Hull, the East Riding and the North Yorkshire Coast. The firm was the subject of the Channel 5 documentary On the Yorkshire Buses.
Go-Ahead is one of the UK’s leading public transport providers, generating a turnover of around £3.5bn from more than a billion bus and rail journeys each year.
