AGM Statement

FirstGroup PLC
14 July 2005

Embargoed until 11:00am on Thursday 14 July 2005



                                 FirstGroup plc
        Extracts from presentations made to shareholders at the Group's
                   Annual General Meeting in Aberdeen today:


'The Group reported another year of excellent progress across all divisions. Our
strategy remains to increase shareholder value by continuing to grow our core
businesses and explore opportunities to develop in new markets. We are committed
to a progressive dividend policy supported by a share buy back programme.


I am delighted with our performance in North America where we have delivered a
sixth year of strong growth.  During the year we acquired Cardinal bus company
which operates over 2,000 yellow school buses in Canada and California. We now
operate over 20,000 yellow school buses in North America. In First Transit
dollar turnover increased by 15% and we were very pleased to win new contracts
to operate and manage transit systems in states such as Virginia, Massachusetts,
Ohio, Georgia, California, Pennsylvania and Texas.  First Services had a very
successful year almost doubling in size and profit. In August we made the
strategic acquisition of SKE Support Services which provides us with entry in to
the growing Federal market, one of North America's largest procurers of support
services.


In UK Bus we are seeing further growth in areas where we can work with Local
Authorities to implement bus priority and other traffic management measures. We
continue to focus on service quality and improving vehicle reliability and
during the year we made significant investment in our maintenance and
engineering functions.  We expect to see the full benefit of this increased
investment over the next few years and are encouraged to see that during the
year lost mileage was significantly reduced.


In Rail we had an excellent year with turnover exceeding £1 billion and
operating profit increased to £68 million.  These excellent results reflect the
strong operating performance and increased passenger volumes across all of our
train operating companies, as well as the start up of First ScotRail last year.
We commenced operation of this franchise in October and, despite adverse weather
conditions at the start of this year, the handover went smoothly. We are making
an enormous effort and investing to improve fleet reliability and performance.
Looking forward we have been shortlisted for four new enlarged rail franchises:
Greater Western, Integrated Kent, Thameslink/Great Northern and Docklands Light
Railway.  We have a highly experienced bid team and we are developing exciting
proposals for the future of these railways.



Overall trading in the first three months of the year is in line with our
expectations.


Contacts on 14 July 2005:


Moir Lockhead, Chief Executive                               01224 650102
Dean Finch, Finance Director                                 07788 178 942
Rachael Borthwick, Head of Corporate Communications          07771 945 432


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