History
Darwen rose from the ashes of East Lancashire Coachbuilders in August 2007, after they went into administration - Darwen saved them the next day. Darwen went about reorganising the business, making a number of redundancies and rebranding main bus side of the business as Darwen East Lancs, the repair arm as Darwen North West. The current East Lancs products at the time were continued by Darwen, with new brand names.
This was followed by the acquisition of Leyland Product Developments in November 2007, which was rebranded as Darwen LPD. Further progress came in February 2008, when the parent company Darwen Holdings floated on AIM.
In a further development, the Darwen Group owner Roy Stanley set up Jamesstan Investments, and on March 12, 2008 the Optare Group was purchased. In June 2008 the decision was made for Darwen to perform a reverse takeover on Optare under Jamesstan Investments. The Darwen name was dropped in favour of Optare's
The company has also announced its intention to develop integral buses, with a prototype due by June 2008. It intends to develop both hybrid and diesel versions, the hybrid in partnership with Enova.
On July 14, 2008 the company was renamed Optare UK Ltd as a part of the reverse takeover of Optare.
Read more about this topic: Darwen Group
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