Professional Driver Magazine March 2022

Take Me moves into Yorkshire and West Country with two takeovers

Take Me has added a second Yorkshire private hire firm to its growing portfolio of UK businesses.

Star Cars of Catterick is also the acquisitive company’s second UK takeover of 2022, following the takeover of Station Taxis of nearby Malton, as it builds a national network of taxi operators.

And in a separate move, Take Me has acquired Taunton operator A1 Ace Taxis, giving it an increased presence in the south-west.

Star Cars has been run by Veronica Boyle Rowlatt for the past 17 years, in which time it has built a fleet of around 40 cars and MPVs, running on an Autocab dispatch system.

She said it “felt right” to sell the business to Take Me. “It’s been my baby for 17 years, and we’ve built a great team. But we chose Take Me because of the people.” She is leaving the taxi industry to concentrate on her property business.

Take Me director John Gardiner said there was a good fit with the similar-sized Station Cars business, another 30-plus car operation. “Three or four companies are coming on board with us in Yorkshire,” he said.

Fellow Take Me director David Hunter said: “It is exciting times at Take Me as we keep expanding and adding brilliant local businesses to our network fleet. Together we can bring our skills and infrastructure from being a national brand but build on the local expertise of these amazing well established taxi operators.”

Taunton operator A1 Ace taxis has been run by Mike Davis for the past 14 years. He said: “It’s a good opportunity to buy into something at a national level, and work with other operators nationally, while keeping a good local service.”

Take Me has recently started to introduce unified branding across its diverse operations, using a logo based on the Take Me “speech bubble” but incorporating individual local business names.