School Bus Transportation News at STN Media

Student Transportation Closes Equity Offerings

"All Aboard" for SNCF-P French National Railway Subsidiary, Caisse de depot and others in $60 million common share offerings completed

TORONTO (April 29, 2008) — Student Transportation of America, Ltd. (STA), (TSX: STB), one of North America's fastest growing school transportation providers, today finalized and closed several private placement offerings announced last week. One new investor has "boarded the bus" and STA's two largest shareholders "continue to join the ride" in agreements to purchase common shares valued at approximately C$60 million.

In one of its first investments in the North American transportation market, SNCF Participations (SNCF-P), a subsidiary of Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (SNCF), the French National Railway, purchased $40 million of the common shares of STA.

An additional $10 million of common shares was purchased by Caisse de dép™t et placement du Québec (Caisse), one of Canada's largest pension funds and currently STA's largest shareholder and just under $10 million of common shares was purchased today by several of STA's existing shareholders.

The proceeds have been used to lower the company's debt giving STA leverage to fund future growth opportunities, including acquisitions, new contract bids and conversions of publicly-operated school bus fleets.

"We have had just over a 20 percent revenue growth rate for the last seven years and we continue to see tremendous opportunities for us in the years ahead, " said STA Chairman and CEO Denis Gallagher. "Large investors like these appreciate our ability to weather various business cycles and see the long term consistency in our operations and annualized results. Having support from major institutional investors in today's tough equity and credit market goes a long way toward helping us overcome identity issues we have with individual retail brokers and investors whom we hope will be drawn to our stable, contracted revenues and very attractive dividend."

"We are delighted to have SNCF-P make this substantial investment in STA and are excited to have Jean-Pierre Farandou join our board, " Gallagher said. "We have great respect for the business that SNCF has built around the world in transportation and believe they will bring valuable and strategic experience to the Board. We also are very pleased that the Caisse and other large existing shareholders continue to demonstrate their confidence in STA by increasing their investments. The Caisse first invested in STA when we were a private company and again in 2004 as part of our initial public offering."

In addition to the new equity raised, STA previously announced that its credit facilities had been expanded as well to help leverage its growth. CIBC, GE Capital and Scotia Bank all participate in the BMO Capital Markets-led credit facility syndicate that supports the company.

"Our investors and bankers recognize the attractiveness of our business model and the recession-resistant nature of school bus operations. Kids have to go to school and we continue to target acquisitions, bid on new contracts and identify opportunities to bring efficiencies to school districts that operate their own fleets in this $15 billion dollar North American industry," said Gallagher.

SNCF-P CEO Dominique Thillaud said, "As an industrial shareholder, we are glad to be associated with the development of STA. We appreciate the efficient, profitable and durable growth model, and see STA as a strong company operating in the school bus transportation sector."

Earlier this year, STA completed its 31st acquisition since its inception in 1997. The purchase of Canadex Resources Limited, one of the largest school bus operators in Ontario, increased STA's Canadian revenues by 67 percent annually.

"We continue to find ways to enhance our operations and see this additional capital as an opportunity to improve our balance sheet and take advantage of situations that may become available to us in a down economy," Gallagher added.

Common shares of STA Ltd. (STB:TSX) pay an annual cash dividend of $0.56 per common share.