The ownership roundabout at the British School of Motoring (BSM) was turning again yesterday as Abu-Haris Shafi and Nikolai Kesting led a management buyout of the driving school.

Mr Shafi, 47, and Mr Kesting, 34, paid a modest £10 million, a fraction of what Arques Industries, its German owners, paid last winter.

Mr Shafi and Mr Kesting met this year when they were parachuted in by Arques, which took over the business in February 2009 for £36 million from Aviva, the insurer. Mr Shafi, formerly managing director of Auto Windscreens, and Mr Kesting, previously general manager with Capresa, Arques’s Spanish subsidiary, were handed the driving seat and a minority stake at the time. Mr Kesting’s background is in corporate finance and Mr Shafi’s experience is mostly in general management.

In July BSM abandoned the Vauxhall Corsa and switched to the Fiat 500. The move was prompted by Vauxhall’s attempt to force the UK’s best-known driving school to pay for cars it previously had been given. According to BSM, about 70 per cent of drivers buy the model of car in which they learnt.

Arques said yesterday that it made sales of €11 million (£9.9 million) during the ten months of restructuring of BSM. Mr Shafi and Mr Kesting now say that they have set their sights on recruiting 3,000 instructors and opening more centres over the next two years.

While there have been no shortage of pupils during the recession, there has been a fall in the number of people taking BSM’s training course for instructors. Mr Shafi attributes the decline to the fact that driving instructors are self-employed and people have been apprehensive about entering a career where they work for themselves.

It has been an eventful year for Mr Shafi, in particular. In July it was reported that he had avoided a driving ban despite having 17 points on his licence. Twelve points normally brings an automatic ban, but Mr Shafi’s solicitor argued that such a restriction would put his job at risk and prevent him from taking his mother to her doctor. He was given a £750 fine.

With headquarters in Bristol, 94 centres and more than 3,000 driving instructors across the UK, BSM teaches about 130,000 learner drivers every year and has about 10 per cent of the UK driving school market. Founded nearly 100 years ago, it lays claim to having taught the Queen to drive.