(LCC) to inject £5 million into the UERL and used some of his own bank's money to pay-off disgruntled shareholders threatening bankruptcy proceedings. Eventually, Speyer and Gibb managed to obtain agreement from the shareholders to convert the notes into long-term debt to be repaid in 1933 and 1948. Consolidation As Speyer and Gibb worked to restructure the debt, the UERL's general manager, Albert Stanley, appointed by Gibb in 1907, began to increase the UERL's income by improving management structures. With commercial manager Frank Pick, Stanley instigated a plan to increase passenger numbers; developing the "Underground" brand and establishing a joint booking system and coordinated fares throughout all of London's underground railways, including those not controlled by the UERL. In 1909, the UERL overcame the objections of previously reluctant American investors, and announced a parliamentary bill for the formal merger of the Bakerloo, Hampstead and Piccadilly Tube lines into a single company, the London Electric Railway Company (LER). This bill received royal assent and was enacted on 26 July 1910 as the London Electric Railway Amalgamation Act 1910. The DR was not merged with the tube lines and remained a separate company. As managing director of the UERL from 1910, Stanley led further transport consolidation with the UERL's take-over of London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) in 1912 and the CLR and the C&SLR on 1 January 1913. The LGOC was the dominant bus operator in the capital and its high profitability (it paid dividends of 18 per cent compared with Underground Group companies' dividends of 1 to 3 per cent) subsidised the rest of the group. Through the UERL's shareholding in the London and Suburban Traction Company (LSTC), which it owned jointly with British Electric Traction, the UERL took control in 1913 of the London United Tramways, the Metropolitan Electric Tramways and the South Metropolitan Electric Tramways. The UERL also took control of bus builder AEC. The much enlarged group became known as the Combine. Only the MR (and its subsidiaries the Great Northern & City Railway and the East London Railway) and the W&CR (by then fully owned by the London and South Western Railway) remained outside of the Underground Group's control. Extensions and improvements Another way in which the UERL tried to improve income was the construction of extensions to its lines to generate additional passenger traffic, often through the stimulation of new housing developments in the areas through