IN A cracking start to the new year, van leasing specialist Global Vans has merged XLCR Vehicle Management, which trades under the brand The Best Car Deals.
In March 2022 Global Vans acquired private equity backing from H2 Equity Partners, which has given the Bristol-based business the firepower to make the acquisition.
At the time director Andrew Hurst said the investment would provide an opportunity to de-risk and grow the business.
With XLCR having a specialism in the SME car market, this merger will certainly spread the company’s influence across the business sector.
Global Vans said that both businesses will retain the same management and individual brand identities. However, Lee Duerden and Shaun O’Neill – directors of XLCR Vehicle Management – will join the executive board of the Global Vans main board which is led by Andrew Hurst, CEO of Global Vans, along with co-director Jonathan Lewis.
Andrew Hurst said that it was a great tie up between two businesses that shared the vision to become “The UK’s best and most innovative tech enabled SME specialist broker for LCVs and cars, their electrification, insurance and ancillary products”.
The combined Global Vans/XLCR business will now have a headcount of 115 people and the ambition to write 10,000 deals a year.
We won't be the biggest in the overall broker market but we will be the best at what we do in the business sector.
Andrew added that XLCR had the greatest opportunity to grow as it would have access to the Global Vans database, “which is full of companies that want vans as well as cars – and we only do vans. And we can also learn from XLCR in terms of customer retention and new ideas.”
In March 2022 we watched in awe and admiration as Global Vans secured the private equity backing from H2 Equity, a leading PE firm with an exceptional track record. To be then asked to join them both on their journey, to build the biggest and best SME focused car and van leasing ‘super broker’ was an opportunity not to be missed. Together, along with our respective teams, we have the vision and ability to become a market leader in this highly specialist B2B space.
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Ralph Morton is the leading journalist in the leasing broker sector and editor of Broker News, the website which provides information and news for BVRLA-registered leasing brokers. He also writes extensively on the fleet and leasing market in both the UK and Europe.
