Vehicle lease firm wins £2.5m treble

From the Telegraph & Argus, first published Thursday 3rd Mar 2005.

A Calverley vehicle leasing company has clinched multi-million-pound deals with three new clients.

Zenith Vehicle Contracts, one of the UK's largest independent leasing organisations, has won three years' business worth £2.5 million with a legal firm, a hospital supplier and a courier.

It has taken on the 70-vehicle contract hire and contract purchase fleet of Rowley-Ashworth, the Birmingham-based personal injury and employment law firm.

Sales manager Michael Routledge said the legal firm had chosen Zenith because it needed a sensitive approach to choosing and operating its fleet to reflect the serious nature of its business to clients and trade unions.

"The quality of our response to what they were asking was important," said Mr Routledge. "We really worked hard to understand who they were, what they were looking for and the type of organisation they were dealing with."

Zenith has also secured the contract hire fleet of secure courier firm Nightspeed and will also create an on-line management system covering quotes and ordering for the Birmingham firm. The 50-strong fleet consists of VW and Citroen vehicles.

The third win for the company involves Zenith setting up and managing a 50-vehicle scheme for Actamed, a medical equipment supplier in Wakefield. This is a tax-efficient employee car ownership scheme, an area in which Zenith now specialises.

Andrew Cope, Zenith's chief executive, said: "The service we provide for each of these three new clients is different but based on the same principle of asking the customers exactly what they want and then delivering it with a minimum of fuss." Zenith, formed in 1989, currently manages a fleet of 15,000 vehicles. Its clients include blue-chip companies such as Atkins plc, Persimmon Homes, DuPont (UK) Ltd and Asda.

Last summer the company reported profits surging ahead by 56 per cent to 2.42 million following a management buy-out in December 2003. In the year to last June, Zenith's turnover grew by 31 per cent to £41.7 million.

The firm reaped rich publicity after rewarding its staff with skiing holidays.

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