The acquisition of Leaseplan by SG Fleet in 2021 was a significant event for the fleet management, leasing and salary packaging industry in Australia. In the middle of a global pandemic, the management team that has been promoting industry consolidation for several years, completed one transaction that almost doubles its size.
The announcement last year provided an insight into the size and product mix of both organisations, and the benefits that were expected from the transaction. It created a buzz across the industry as customers and suppliers waited for more details to understand the potential impacts.
In February 2022, SG Fleet released their first half results and Chief Executive Officer, Robbie Blau, provided commentary on the integration process so far.
“Overall, the customer transition has run very smoothly and the response from existing customers has been very positive,” Mr Blau commented.
“The performance of LeasePlan during the four-month period of ownership exceeded our initial expectations,” Mr Blau said. “Its integration is on track and already delivering early benefits. Looking ahead, the scale benefits of the acquisition and the best-of-breed approach we have adopted will generate further progress in terms of our competitive position, our procurement process, and our cost and efficiency drive,” he noted.
“We will continue to maintain the strong momentum in our businesses, and at the same time we are extracting the significant benefits from the LeasePlan acquisition. We are only at the early stages of fully leveraging our increased scale, starting with the improvement of our procurement processes to lower product and services cost and ultimately enhance our competitive position. It will also support our digitisation drive and help us achieve greater internal efficiencies and process improvements as we make progress with the reduction in the number of back-end systems, culminating in the full system integration in coming years,” Mr Blau said.
“The leverage we obtain from the LeasePlan acquisition is not limited to cost efficiencies alone. We have instantly gained access to additional products and expertise, allowing us to sell a wider product range to existing customers as well as to the new opportunities we are now targeting with our combined sales team. Looking further ahead, our ongoing innovation efforts and selective investments, including our recent one in eBike solutions provider Zoomo, will also help us build our capabilities in order to play a leading role in the new mobility environment.” he noted.
The presentation also provided an update on the total fleet size of SG Fleet as of 31st December 2021 (The numbers were not separated by country).
- Corporate Funded Fleet – 72,881
- Novated Funded Fleet – 52,107
- Lite Fleet** – 145,523
- Total – 270,511
** Lite Fleet can be described as non-funded customers where SG Fleet provides a number of fleet management services such as maintenance management, fuel cards, vehicle purchase and disposal, registration and tolls management.
