Following recent press reports that Leasedrive VELO, the fleet
management and leasing business owned by private equity house
Lyceum Capital, is to be sold in the near future, Roddy Graham,
commercial director of Leasedrive VELO told Motor Finance
that he could neither confirm nor deny the rumours: “There is
nothing to report about a possible sale of Leasedrive VELO at this
time.”
Graham continued: “We had an excellent 2007 with the successful
merging of the two businesses [Leasedrive and VELO officially
merged on January 2 2007].”
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Accounts about to be published will show Leasedrive VELO
achieved earnings before interest, tax and amortisation of £5m on
turnover of £58m in 2007, he stated.
“With 2007’s success and the positive outlook for the business
in 2008, it is hardly surprising that we have had a number of
unsolicited approaches from interested potential buyers,” Graham
added.
The main focus of the Leasedrive VELO management in 2007
was to make a success of the merger of the two businesses, and
Graham pronounced himself “extremely pleased” with progress towards
this goal. “We even managed to add new clients over the course of
last year,” he said. Leasedrive VELO’s fleet management and rental
management businesses were also continuing to do “very, very
well”.
New Lyceum fund
The trigger for the sale speculation was the launch of a new £255m
investment fund by Lyceum for UK-based service companies. Graham
said the fund might even be used to help Leasedrive VELO grow:
“With Lyceum’s new funding available for expansion opportunities,
Leasedrive VELO and Lyceum will be looking closely at expansion
through further acquisition.”
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By GlobalDataGraham further professed himself mostly unworried about the
implications of the credit crunch on business levels. “We have not
experienced any problems yet and we are bullish about our prospects
in the coming year,” he commented. Further development and
integration of Leasedrive VELO’s fleet management and rental
management businesses in coming months is also on the cards, Graham
revealed. He concluded: “We’ve had a very good start to ’08.”
