Former Glass’s UK managing director Ed Hummel is joining Essential Fleet, a fledgling leasing firm created from the acquisition of Kier Group’s Fleet and Passenger Services business by venture capitalist funder Endless this summer.
Hummel, who was fleet boss at Honda and national sales manager for VW before moving to Glass’s, starts with Essential Fleet on 2 November. He joins a management structure led by executive chairman Andrew Cope, who built up leasing firm Zenith prior to its sale nearly two years ago, and chief executive Ray O’Toole, who was appointed in July by Endless to lead the £17.9m buyout, having previously headed National Express.
The key business focus is leasing and fleet management of specialist vehicles such as bin lorries and gritters, which means the public sector is the core of its operation, although Hummel revealed that expansion is a priority, with a target being to grow the current business’s £43m turnover to £100m.
Hummel also said that Lincoln-based Essential Fleet will look to work with larger lease companies on a white-label basis, specifically where a larger fleet deal has a requirement for a small number of heavy vehicles.
“We are involved in specialist vehicles other leasing companies don’t have the expertise to deal with,” he said. “If they want to work with us and identify the need for specialist equipment then we could enter into a partnership.”
In total, the firm currently has 90 cars, 1450 LCVs and 2900 heavy vehicles on risk, and more than 500 further vehicles fleet-managed.
Hummel admitted that Essential Fleet is looking for acquisitional growth, as well as expanding the current customer base.
Essential Fleet claims a 27% share of the specialist vehicles leasing market, and has a five-year agreement to provide everything outside of cars to previous owner Kier Group, which disposed of what was then branded its FPS division as it wasn’t core to the firm’s business and had been acquired as part of the 2013 purchase of May Gurney. Prior to that, the leasing and fleet management arm operated as Translinc.
Glass’s parent firm Eurotaxglass’s has appointed a new UK MD in the wake of Hummel’s departure after just over a year in the role, with Nick del Rio being appointed group MD for Western Europe. He moves from business intelligence specialist Informa, where he was director of the business information division, and will be based in the UK.
