Manheim remarketing subsidiary VRS is plotting large-scale growth with the introduction of new systems and products over the next 18 months.
“We’ve had the target of growing the business by 20% year-on-year but we’re now in the sixth year and have to look beyond that,” VRS boss Lewis Arthur told BusinessCar. “We’ve got product developments in the pipeline looking to give us significant growth beyond that. We’re looking for more than organic growth.”
Arthur wouldn’t be drawn on the nature of the developments, or the potential volume increase, but said they would appear in the “short- to medium-term”.
“I’d be very disappointed if we weren’t launching during ’09,” he said.
VRS is Manheim’s specialist remarketing arm that deals mainly in either problem models that won’t sell elsewhere or in large numbers of similar vehicles that would temporarily hit RVs if they all went through auction at the same time. VRS pushes the vehicles to its dealer and used car sales clients across the country to give the vehicles a geographical spread.
“We support residual values by working in a very discreet way,” said Arthur. “VRS is a premium channel to market, we are more expensive but we add greater value because of what we provide.”
The firm works with 21 brands in one form or another, including VW, Skoda and Mazda, and with eight of the top 10 leasing companies.
