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W ith more than 15,000 commercial vehicles on its books, mostly
Page 55
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grossing up to 3,5 tonnes, contract hire and fleet management specialist Masterlease makes use of open and closed buy-back agreements. Its choice of one over the other is driven by how much risk it believes the van or truck concerned poses when it comes to fetching a respectable second-hand price.
Buy-backs tend to come into play if the vehicle is specialised and only likely to appeal to a limited number of buyers, says light CV sales specialist Eddie Parker: I'm thinking of, say, a lightweight urban artic tractor unit designed for brewery fleet use." Masterlease also tends to seek the reassurance of buy-backs if it is dealing with a chassis/body combination it is not entirely familiar with: "something at the periphery of our experience,' Parker explains.
If a vehicle's specification means it will have a wide potential market then Masterlease will usually dispose of the vehicle itself using a mixture of auctions and franchised and non-franchised dealers.
In Parker's experience the buy-back figures offered by manufacturers veer towards the conservative, and act as a safety net for the operator more than anything else. This consideration, plus the specialised nature of the vehicles they apply to, means they cover less than 5% of Masterlease's annual purchases by volume. They might account for more were it not for Masterlease's proactive approach towards disposal. "We're happy to think outside the box," says Parker.
For example, if 150 Luton-bodied 3.5-tanners with similar specification come back from an operator at the same time, Masterlease might elect to strip the bodies off about a third of them and have dropside bodies fitted instead. The Lutons that remain will probably fetch better money because values will not be so depressed, and there's always a demand for a decent dropside.