Land Engineering, one of Scotland’s leading providers of landscaping, ground maintenance and civil engineering services, has appointed TOM Vehicle Rental in a £6 million deal.
TOM will provide and manage its commercial vehicle fleet of up to 200 vans and specialist vehicles for the next five years.
The deal involves TOM acquiring the existing Land Engineering fleet of 160 commercial vehicles and renting it back to the company, as well as renting a further 40 commercial vehicles, in line with seasonal demand.
With Land Engineering working on projects across Scotland, the new deal aims to deliver significant efficiencies.
Driver downtime will be minimised through servicing and running repairs carried out by TOM’s mobile technicians, major repairs will be done at its expanding depot network and replacement vehicles will be offered any time a vehicle needs to come off the road.
The core fleet of vehicles is exclusively Mercedes-Benz and new replacements are being supplied and maintained through TOM’s own dealerships at Ayr, Airdrie, Aberdeen and Nairn. Also included is specialist software which tracks vehicle utilisation and aims to deliver further efficiency savings.
Stuart Dillett, managing director of Land Engineering, said: “The use of a managed fleet in this way allows our operational costs to be reduced, largely through the flexibility it brings and the improvement in efficiency through customer focussed service and more efficient breakdown support.
“In essence, the release of our previous obligations around our fleet allows us to focus our investments on what touches our customers”.
Dillett confirmed that funds raised through the sale of the Land Engineering fleet have provided further working capital which the company has re-invested in new operational plant and machinery to support its next phase of growth.
James Rafferty, group sales and operational director at TOM Vehicle Rental, said: “We are confident that this deal will allow Land Engineering to focus on its core activities and growth, without the distraction or worry of maintaining and customising a fleet of vehicles.
“It also eliminates any residual value risk to the business on disposal and any worry about depreciating assets, as the vehicles move off balance sheet and become a fixed all-inclusive monthly cost.”
