It is scheduled to open in a year’s time, coinciding with the company’s 20th year of trading in the UK.

“The new premises has a lot to do with our growth plans in the corporate sector,” Wheeler says.

“We have also invested in our fleet management systems. We wrote it into our contract hire systems for retail because fleet is a collection of lots of retail customers. This gives us an end-to-end view of all our customers.”

Risk fleet accounts for the majority of VWGL’s business, although Wheeler sees an opportunity to grow its fleet management offering.

However, this will not be conventional fleet management. “We operate an end-to-end spectrum that we can leverage for new opportunities in the industry,” says Wheeler, although he declines to provide details.

One possibility is for VWGL to draw on the products and services offered by other parts of its Financial Services operation, such as aftersales management and insurance – for premises as well as vehicles.

“Our insurance offering for premises as well as vehicles is unique,” says Wheeler.

“That is a future service that we will be able to offer, leveraging the whole business to be the greater sum of its parts.”

While new services will provide a boost, the biggest opportunity for growth is the larger corporate sector.

New recruits filling key roles in the field sales team are building capacity, while Wheeler recently appointed ex-Alphabet director Martin Ballard to head up the Group Leasing operation as corporate solutions director.

“Our Volkswagen Group vehicles are important to so many larger companies because of their user-choosers, that gives us a trading advantage,” Wheeler says.

“They all have some Volkswagen Group brands on their fleets.”

VWGL’s customer base is a mix of sole and multi-supply partners. In the case of multi-supply, which is prevalent among larger corporates, it isn’t necessarily the case that VWGL accounts for all the Volkswagen Group brands and another leasing company supplies the rest – it’s often a mix.

The company benchmarks its price against rivals but wins accounts by being within a tolerance level – it’s rarely the cheapest. Wheeler believes fleets pull a number of suppliers from the tender and, as long as the price is right, they will opt for the one that best fits their business needs.

“We benefited a lot from the recession,” he says.

“How? We took brave decisions; our partners needed continuity and trust, so we invested in the relationship.

“We can manufacture a deal in many ways using maintenance, vehicle price and accident management as levers. Buyers start by looking for the best price and end up looking for the best service.”