Vehicle management company ARVAL PHH has won a pan-European fleet contract to supply about 500 vehicles across Europe for agricultural equipment specialist AGCO.

ARVAL PHH will supply the cars across nine major European countries on contract hire with maintenance management.

The deal includes a total of 280 cars in the UK.

AGCO's European facilities manager Colin Davies, based at the company's UK offices in Coventry, said: 'We were looking for a partner that could provide a fully pan-European solution as well as offering the high levels of service we required.

'ARVAL PHH's service offering also includes the collection and analysis of information from across our European operations.'

Davies added that ARVAL's InterActive e-commerce system was one of the 'deciding factors' why the company chose the leasing company as its supplier.

ARVAL says the system offers customers features such as online vehicle quotation and 'an approach where our consultants analyse fleet trends, monitor and manage incidents and proactively identify opportunities to reduce your costs'.

'It provides us with management information vital for managing our fleet. InterActive was much more advanced than the other fleet management software we examined,' Davies claimed.

ARVAL PHH's director of fleet, Barry Chaplin said: 'The thinking behind the merger of Arval and PHH was to create a fully pan-European fleet provider.

'As boundaries fall and competition opens up, more and more businesses will seek to work across Europe.'