THE UK’S largest leasing company has signed a massive remarketing deal for tens of thousands of vehicles worth more than £1 billion over the next five years.

Lex Vehicle Leasing’s contract with remarketing giant BCA will see the two companies joining forces to dispose of up to 50,000 ex-company vehicles every year.

In total, BCA will host up to 50 individual sales every month for Lex and will handle the de-fleet process, pre-sale appraisal and vehicle preparation.

Andy Hartley, head of vehicle pricing, procurement and remarketing at Lex, said: ‘As a result of this deal, Lex will remarket 50,000 vehicles per annum through physical auction with BCA for the next five years. BCA has all the facilities and services in place to handle this large volume of defleet vehicles swiftly and efficiently and, equally importantly, the buying power on the auction hall floor to deliver real results for Lex.

‘In addition, in partnership with BCA we have taken the opportunity to undertake a complete review of the entire remarketing process in order to challenge our current practices and to seek to identify areas of improvement.’

The Lex sales will offer up to 100 vehicles from a range of manufacturers covering all sectors such as prestige and executive models, saloons, hatchbacks, cabriolets, MPVs and 4x4s.

The vehicles will range in age from one to four years, with most being supplied with full maintenance histories.

BCA sales director Mark Hankey said: ‘This is a significant partnership that will see in excess of 50,000 highly desirable, prime ready-to-retail vehicles offered for sales at BCA nationwide. We are sure our buyers will be delighted with this opportunity to bid on such a superb selection of top-drawer vehicles.’

Last year, HSBC Vehicle Finance announced that it was outsourcing its contract hire fleet to Lex Vehicle Leasing in a £440 million deal.

It involves the sale of about 45,000 contract hire vehicles to Lex, which became Britain’s biggest leasing company with an estimated 168,000 vehicles, taking the crown from Lloyds TSB autolease.

HSBC Vehicle Finance is continuing to sell contract hire products that it has designed and it is deciding the leasing rate that will be offered on each vehicle. Lex took over everything related to back office operations, purchasing vehicles, predicting residual values, taking the RV risk, managing maintenance, handling driver queries and disposal.