A GROWING number of companies are investigating sale and leaseback deals in a bid to release capital, one of the UK’s biggest leasing and fleet management companies has revealed.

Under such an arrangement, a company sells its vehicles to a leasing company for an agreed price and then leases them back.

Experts say it allows fleets to switch to a more tax-efficient method of funding while releasing capital for use elsewhere within the business.

Lloyds TSB autolease bosses say that in the first six months of this year the company has secured more than double the number of sale and leaseback deals than it did for the whole of 2005.

National sales manager Sandy Gibb said: ‘Businesses of all sizes, and from a diverse range of sectors, are taking advantage of our sale and leaseback option as they seek to release capital tied up in quickly-depreciating assets, which are difficult to manage and incur unpredictable costs.’