Inchcape Fleet Solutions (IFS), which sits at number 15 in the FN50 with over 31,000 vehicles on its books, has reported a multi-million pound trading loss in 2008.

It blamed the £5.7 million like-for-like loss on the massive drop in used car values that has devastated the profits of several lease companies.

Inchcape said it lost £8.5 million in residual values last year, which it said is “due to the fall in used car pricing, resulting in lower than expected realisable values on leased vehicles which will be returned over the next two to three years”.

IFS, which is owned by the multi-marque international dealer group Inchcape Plc, provides fleet management and leasing services to corporate and government customers and, according to the FN50 has a combined fleet size of 31,748 vehicles.

It has grown its fleet by 10% over the past 24 months and indicated that it will continue to grow the fleet services side of its business.

Last year, the parent company reduced its staff numbers across the globe and shut several retail outlets.

However, while IFS headcount was reduced the vast majority of these redundancies were in the retail business.

The £8.5 million residual hit suffered by the company in 2008 takes into account the predicted losses that the lease arm may suffer over the next two years as the cars it has on fleet now are sold on.