Drivalia building on first year success with multi-channel approach

Drivalia is expecting to almost double its UK risk fleet in its second year, with the corporate sector a key target for growth.

From what was essentially a standing start, Drivalia went live in the UK in 2023, and made its first appearance in the FN50 last year.

It was ranked as the 28th biggest vehicle leasing company in the UK, based on its risk fleet of 5,550 cars and vans.

“We imagined making the top 25 of the FN50 in five years – we might just do it in three-and-a-half,” said Duncan Green (pictured), commercial operations director at Drivalia UK.

Success in its first year was driven by indirect business through its broker channel.

Drivalia, which is owned by French bank Crédit Agricole, works with 27 brokers, which were responsible for £90 million of its lending in 2024.

Funding through all channels for Drivalia totalled £185m in the UK last year.

With 450-plus brokers operating in the UK market, Green explains that choosing to work with just a few select providers was a “deliberate” move.

“They’re really great partners,” he said. “They’ve been somewhat instrumental in helping us with our own architecture, so rather than simply supply, they’ve been collaborative, and I think that’s helped enormously.”

However, he stresses that, while the broker channel has helped drive the business, Drivalia is very much taking a multi-channel approach. “Nobody wants a single source to market, it’s just simply too risky, so we've opened other channels,” he explained.

OEM has done particular well for Drivalia, during its first year operating in the UK, as have direct contract hire relationships with Tesla, Lotus and KGM.

“I want really deliberate growth, a really sensible cadence that sees the business walk with confidence at the right pace,” Duncan Green, Drivalia

Crédit Agricole already had a retail business supplying into the fleet dealers on a Black Horse-style basis. “That gave us access to a number of resources that got us off the ground that much quicker,” said Green.

“Our first year was centred around evolving the IT suite, evolving the processes of the staff, just to get us ready for our first full year of trading in 2024.

“Those first seven, eight months were the ‘forming, storming and norming piece’.”

By 2024, as Green puts it, Drivalia was “leaning into the market in a much more positive way”, with volumes growing.

In fact, having only been active in the UK market for a matter of months, Green says that the vehicle leasing company was described as a “disruptor” – a much larger leasing firm had noticed it winning business that they might have otherwise won.

“In terms of a litmus test for how well you’re doing, when one of your peer groups says that it’s incredibly flattering,” he told Fleet News.

Green is incredibly proud of how the leasing company has performed since entering the UK market. “We were profitable from year one and have stayed profitable ever since,” he said. “And, for a startup, I think that’s pretty unusual.”

Targeting growth in the corporate sector

It is now targeting growth in the corporate sector, with end-user fleets. “We knew that we weren’t going to be ready for SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) and corporate, and that more traditional lease environment (in year one),” Green explained.

“We needed to evolve a system that could cope with the lease environment on a B2B (business-to-business) basis, so we launched that at the beginning of this year, having spent the last half of last year, developing the digital proposition as well as the colleague proposition and resource, ready to go to market.”

He does not expect fleet deals running into the thousands of vehicles with so-called mega fleets just yet, but says it is already gaining traction with SMEs.

“We’ve got some nice relationships already that are blossoming, that are producing some nice, modest, collaborative business with SMEs,” said Green. “That’s enabled us to improve our purchasing proposition, because we’re starting to get that scale, so tyre and maintenance become a much better conversation.”

Developing capability in this sector is a core focus for the business this year, but he acknowledges that “nothing’s going to catch indirect (business) for a while”.

He explained: “It’s a very big volume to catch up with in an SME and corporate environment that’s naturally a slower rate of return, but it’s a much more robust one.

“You’re talking about renewal business and retaining contracts year-on-year-on-year, and that loyalty is very appealing, as it is for everybody.”

Green says that in terms of overall risk fleet growth, it has not set any specific end-of-year targets. But he told Fleet News he expects the risk fleet to break 10,000 units this year, reaching around 10,500 cars and vans.

“I think that’s an appropriate level of growth,” he said. “If we try and turn 20,000 (units) our book will exceed our capability and that’s simply not viable.

“I think 10,500 by the end of the year is where I’d expect to be, and it is quicker than I think we first imagined.”

Drivalia’s UK risk fleet of cars and vans ended 2024 at 5,962 units, with a further 1,685 risk vehicles on operating lease at its sister Short Term Hire business giving an overall total of 7,647. 

Year-to-date, Drivalia’s UK risk fleet has grown to 6,773, cars and vans, with the operating lease figure at its sister company static year-on-year, giving an overall figure of 8,458 units.

Cars are responsible for around 90% of Drivalia’s risk fleet, with vans accounting for the remaining 10%.

Van volumes are expected to grow, having developed closer relationships with operators in the sector. But Green says this will “evolve slowly”, with its principle focus remaining cars.

He told Fleet News: “I want really deliberate growth, a really sensible cadence that sees the business walk with confidence at the right pace.”

He explained: “We can grow this fleet 10 times quicker than we are. We can do that, but it would just be wrong, and it wouldn’t benefit the customer at any point in the equation, other than their first rental, I suspect.

“My message to the customer is, if you want a different conversation about your fleet, where we can engineer a solution around you because we’re building, then that’s the conversation we should have.”

Drivalia’s recent history and funding connections

Drivalia was born out of Leasys Rent in 2022, with the aim of positioning itself as an independent operator, no longer linked to a single car manufacturer.

Owned by Crédit Agricole Consumer Finance (after it acquired FCA Bank Group in 2023), it has grown organically and through acquisition, buying ALD Automotive in Ireland in 2023, after also acquiring the subsidiaries of ALD Automotive in Norway and of LeasePlan in the Czech Republic and Finland.

The sale of the subsidiaries was part of a commitment made by ALD to receive clearance by the European Commission for the acquisition of LeasePlan before it became Ayvens. 

Crédit Agricole Consumer Finance is also involved in a 50/50 joint venture with Stellantis, with the pair launching multi-brand leasing company Leasys in 2023, following the consolidation of Leasys and Free2move Lease.

Leasys UK was ranked ninth in last year’s FN50, with a risk fleet of 51,985 cars and vans.

Green explains that, while Drivalia is “close” to Leasys, it is a “distant relationship”. “Their market and their parentage, just gives them a different drive and a direction compared to ours,” he said.