Products Vehicle leasing Founded 2009 | Industry Consumer finance Website www.lexautolease.co.uk Number of employees 2,500 | |
 | ||
Key people Tim Porter(Managing Director) Profiles | ||
Lex autolease
Lex Autolease was created in 2009 from the merger of HBOS owned Lex Vehicle Leasing with Lloyds TSB Autolease and is the United Kingdom's largest vehicle leasing business with a fleet of about 270,000 vehicles. One in every thirty new cars sold in the UK is through Lex Autolease.
Contents
Lex Vehicle Leasing was owned by HBOS between 2006 and 2009, part owned with Aviva in 2006 when it was part of their RAC plc company only the year before. Following the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB Group, which owned Autolease since 2000, the new Lloyds Banking Group merged the two operations into the new Lex Autolease. At the time of the merge, Lex was carrying a debt of GB£2.4 billion.
The company can trace its origins back to 1959 when both Lex and Autolease were established. Lex was established in the 1920s, but in 1959 it acquired British Colonial Motors which allowed it to enter the contract hire business. Autolease was established in the same year by Britax, which also owned Bristol Street Motors.
Lex has been successful in the last few years, taking on a number of large 'white label' contracts such as HSBC Vehicle Finance and Ford Business Partner.
The lex autolease driver portal
Previous acquisitions
Prior to 2009, both Lex and Autolease are a result of several other company mergers and acquisitions. Lex grew with buying Controlled Cost Motoring in 1969, establishing Lombard Contract Hire in 1983 and Fleetdrive acquired in 1988.