All articles by Charles Wheeldon
Charles Wheeldon
Halil to lead BMWFS in Australia
Spencer Halil, who has led Alphera Financial Services for the past three years, is moving to Melbourne, Australia to lead BMW Group Financial Services and fleet arm Alphabet in early September.
A tale of two Europes
New car sales figures have revealed a divergence between core and emerging European economies on the one hand, and nations currently suffering crippling debt and economic uncertainty, say first half statistics released by data specialist Jato Dynamics. Just two of the Big Five markets recorded increased H1 sales compared to 2010: France (up 1%) and Germany (up 10.5%, selling 153,788 more units), while three recorded fewer sales: UK (down 7.1%), Italy (down 13.2%) and Spain (down 26.9%, selling 162,928 fewer units)
Asian cars age well, says MB&G
Asian car brands generate fewer warranty claims as they age than European or American rivals, claims warranty provider MB&G. Japanese and Korean cars dominate MB&Gs top-10 list, with Honda in first place
Roelofs joins specialist team
Chartered accountant Christian Roelofs will become the newest addition to Grant Thornton UK LLPs leasing and consumer finance business, when he joins the firm on Monday as one of its asset finance specialists. Roelofs leaves Macquarie Bank to take up his new role, where he will be tasked with helping drive further growth within Grant Thorntons niche financing sector, and bringing a corporate finance and M&A focus to the team
AFS rate drop
Multi-marque finance provider Alphera Financial Services has announced a new flat interest rate, starting at 3.25%, for hire purchase and personal contact plans, continuing until the end of September. Alphera director Spencer Halil said: “We recognise that the car sales market is tougher this year, particularly on new cars, so we want to offer our partners the chance to boost sales. The first part of the year proved extremely difficult for finding new customers and, having invested heavily in customer relationship management training, we now want to work on creating offers that are attractive to both our partners and their prospective customers
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Burlington Credit enforcement service north of the border
The service complements its High Court writ of delivery product for enforcement of County Court return orders in England and Wales and makes the company the only asset repossession service provider to offer a full post-judgment enforcement service, to recover assets subject to court orders, across the UK mainland Business development manager Adam Wonnacott said: We are launching the service in conjunction with an authorised sheriff officer, whose services we have retained under contract, so Burlington are not sheriff officers as such, but we do have the capacity to provide sheriff officer services.
SAF gains further traction with accreditation of 3 new groups
Three top UK dealer groups have been awarded approved status in the FLAs Specialist Automotive Finance (SAF) competence test scheme in the past month: Arnold Clark, Marshall and Rybrook. With Jardine Motors also expected to be accredited by the end of July, 22 of the UKs 30 largest dealer networks will be able to display the SAF kitemark in showrooms.
Motability exposé
Non-profit car leasing company Motability Operations has faced criticism following a Sunday Times investigation into alleged abuse of the Motability scheme by dealers and relatives of the severely disabled. The newspaper alleged relatives of those entitled to use their disability benefit to lease Motability vehicles were using the cars themselves
Vipdata: trade guides may be distorting price
The company reports that after a strong start to the year, the market suddenly changed in late April, around the time of the extended bank holidays and the Royal wedding.
P&C makes £455k pre-tax profit
Independent lender Private and Commercial Finance Group (P&C) has announced the end of a two-year period of stagnation, unveiling a full-year pre-tax profit of £455,336 and plans for a new funding facility.