Element Financial Corporation, one of North America’s leading fleet management and equipment finance companies, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with GE to acquire GE Capital’s remaining North American fleet management operations in the US and Mexico, as well as GE Capital’s fleet management operations in Australia and New Zealand for an all-cash purchase price of $8.6 billion.
Element had previously acquired the Canadian operations of GE Capital’s North American fleet management business in June of 2013.
“Adding these very high quality businesses to our existing fleet operations firmly establishes Element as a leader in the North American fleet management industry,” said Steven Hudson, Element’s Chief Executive Officer. “But more importantly, by combining these businesses we’re being given an unprecedented opportunity to bring together the systems, technologies, products and people that have helped to define excellence in the fleet management industry in North America for more than five decades,” added Mr. Hudson.
In a related transaction, Arval, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BNP Paribas and Element’s founding partner in the Element-Arval Global Alliance, has entered into a memorandum of understanding to acquire GE Capital’s European fleet operations. The scope of this acquisition covers more than 160,000 vehicles in 12 European countries. This transaction will reinforce the market position of Arval with a leading position in Europe and around 900,000 vehicles worldwide. Today Arval is present in 25 countries, and in 14 other through a network of partners.
Philippe Bismut, CEO of Arval, underlined: “Arval will become the leader in full service leasing in Europe and I am sure that our clients will highly benefit from our geographical coverage, expertise and scale. We are also enthusiastic about this new cooperation with Element Financial and we are deeply convinced that this will bring value to both partners.”
Element facilitated GE in structuring the transaction with Arval. Together, these two transactions signal a new level of collaboration between Element and Arval in serving the global fleet management needs of international customers.
On closing of the two transactions, the Element-Arval Global Alliance will be capable of managing customer fleets in more than 40 countries.
| 29/06/2015 | Steven Schoefs
Last modified: 29 Giugno 2015