SOVEREIGN Fleet Services is taking over management of parent company Alliance & Leicester's mixed-badged fleet of about 1,000 vehicles. The move will result in Godfrey Davis Contract Hire, which has been running the Alliance & Leicester operation since it was outsourced in 1994, losing one of its biggest customers.

The changeover will be phased in gradually with Godfrey Davis continuing to handle the day-to-day running of existing vehicles until they reach the end of their four-year/80,000-mile fleet lives. Sovereign Fleet Services will oversee administration of the existing vehicles and will handle all aspects of new vehicle acquisition and management. The fleet is outright purchased.

Sovereign Fleet Services is the vehicle management and contract hire arm of Sovereign Finance, which was bought by Alliance & Leicester's commercial banking arm Girobank in 1996. Alliance & Leicester outsourced its fleet operation in 1994, when then fleet manager Chris White - a former Fleet News Fleet Manager of the Year - became one of the first victims of the growing trend for external management.