The taxi driver knows where Norflex House is.

Northgate is a big name in its home town of Darlington.

When the company won the gong for Van Rental Company of the Year in the Fleet Van Awards last year, the presentation photo appeared in the town’s newspaper.

The van hire operation started here 27 years ago and today its modern offices dominate one of Darlington’s business parks.

Twenty seven years ago, this was Noble Self-Drive.

Alan Noble founded the original company and is still actively involved with Northgate.

In fact, Noble Self-Drive lives on as Northgate’s next-door neighbour and is one of 21 wholly-owned subsidiaries that make up the Northgate empire.

That’s how Northgate works: 21 companies, all listed on the wall in reception, all operating as individual businesses with the power of Northgate behind them.

And Northgate has lots of power: marketing power, IT power, legal services power, health and safety power and, of course, buying power.

Who can buy vans cheaper than Northgate? Probably nobody.

Managing all that power is Phil Moorhouse, managing director UK, who has been with Northgate since 1991.

“At that time – the beginning of the last recession – we were starting on a pretty aggressive growth trail,” says Phil.

“What happened then is what I think will happen now. We had some initial problems on residual values, like we’ve got now, and there was a move towards rental as a way for firms to protect their capital and still grow their business and retain flexibility.”

A typical Northgate company will not be called Northgate (although two are – one in Ireland and one in Newcastle).

It will run between 3,000 and 4,000 vehicles, have four or five sites employing between 70 and 100 people and be very much a part of the local scene.

There’s a Northgate van rental company near you. More than 68,500 vehicles make up the UK-wide fleet, 80% of which are light commercials and the rest are 7.5 tonnes and cars. Most are replaced on a 27 to 30-month cycle.

Phil admits it’s hard to make white vans sound sexy, but anybody with a passion for business would be excited by the growth of Northgate and its positive outlook.

Key to future growth will be the ability to convince more companies of the value of rental as a form of acquisition.

“There are just over 3,000,000 LCVs up to 10 years old operating in the UK,” says Phil.

“The rental proportion of that is, I guess, less than 10%. That’s where the growth in the market is.

"Clearly, we want the biggest proportion of that rental market as well, but most of the growth will come from converting people from purchase, which is the most popular form of acquisition, into Norflex.”

Norflex, as its name suggests, pioneered the concept of flexible rental, offering firms of all sizes “from Royal Mail to Bob the Builder” versatile vehicle acquisition.

“For those customers who required a nationwide service, we wanted to bring in the whole Northgate network so we developed Norflex as a product,” explains Phil.

“That’s been going for 10 years or more and was unique at the time.”

Concepts tend not to be unique for long, so Northgate has evolved to offer a range of services.

“There is a general trend for people to outsource their non-core activities and I think that’s set to continue,” says Phil.

“So now we have a call centre, a vehicle solutions business and a fleet management business that overlays on top of the individual hire companies.

“We’re not big on mission statements but what we do is provide ‘transport solutions’ for our customers.

"We’ve seen so many customers and so many different ways of working, we think we’ve got valuable expertise.”

Expansion hasn’t been confined to the UK. Two acquisitions in Spain, Fualsa in 2002 and Record in 2004, makes Northgate the biggest van renter in that country and Phil still has his eye on eastern Europe.

“Timing-wise, that’s maybe a year or so away yet, but there’s certainly no reason why the model shouldn’t be replicated in other countries,” he says.

The Phil Moorhouse story

Phil Moorhouse left school and became an accountant.

His first job was at an auditing and tax firm and pretty soon he realised that wasn’t for him.

He wanted to get into a company and be involved in it rather than periodically checking somebody else’s business.

At 22, he left to become company accountant at a metal refining business and five years later he joined Meyer, the builders’ and plumbers’ merchants.

Meyer was on the acquisition trail and it was the experience Phil gained here that led to his move to Northgate in 1991.

The builders’ merchant business and the consolidation that went on in that industry were similar to what was about to happen at Northgate.

Wise words

“There are only two conditions in life: you’re either on budget, or you’re not. And that really determines how life goes.

“You’ve got to keep business in perspective and have the right balance between work and play.

At Northgate we work bloody hard but we have a lot of fun doing it. And you’ve got to have things outside of work to get that healthy balance.”

In his spare time, Phil Moorhouse enjoys mountaineering, trekking and scuba diving, as well as playing acoustic guitar.

Asked what qualities he believes help him in both his private and working life, he answers “determination”.