Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions grew its pre-tax profit to £24.8 million in the 2018/19 financial year, continuing its growth over the past 10 years.

The company, which was named leasing company of the year - more than 20,000 vehicles and highly commended as fleet supplier of the year in the 2019 Fleet News Awards, now operates more than 68,200 assets totalling £822m.

The financial results continue the growth of the company, which was listed as the eighth largest contract hire company in the UK in last year’s FN50 research, over the past 10 years, with the annual volume of business rising from £100m in 2009 to £377m in 2018/99.

Hitachi said it has also started the current financial year strongly and recently announced a £136m contract to manage Network Rail’s owned and leased road vehicle fleet.

Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions is also playing a major role in commercial electric vehicle trial Optimise Prime.

The project, led by Hitachi Vantara and UK Power Networks, brings together leading power technology, fleet and transport companies to test and implement the best ways to roll out EVs at scale.

Hitachi Capital Solutions’ role in the consortium is to bring fleet insight and understanding of the impacts of the charging infrastructure, network service provision and commercial solution to identify optimal performance for alternative fuel fleets.

Jon Lawes, managing director of Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions, said: “In a challenging and rapidly changing landscape for the automotive industry, driven by changes to legislation, growth of registrations for alternatively-fuelled vehicles and ongoing Brexit uncertainty, we have worked closely with our customers to deliver market-leading solutions.

“In the longer term, support for a transition to green fleets must be a priority.

“As we have seen from our involvement in Optimise Prime, the industry is already rising to the challenge and we will continue to demonstrate leadership in supporting this movement.”

As a group, Hitachi Capital (UK) plc achieved its 10th successive year of growth.

The financial services firm, which also provides support across business finance, consumer finance, invoice finance and to European Hitachi group vendors, reported a compounded annual growth rate of 22% for the past decade.

Expansion in Europe has contributed to profit before tax of £123.1m in 2018/2019, up 5.8% from the previous financial year.

For the first time, Hitachi Capital (UK) plc ended the year with net earning assets for more than £5bn.

Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions was also named van leasing company of the year at the 2018 Commercial Fleet Awards.

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