UPDATED: BT chooses Holman over Rivus in UK's biggest fleet maintenance deal

Holman has been awarded what could be the UK’s biggest ever fleet maintenance deal after BT Group ended its long-standing relationship with Rivus.

The telecoms giant operates a fleet of around 41,000 vehicles, the majority of which are light commercial vehicles.

It has awarded the contract to maintain its commercial vehicles to Holman, previously ARI Fleet UK, while it will transfer the management of its company cars to Arval UK. Both contracts will start with the new providers from September 30.     

A BT Group spokesperson told Fleet News: “To ensure we can maintain our fleet of 41,000 vehicles in the UK, allowing our engineers to build and maintain our next generation fibre and mobile networks, we need a fleet partner who can provide the best, most efficient service to our engineers. 

“We regularly review our contracts with suppliers, and we’ve made an agreement with Holman to transfer the maintenance of our commercial fleet to them later this year.

“We will also transfer the management of our company cars to Arval UK, who already manage our EE fleet.

“These changes will ensure we can continue to give the best service to our customers across the UK.”

Private equity company Aurelius acquired Rivus, formerly BT Fleet Solutions, from BT Group in 2019. 

BT Fleet Solutions, which was formed in 2002, was transformed from an in-house fleet provider into a successful business, which was recognised as a leader in the fleet industry.

Last year, former Rivus CEO David Myers (who stepped down earlier this month) told Fleet News that the business had 1,300 employees, managed around 200,000 service bookings each year and operated from 80 sites nationwide through its light commercial vehicle (LCV) and heavy goods vehicle (HGV) combined garage network.

It had more than 500 Rivus-approved garage partners and a UK-wide team of mobile technicians.

Most of its managed fleet, he said, was LCVs and HGVs (80,000 and 40,000 units respectively). It also has around 10,000 cars, but commercial fleets were the target customer.

Speaking exclusively to Fleet News, Rivus interim CEO Victoria Knight described the situation as "natural evolution" and claimed Rivus had been preparing for such an eventuality for the past couple of years in the knowledge that the contract was up for renewal in 2023.

"While we stayed coupled to BT, it choked the capacity across our network. This is us becoming standalone," she said. "This will allow us to diversify our customer base, the breadth and depth of our customers.

"We have been working in the background and have advanced conversations in place to backfill the volume."

Garage network 'not part of deal'

In a letter to union branches, Allan Eldred, assistant secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), explained that the terms Rivus were offered by BT were not “commercially viable” and could have resulted in a “serious threat” to the terms and conditions of its members.

He said: “The union is extremely disappointed that agreement could not be reached but have been advised by Rivus that they are confident of filling the capacity that BT will leave behind.

“They have also advised us that they will continue to recruit into current vacancies and investment will continue in terms of training, warranty and equipment.”

Eldred states in his letter that the union has been told by Rivus that the lease it has with BT for its network of garages is until 2030 and is separate from the service contract.

“Rivus has no intention of relinquishing it, because they intend to fill the freed-up capacity with new work which they advise they are already in discussions,” he explained.

“Rivus has also said that BT has not criticised the level or quality of the service that Rivus has provided. This is reflected in the fact that they wanted to continue to use Rivus through their new supplier, on service, maintenance and repair (SMR) work. The contract on offer however was not commercially viable.”

He continued: “Rivus has always said that their aim was not to rely in one major contract to sustain its future and believed that in the long term such an approach was not sustainable.

“Their aim now is to continue to seek work in the large corporate and the public sector markets as they do now, but also to ensure that they grow in diverse and sustainable way.

“The recent winning of the Metropolitan Police contract is evidence of this approach and the freeing-up of garage capacity will, they say, enable to them to continue with their diverse growth strategy.”

Rivus announced earlier this month that it had won multiple maintenance and repair contracts the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) starting from November 1, 2023.  

Following a multi-lot, competitive tender process, which began in February 2022, it was appointed to take care of the blue-light fleet for a period of up to 10 years.  

The Metropolitan Police Service, which employs 43,000 officers and staff and is the UK’s largest police force, operates more than 5,200 fleet assets on the roads in Greater London, travelling 52 million miles each year. 

Rivus will manage the fleet maintenance and repair of 3,700 emergency response, support and general-purpose vehicles as part of the new deal. 

It was also recently appointed by SGN to provide a complete fleet management solution for its commercial fleet of 1,700 vehicles. The seven-year contract starts on April 1, 2023.

Eldred said: “The CWU is under no illusions; Rivus is going to face a challenging time over the next few months but their approach to the ending of the BT contract, could have been a lot different and a greater and immediate threat to our members.”

Fleet News approached Holman for comment but it has declined at this stage.