The acquisition of Tusker by Lloyds Banking Group is a 'win-win' for the salary sacrifice specialist’s customers, says the firm’s CEO.

Speaking to Fleet News following the £300 million deal, which was announced in February, Paul Gilshan highlighted how the business will benefit from the scale and procurement power of Lloyds.

Currently, Lloyds Banking Group finances or leases more than one million cars and vans in the UK road through Lex Autolease and its Black Horse division, including one-in-10 new electric cars. 

Lex Autolease, the UK's largest leasing company, has a risk fleet of 282,720 cars and vans, according to last year's FN50, while Tusker had a risk fleet of 20,976 cars and vans.

“Lloyds Banking Group can help Tusker offer more electric cars to more drivers quicker,” said Tusker’s CEO, Gilshan. “We now have a much bigger engine behind us."

Tusker is a specialist in salary sacrifice schemes for electric vehicles (EVs) and ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs).

It launched its first salary sacrifice scheme for cars in 2008. Today, it is funding about 23,000 vehicles of which 60% are EVs, with future orders set to increase that to 77%, while its customer base has grown tenfold in the past 10 years.  

Gilshan said: "From the first meeting with Lloyds Banking Group, it was pretty clear that they were the right partners to take us through our next phase of growth."

With other parties interested in acquiring Tusker, Gilshan highlighted the company values it shares with Lloyds Banking Group as a major driver behind the deal.

He explained: "One of the key pieces was Tusker and Lloyds Banking Group have aligned sustainability goals to support net zero and drive the uptake of electric vehicles."

He added: "From a pure operational perspective, it was also hugely advantageous to Tusker to become part of that family, because security of funding was a big part of it for me and we will also benefit, and are benefitting from, the scale and expertise in many areas, such as sourcing and procurement."

Furthermore, says Gilshan, Lloyds Banking Group wanted Tusker to join its other transport businesses, Lex Autolease and Blackhorse, to increase the breadth of the group's transport business.

However, he also stressed that ensuring Tusker remained a standalone business was key. He said: "We can continue to do what I think we do best and offer more and more companies access to affordable electric vehicles.”

Gilshan stressed that for its customers and drivers, whether current, prospective or upcoming, there will be no change in the day-to-day delivery.

“We'll benefit in the scale and procurement of Lloyds, but we're continuing to invest for growth,” he said.

“We're continuing to invest to improve our customer journey, our online ordering portal and we'll also continue to invest in people at Tusker, and recruit more team members to support the huge demand we're seeing for products."

Believing in the product

In 2017/18, Tusker launched its 'Winning Together' strategy at a time when many companies were moving away from salary sacrifice.

"We did the opposite - we doubled down on it - because we knew that salary sacrifice offered the biggest savings for electric and for hybrids,” explained Gilshan.

“We also knew at that time there was very limited availability of electric vehicles, but that was going to change.

“We knew the demand and the product for electric vehicles was coming, so we spent two years readying the business for this demand that we're seeing now.

“We built a platform and a website, and a driver journey portal, we invested in the right people, we grew a very experienced sales team and now we've got a rich, mature pipeline of new business to convert, because we built over that over a period of time.”

Gilshan is confident salary sacrifice will gain even more traction with employers over the coming months and years.

"The number one reason people love the product is the bundle,” he explained. “It's no hassle; we'll sort everything for you - the car, the insurance, the breakdown cover, the MOT, the servicing, replacement tyres and windscreens, etc."

He continued: "We are breaking records every month in terms of our orders.

“We are now just shy of 1,500 companies that are offering Tusker salary saving car schemes, which includes NHS Trusts, local councils and very large and small private sector companies.

"Last month, we delivered more than 1,600 new vehicles and the vast majority were electric or hybrid."

Based in Watford, Tusker employs more than 250 staff. Lloyds Banking Group said that there would be no planned redundancies as a result of the acquisition. It also confirmed that the existing Tusker management team will remain in place.

Fleet News will be holding a salary sacrifice webinar in partnership with Tusker on Wednesday, May 3, from 2-3pm, which will include a Q&A.

It will explore the benefit in detail, focusing on how salary sacrifice can work well for cash allowance drivers and reduce risk for businesses. 

Fleet News group editor, Stephen Briers, along with a representative from Tusker, will be joined by a panel of fleet professionals, which includes Chris Connors, head of facilities and fleet at Vistry Group, and Michelle Sutton, head of compensation and reward at Suez.

The panel of experts will share first-hand experience of setting salary sacrifice schemes up, and engaging with employees to ensure they are successful.

To register for free, click here.