Little break from the norm today with a corporate announcement from our parent company, FleetCor:

FleetCor Technologies Inc., a leading global provider of fuel cards and parent company to Knaresborough-based The Fuelcard Company, has today announced its acquisition of AllStar Business Solutions Limited from The Arval Group for £194 million.

At present, AllStar has approximately 40 thousand customers and about one million cardholders, a large portion of who are small and medium sized enterprises. AllStar serves both business clients directly and strategic partners like Arval leasing who in turn serve their customers. AllStar fuel cards are accepted by all UK major fuel brands, including the leading supermarket chains.

In addition, Arval and FleetCor have entered into a strategic relationship where Arval will provide fuel card payment solutions to its customers through AllStar. Existing AllStar customers will see no immediate change to their service provision.

The Fuelcard Company and AllStar will continue to run as two separate businesses for the foreseeable future with The Fuelcard Company continuing to resell its existing Shell, Keyfuels, Texaco, Esso and European products. The Fuelcard Company will remain based at its North Yorkshire head quarters.

“We are pleased to announce the acquisition of AllStar, which is consistent with our global acquisition strategy of identifying attractive assets with performance upside. We believe that we can help AllStar realise its full potential, as we have in previous acquisitions, by bringing our best practices, technology and commitment to this portfolio,” said Ron Clarke, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, FleetCor Technologies, Inc.

“We believe that this sale is a positive move for AllStar employees, partners and customers. FleetCor brings global fuel card expertise, best practices and experience to AllStar, which, we believe, will enable us to improve the products and services available to its customers,” said Andrew Blazye, Chief Executive Officer, FleetCor Europe. “The [AllStar] brand will be retained.  Our intention is to run AllStar as an independent, separate business for the foreseeable future.”

“The Arval Group strategy is to offer a bundle of funding and fleet management services based on risk retention, whilst the business model for AllStar is very different as it delivers transactional fuel services. As a result, we favour a long-term partnership with a global card expert. This will allow us to focus on our core business for the benefit of our customers while continuing to deliver fuel management solutions by working with a provider that can further enhance the value proposition,” said Bart Beckers, Chief Executive Officer, Arval UK.

FleetCor financed the all cash acquisition with available cash and financing through its existing credit facilities. FleetCor expects the acquisition to be accretive to revenues and earnings in 2012. The Agreement for the sale and purchase of the entire issued share capital of AllStar Business Solutions Limited was entered into and consummated 12^th December 2011 between FleetCor Technologies, Inc., its wholly-owned subsidiary, FleetCor UK Acquisition Limited, and Arval UK Group Limited, as described in FleetCor’s Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC today. FleetCor intends to notify the U.K. Office of Fair Trading of this acquisition and comply with customary undertakings during the review process.

So, the obvious topic of conversation would be Tuesday’s news that the House of Commons is to grant discussion time to the issue of fuel duty and the Government’s response to the e-petition, but I think we’ve heard enough about that this week.

Rather we’re going to focus (i.e. have a rant) on something else that’s hit the news – new doubts raised over 80mph limit plan changes following the M5 crash.

The Government is planning to raise the motorway speed limit from 70mph claiming the increase would be good for business. “Increasing the speed limit on motorways from 70 to 80 miles per hour for cars, light vans and motorcycles could provide hundreds of millions of pounds of benefits for the economy and I will put forward formal proposals for making these changes later this year”, says Transport Secretary Philip Hammond.

Erm, how can someone driving their vehicle faster be any good for business unless you own a fuel station? Driving at 80mph could use up to 20 percent more fuel than at 70mph – for businesses already struggling with high fuel costs, this isn’t going to help one iota.

Current guidelines suggest that speed limits should be enforced at ten percent over the limit plus two miles per hour. This means that in a 70mph limit, drivers are unlikely to be prosecuted for speeding unless travelling at 79mph or faster. If the speed limit was raised to 80mph and guidelines remained the same, it would be enforced at 90mph, 20mph above the current speed limit.

Goods vehicles exceeding 7.5 tonne maximum gross weight are currently restricted to 60mph on motorways, but recent plans suggested this may be reduced to 56mph. Increasing the gap between speeds travelled on the motorway is more likely to result in higher fuel bills, as drivers will be forced to adopt defensive driving techniques which can not only be dangerous, but actually increase fuel consumption by as much as 40 percent.

Increasing the speed limit of other vehicles will make it more difficult for trucks to overtake each other, forcing them to adopt a ‘stop-start’ style of driving in which truck drivers have to accelerate hard to overtake a vehicle, then brake suddenly to fall back in line with the slower-moving traffic. With nearly 50 percent of the energy needed to power a vehicle going into acceleration, this will result in the truck using far more fuel than is necessary, which will cost fleet businesses more.

Congratulations to the cabbies who took part in Shell’s Smarter Cab Drivers Challenge and slashed their average fuel consumption by 20 percent each. If they continue to maintain this level of fuel consumption, they will save a whopping £1,500 over 12 months – that’s equivalent to 1,100 litres of fuel.

But how did they do this, we hear you ask? Did they have special fuel monitoring equipment fitted? Use specialist tyres? Or perhaps some other fancy gadgetry? Well, no, none of these – they simply drove smarter.

Each of the cabbies received training on fuel efficient driving techniques and put into practice some of the tips they’d learnt, including avoiding over-revving their engines, turning their air conditioning down or off and reducing the load carried in boots.

As we’re sure you’ll agree, none of this is rocket science, more like plain old common sense and certainly techniques we business drivers can easily introduce into our own driving. Simply slowing down a little and changing gears more slowly will not only reduce fuel usage but is also much safer

Don’t forget, the vehicle itself needs a little TLC. Dirty oil, clogged sparkplugs and under-inflated tyres can also increase fuel consumption, so ensure fleets are serviced regularly.

Shell went on to say that, based on the cabbies’ savings, Britain’s 34.1 million drivers could make a collective fuel saving of up to £18.5 billion if they applied similar smarter driving techniques. That’s certainly a saving we want to be part of!

Visit Business Fuelcards to see what products are on offer and access detailed information about the benefits available – it may just make all the difference!

If you have decided to go ahead with a business fuel card, it is imperative to make a wise decision in terms of which fuel card is suitable for your business operations. A fuel card used by one company may not be suitable for another company. There are many before going ahead with the selection of a business fuel card.

We always advise our potential clients to understand the differences between fuel cards being offered by fuel suppliers like Shell, Keyfuels, Esso, Texaco and others. To assist you in making an informed decision for the best interests of your business, we have identified 6 points that you must address before buying a fuel card. These points are worth your consideration and will help you in figuring out the best fuel card for your company. Consider these as part of a very quick checklist before selecting fuel cards.

1. Do you prefer fuel cards from a specific fuel supplier? There are certain business organizations that wish to work with a single fuel company across the nation. If this is the case, we advise checking with the potential fuel company on network coverage across your area of operation in UK and Europe. For example, Shell comes with multiple variants of fuel cards and one of them is the Fleet fuel card.

http://www.businessfuelcards.co.uk/shell-cards-fuelcard-network.html

2. What fuel type do you want? If you are looking for fuel cards meant for petrol only or diesel only, then your options and potential selection will depend on the fuel supplier that offers cards with either petrol or diesel options. Take an example of CRT card offered by Shell for diesel vehicles only.

http://www.businessfuelcards.co.uk/euroshell-crt-fuel-card.html

3. Do you want a UK-only or Europe card?  Does your fleet solely through UK or does it involve travel to other European countries? There are multiple cards that will allow you to fill your tank in the UK and Europe or UK only. Depending on your preference, you    can select the appropriate card. For example, the UTA card is available for use across Europe.

http://www.businessfuelcards.co.uk/european-fuelcards-network.html

4. Do you want a card for a fleet of cars or trucks? This is a pertinent question for companies with fleets of cars and trucks or those companies that specialize in cars, vans or trucks only. For example, Esso offers a truck card for a fleet of PSVs and HGVs. Similarly, another fuel supplier, Keyfuels offers cards that are highly suitable for vans.

http://www.businessfuelcards.co.uk/keyfuels-fuel-card.html

5. Do you need a single network or multi-network fuelcard?  While you may prefer working with a single fuel supplier, it is possible for you to re-fuel at other fuel supplier’s outlets as well with certain fuel cards. For example, the Esso multi network Fuel card comes with the ability to re-fuelling at Esso and Shell stations nationwide.

http://www.businessfuelcards.co.uk/esso-multi-network-fuel-card.html

6. Do you want a fixed price fuel card or a pump price fuel card? You may look into your business fuel needs to identify whether a card with fixed price for fuel is more suitable than a fuel card that charges the price from the pump at the time of re-fuelling. Take  the example of the Esso Truck card that comes with fixed diesel price for each week.

http://www.businessfuelcards.co.uk/esso-truck-fuel-card.html

If you are able to take a minute and answer these questions, your card options will unfold by themselves, thus simplifying your decision making.