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.

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!

Yesterday (April 22) the second of three televised debates took place between the three party political leaders contesting the 2010 election: Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

A largely unexpected surge in Liberal Democrat support over the last week has attracted plenty of media attention – much of it brazenly hostile – and led some commentators to predict a hung parliament.

The last time we saw a parliament with no political majority was as long ago as 1974: some people reading this blog were not even born 36 years ago.

Will this happen – and what, if anything, will it mean for the haulage industry? It’s pretty hard to tell, the Freight Transport Association (FTA) claimed this week, as none of the three main political parties supposedly displayed a clear commitment to the logistics sector in their election manifestos.

While the manifestos do refer to some “vitally important areas affecting the logistics sector”, including aviation tax, a third runway at Heathrow and road pricing, none, says the FTA, display a clear commitment to improving the country’s transport infrastructure.

In a newly published ‘logistics manifesto’, the FTA has called on whichever party comes to power to make such an investment, which it claims will benefit both the economy and the environment.

Here at The Fuelcard Company, we have long believed that the haulage industry is an unheralded hero of the British economy. Britain’s lorry drivers keep UK retail and industry on the road, quite literally. If there’s one sector that deserves some firm expressions of political support, it’s haulage.

Let us show you the best deals on fuel cards based on your individual requirements, from your estimated fuel spend to the size of your fleet.