OUR HISTORY
The Asset Alliance Group was established in 2012. Our origins lie however with the coming together of Asset Alliance Ltd, formed in 2010 and led by former commercial banking and lending specialist Willie Paterson, and ATE Truck and Trailer Sales Ltd, which was established in 1995. This merger was facilitated with the investment of private equity funder, Cabot Square Capital.
This was a unique coming together of two sides of the industry, combining the expertise of a CV leasing company with a highly successful retailer of used commercial vehicles. It created a new type of service provider that understands both finance and the criticality of accurate residual value setting and workshops to provide a tailored and higher value service for clients. We believe we retain that point of differentiation in the marketplace today.
In 2021, Asset Alliance Group was acquired by the Arbuthnot Latham Banking Group.
Asset Alliance Ltd is established by former Director of Commercial Asset Finance at Alliance and Leicester / Santander Corporate Bank, Willie Paterson. Willie is quickly joined by a small number of former senior colleagues and offices are opened in Lanarkshire and Leeds.
Cabot Square Capital provide an investment fund of £25m and the company completes the key strategic acquisition of ATE Truck and Trailers Sales Ltd based in Wolverhampton and now offers a full range of new and used commercial vehicle assets with workshop and customisation facilities clearly differentiating itself from other lenders in the sector. Asset Alliance Group Holdings Ltd is formed as the parent company.
From 2012, the newly formed Asset Alliance Group continued to trade under these individual brands.
Asset Alliance Group (AAG) acquires Total Reefer, a refrigerated trailer specialist and the group expands its portfolio of clients and assets in a key strategic niche sector of the transportation industry. Through this acquisition we added a short term rental service to our service offerings.
The group further invests in ATE and opens a second retail operation in Scotland to broaden our reach. This new Scottish base also becomes home to the Group Finance and Risk division. The company quickly expands to over 50 staff and over 1,000 commercial vehicle assets on contract agreements and with over 800 used truck and trailers for sale.
A further year of growth and the company surpasses 2,000 fleet assets and over 100 staff as we emerge as a key challenger to the established players in the CV Contract Hire and Leasing industry. We invest in and open the UK’s longest ATF and VOSA facility at our Wolverhampton site.
In 2016, Forest Asset Finance was merged into the group and the Asset Alliance Group acquired a specialist lender in bus and coach as well as a leading specialist brokerage business and this extended our ability to offer finance out-with the commercial vehicles sector.
In 2017, the assets of a Traffic Management Vehicle provider, Martin Williams were acquired and we opened our own Traffic Management and Utility vehicles division.
In 2018, we then acquired a long-standing and highly reputable used truck business, Hanbury Riverside. This offered an excellent location to extend our reach and add a high quality business into our group.
As of January 2019, the group effectively trades as one company, Asset Alliance Group, and through both acquisition and organic growth, we remain the UK’s fastest-growing commercial vehicle specialist lender and largest independent commercial vehicle retailer.
In December, a deal was agreed – subject to FCA approval, that the Directors and private Equity company, Cabot Square Capital would sell their shareholding to Arbuthnot Latham & Co Ltd, a long-standing UK private bank, providing a new momentum in to the growth plans of the company going into 2021.
After the new backing and investment provided by Arbuthnot Latham & Co Ltd, which was finalised in April, 2021 was a year of investment. We developed and transformed our business with a £1.2 million investment into bespoke software to improve and streamline back office systems to improve processes and our services to our customers. To extend our geographic coverage and support we opened our 4th sales depot in March based in Manchester. To end the year, we launched our Vendor Finance division and invested in our fleet with a £17 million order with DAF and ordering over 100 mono-temp and multi-temp trailers.
Investment into the business continued in 2022 with us ordering more than 1,400 new vehicles, worth more than £100 million, to ensure we have the youngest contract hire and leasing fleet in the UK. We invested heavily in our team which expanded to over 125 staff across the business and in September expanded our finance offering to include General Asset Finance.
