Liquid Capital should be a household name by the end of June, says MD Kerry Cassel. 

The vehicle and asset financier and service provider has been, to date, largely business-to-business focused, but is now moving to broaden its consumer base, she says.

“We have launched a wide-ranging marketing campaign to achieve this goal.”

Liquid Capital is part of the Associated Motor Holdings (AMH) stable, which is, in turn, owned by the Imperial group. AMH is perhaps best known as the importer of Hyundai and Kia vehicles.

Cassel says around 5% of Liquid Capital’s business is consumer-based. The company’s four customer groups are vehicle brands, dealer networks, consumers, as well as corporates and fleets.

Liquid Capital, for example, manages the service and maintenance plans for vehicle manufacturers, as well as their roadside assistance programmes, it provides finance to consumers, while it also manages a fleet on behalf of corporate customers. This equates to a total ca rparc under management – across the various product and service offerings – of more than 500 000 vehicles across South Africa.

The group also conducts does consumer research.

“We are looking to consumers to be 20% of our total business written by mid-2015. We have only really been active in this field for the past six months.”

This does not mean Cassel and her team will be neglecting Liquid Capital’s other businesses, however. She hopes, for example, to add another 100 000 vehicles to the 500 000-strong fleet business already under the company’s management.

When considering some of the trends in consumer behaviour over the last few years, Cassel notes that consumers have definitely been “buying down”.

Where large passenger cars were once 10% of the vehicles financed by Liquid Capital, this has moved to 3% to 4%, “driven by fuel prices and green concerns”.

“Small passenger vehicles have increased from 32% of our fleet in 2008, to 40% of our fleet today.”

E-tolling to Challenge Fleet Business as Usual
Implementing an effective fleet solution for the start of e-tolling on Gauteng’s highways, anticipated to happen later this year, will be a challenge, says Cassel.

She notes that it will add to the running costs of corporate fleets, but does not want to quantify these costs.

“If not managed correctly, it can present a problem.”

Cassel expects “significant teething problems” for fleets in dealing with e-tolling, but adds that “e-tolling is not foreign to the rest of the world”, and that they “had managed to find solutions”.

She says there are many factors to keep in mind when considering the types of fleets operating under an e-tolling system, such as test drives that occur on the highway, or dealer staff who drive company vehicles, especially as etags are linked to specific vehicles, and not drivers.

“E-tolling would make this more onerous, as the dealer would need to make sure who was driving the vehicle at what time.”

A number of secondhand cars will, for example, need an etag, which will then have to be removed when the car is sold, and replaced with the buyer’s etag.