The new partnership immediately creates the biggest independent fleet management group in Europe with over 100,000 vehicles under management. Fleet Logistics currently manages over 75,000 vehicles on behalf of large national and international fleet customers, while FleetCompany has in excess of 25,000 vehicles under management in Germany.

The strategic partnership is based on depth of expertise, global infrastructure and financial strength. This allows it to "turbo-charge" its fleet business to take it to the next level, said Fleet Logistics' chief executive officer, Peter Soliman, who will manage the business.

'We are very excited by the possibilities that this new venture opens up on an international fleet level, with potential new markets in Asia and Australia, as well as reinforcing our fleet management offering in our established markets in Western and Central Europe,' he said.

The new strategic partnership brings a number of benefits for fleet customers including greater stability through increased scale, an extended service portfolio, a global infrastructure to support global reporting, and an improvement in operational quality through a deep process focus, as well as an insight into other parts of the automotive value chain.

Mr Soliman said: 'The partnership with FleetCompany will allow us to offer a pure fleet management solution to companies which prefer to self-finance or outright purchase, rather than lease, their vehicles.

'We see this very much as complimentary to the traditional Fleet Logistics solution which typically focuses on companies who prefer to lease their vehicles. We would like to underline that we are not changing our business model or focus and will continue to respect our current deep relationships with leasing companies.

'However, through FleetCompany, we are now able to offer an alternative fleet management solution for outright purchase and self-financing fleets, and we will do this in all the major European countries initially, including the UK, France, Netherlands and the Benelux,' he said.

Fleet Logistics will continue to focus on managing full service lease contracts for large international clients while FleetCompany will focus on outright purchase fleets. 

Mr Soliman added: 'We believe we will be able to capitalize on TÜV SÜD's global infrastructure to develop and enhance our global reporting solution and offer our clients transparent and efficient reporting across all countries.

'We also believe we will be able to offer existing FleetCompany clients the ability to have international fleet management for any or all their operating countries should they so choose, an option that had not been available to them hitherto.'