Founder and co-director Erik Geerts has been working for truck financing for quite some time. “The margins are very tight. The kilometre cost price, plus the driver’s hourly wage, determine the cost price. With car leases, the situation is different. The contract there states a specific number of kilometres. If you stay below, or exceed, that number, the lease company is entitled to alter the contract price. That’s where they make their margin.”
It doesn’t get any more flexible
With this principle in mind, Geerts founded his own leasing company in 2010. “I wanted to do it differently. Working with a transparent cost price for the entrepreneur who pays the lease for those employees. It’s like a subscription for your mobile phone: there’s a fixed component but also a variable component based on kilometres driven. So driving less means paying less. It doesn’t get any more flexible!” The company now has a fleet of around a thousand leased cars and a turnover of 18.5 million euros.
However, when the question is asked about H4’s unique selling proposition, another factor emerges that is an even more important driver of the growth of the client portfolio. Co-director Jesse Koster: “This may sound like a cliché but that’s our service and flexibility. Many of our customers are innovative companies in, for example, health care or ICT. A lot of work in those sectors is on a project or consultancy basis. So circumstances can change: and so do requirements for mobility. We are eager to respond. A combination with an electric bicycle may be more convenient. We can deliver that. Or people may prefer to share a car. No problem. We look at what our clients’ employees really need. In that way, we contribute to job satisfaction. And our clients very much appreciate our role here. We provide one of the perks of the job.”