Rental, mergers and acquisitions change the industry map

For customers, there is the advantage of a wider range of services, but there are also pitfalls, including the reduced possibility of obtaining customised mobility solutions. Between rumours about possible future moves and the major deals made in recent years, the picture is clear: the car rental market is becoming more and more concentrated, with only a few large players resulting from the increasingly frequent mergers and acquisitions that are redefining the industry landscape. Operators are shrinking and fleet sizes are growing. The most emblematic case is the one that led to the launch of Ayvens in 2024, the result of the acquisition of LeasePlan by Ald Automotive. With this union, the new brand (which means 'progress' and 'forward momentum') stretched itself over all other competitors, establishing itself as the leading European car rental operator, thanks to a total fleet of 3.4 million vehicles (which also represents the largest fleet of multi-brand electric vehicles) in 42 countries worldwide.

Merging to become stronger seems to be the only way the market is finding to reinvent itself: naturally, the side effect for companies and customers is to find themselves having to familiarise themselves with new brands and names in an ever-changing scenario. On a more strictly national level, in 2023 there was the merger by incorporation of Sifà into UnipolRental. This was an important step for the Italian market, since with this operation UnipolRental consolidated its position as the leading Italian operator in the long-term rental sector.

But what is undoubtedly causing talk right now is the possible acquisition, at the moment only a rumour, of Athlon by Arval. According to Bloomberg News in recent weeks and subsequently reported by Reuters, the company of the Bnp Paribas group, one of the leading European operators in the sector, is in talks to acquire the Mercedes-Benz group's rental company. Everything is still under discussion and there is no shortage of others interested in entering the negotiations. In any case, the Arval hypothesis is the most suggestive, because the acquisition would make it possible to expand the fleet and get closer to Ayvens.

By incorporating Athlon, Arval would well exceed two million vehicles in its fleet. Mercedes-Benz had bought it in 2016 from the Dutch bank Rabobank, leading it to become one of Europe's leading rental operators, present in 20 countries with a total fleet of around 400,000 vehicles. For Arval, which has a total of 1.8 million vehicles, closing the deal would mean a fleet of over 2.2 million units, thus narrowing the gap with Ayvens, which would still remain in the lead. Further behind is Alphabet (the corporate mobility service provider of the BMW Group), which has a managed fleet of over 760,000 vehicles of all brands.

After the pandemic, the market found a way to restart financially and commercially through mergers and acquisitions, finding consolidation a chance to survive. Ayvens shook up the industry, becoming a dominant force in numbers and pushing competitors to seek more innovation and improve services to remain competitive. The reaction, as can be easily guessed, is to lay the groundwork for further deals, such as the possible Arval deal to acquire Athlon (worth close to EUR 1 billion). Should the deal go through, it would not only strengthen the position of Europe's second-largest operator, but would also make it possible to respond to the growth of the so-called captives, i.e. the long-term rental companies linked to the car manufacturers themselves, limiting their bargaining power in the process of adding vehicles to the fleet.