BEAUMONT, who lives near Glossop with his wife of 32 years, was brought up in Blackburn.

After graduating from UMIST, in Manchester, he joined automotive parts supplier Autela for three years.

Next he spent 18 years at financial services firm Lombard, becoming its regional motor manager for the North, before working at Ford’s credit subsidiary and running a Blackburn Jaguar dealership for two years.

He joined Direct in 1999, taking on finance and operations roles before becoming director in 2007.

Finance for ACF customers is arranged through sister company Cygnet Finance – of which Beaumont is also a director – or through Grimsby firm Advantage Finance.

The company has to comply with strict FSA regulations to make sure there’s no hard sell of the cars or of insurance products.

“We will show customers cars that fit their requirements and credit limit,” said Beaumont.

“There wouldn’t be any point allowing customers to walk round the showroom and say ‘can I have the X-Type’ and us then having to say ‘sorry, your credit limit won’t allow it’. We’d never get any business done and we’d disappoint everybody.”

Beaumont says ACF has a “fantastic” relationship with its bankers, despite the UK’s financial slowdown.

Customers, he says, are seeing more constraints on their disposable income, but ACF is happy with its collection rate which remains good, says Beaumont, because borrowers are rigorously assessed.

The sub-prime car market has seen substantial changes in Beaumont’s time at ACF. Competitors such as Yes Car Credit have left the market. Last year, Welcome Financial Services pulled out of offering third-party hire purchase agreements, forcing ACF to act swiftly to expand its work with sister company Cygnet. Following that shake-up, ACF also closed its depot in Livingston, Scotland, as it was too far away from the company’s Gloucester service centre.

“We are extremely lean as a business,” said Beaumont. “We can make changes immediately if we have to respond to market conditions or a changing climate.

“If we saw a spike in arrears for any reason, for example, we could change to address that.”

Unsurprisingly, in such turbulent times, Beaumont says he is not looking for rapid expansion. Instead, his target is “steady growth”.

He said: “We’re interested in refurbishing our existing sites and considering new sites as lease renewals become due, so we give customers and staff a better proposition.”

alistairhoughton