When World Omni Leasing was formed in 1982, its initial challenge was to create a market identity in the fleet leasing industry. Eight years later, with a car and truck fleet of over 29,000 units, World Omni Leasing seems to have found that market identity by servicing 500-unit and smaller fleets.

Headquartered in Deerfield Beach, FL, World Omni Leasing is part of a holding company called J.M. Family, Enterprises, Inc., which also owns Southeast Toyota Distributors, Inc., the exclusive distributor of Toyota vehicles in the five-state area of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina.

In its early years, World Omni provided consumer leasing in this five-state area, but subsequently expanded its services to provide fleet and commercial leasing on a nationwide basis. Ultimately, World Omni Leasing concentrated all of its efforts to commercial fleet leasing, turning its consumer leasing business over to World Omni Financial Corp., a corporation also owned by J.M. Family, which provides dealer financing in Southeast Toyota's five-state distribution territory.

World Omni offers lessees a choice of open- or closed-end leasing, plus a full line of fleet management and maintenance programs and a courtesy dealer delivery service. In addition, the lessor is currently developing an in-house computer system to generate complete, state-of-the-art client management reports.

Guiding the lessor through this growth period is World Omni Leasing's vice president, Norman Catalano, who originally started with World Omni Financial as assistant vice president in April, 1982. (At the time, World Omni Leasing was a branch of World Omni Financial.) As the various branches of World Omni Financial developed, Catalano was promoted to vice president in charge of the fleet department - commercial division.

"The commercial division's business grew to the point where the department was becoming too big to be just a small piece of World Omni Financial," says Catalano. Hence, World Omni Leasing was born.

Presently, World Omni's headquarters is staffed by 45 employees with sales branches in Atlanta, Tampa, FL, and a recently-opened office in Mission Viejo, CA. In the next three years, the lessor plans to open six additional sales offices in Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and the Northeast region of the country.

Although the company continues to grow in size, it holds true to its philosophy that small fleets are among its most important customers. "Being a smaller company ourselves, and as a result of being newer and pushing harder, World Omni Leasing has paid more attention to smaller accounts," says Catalano. "Also, since we aren't as big as some other lessors, we aren't as structured which allows us to customize many programs that are very conducive to the customer."

Another strength of World Omni Leasing, according to Catalano, is its off-lease vehicle disposal program.

"We feel disposal is one of our strong points," he says. "We have a strong working relationship with new-car dealers, wholesalers, and auctions across the country."

According to Catalano, another business area that World Omni Leasing feels it offers a competitive edge is in forklift and industrial equipment leasing.