Macquarie Bank may have elevated itself to the status of being the largest financier and manager of vehicle fleets in Australia with its purchase of the bulk of the financial assets of Ford Credit late last year.Garry Farrell, the group head of Corporate and Asset Finance, disclosed in its operational briefing yesterday that it manages 200,000 vehicles in Australia, following the purchase of a book of 60,000 vehicles, and $1 billion in assets, from FCA Holdings.As with most of Macquarie's other business units Farrell has a mandate to buy up interesting businesses, in Australia and elsewhere.One transaction cited yesterday was an agreement between Macquarie Equipment Finance and Relational Technology Services in the US to manage US$500 million in leases, an increase of one quarter of the bank's current leasing volumes.The Corporate and Asset Financing Group at Macquarie manages $14 billion in assets; evenly split between "short cycle" assets including vehicle leasing and more conventional lending. There is also a small pool of "long cycle" leasing to customers in energy, transport and manufacturing.Farrell said arrears levels were low despite market conditions and that use of long life assets, such as rolling stock and aircraft engines, while a little lower than before, was still around the 90 per cent mark.