As an ex-employee of Turners (Soham) myself, I believe that they own all of their vehicles. They currently operate more than a thousand tractor units, not all of which are in their own colours. For example: they own Hargreaves of Glasgow and Spalding; Premier Timber; a tanker company with a foreign sounding name (Rocquefort?) in the Yorkshire area I think and several others no doubt. They also provide many of the (blue liveried) vehicles for British Sugar. At the end of '04 their Soham depot took delivery of 40+ new tractor units half n half Volvo and Scania I’d guess. Their fleet includes reefers, tankers and curtainsiders that I know of.
As a private company they do not have to publish their company records. 
Mirrorman they also own Fruitex and bought out Bronco’s Haulage (spalding), anyone remember them. Another fairly large fleet is Fowler-Welch Coolchain.
Malcolms fleet including plant, tippers and the like, your looking at upwards of 2000 items of kit. They have over 500 artic units and like other posters have said it’s all bought and paid for.
The only things that Andrew Malcolm leases are the flt’s and the container handlers, thats only because of the prohibitive start up and servicing costs.
Most of his depots,including land and warehouses are also bought outright.
This is one canny scot!!
It all adds to one thing, Tangible assets. He’s in a very strong position when it comes to negotiating (poaching!) any contracts he sees an opening for.
Obviously the Army. If you ever get the chance to visit Aschurch, the number of vehicles and equipment held there is a sight to be believed. Everything from from rows upon rows of portable cement mixers, through armoured limousines, to mobile bridging kit.
Even they lease a lot of gear now. I had an email from newspress only today saying how Lex (aka RAC) are taking on a whole load more MOD vehicles. Which might cut down on the amount of virtually brand new surplus stuff they sell off for pennies that “we’ve” paid for.
dave:
i would not have thought that dhl or the post office would own there trucks, but i may be wrong.
You are correct there dave.When we where scottish express international ( SEI) we used to own the lot,from the small pick up to the artic ( including trl’s).We also had our own mechanic’s and workshop’s ( job’s done on site …bliss).We then got taken over by securicor and how thing’s changed.They gradually got rid of our trl’s and replaced them with securicor name’s on,which was fare enough as we needed new one’s.Then it was to sell the building’s that we owned (ie office’s in miller rd Ayr).Next Volvo wanted to take over our garage workshop and all the mechanic’s,which securicor allowed 
Ok the lad’s where still on site but they where volvo mechanic’s(which made it difficult).Due to the fact that we had a mixture of vehicle’s,iveco’s,merc’s and volvo’s.Yes they could do the work needed on their own vehicle’s but the other’s either had to go to their dealer’s or they ( volvo) had to seek permission to do the work from the relavant dealer.Where as before they could do the work on any off them.Volvo themselves decided to close the garage down and move the lad’s to various location’s,( Ayr,Barrhead now Cardonald and Blantyre).Now that DHL are in we have to rely on outside firm’s like Hill Hire to do the work on the trl’s ( service’s and MOT’S),we have a company which lease a building from us called Trucks Unlimitied who do most general repair’s on the trl’s and unit’s( anything major on the unit’s then it goes to the dealer’s)Give them their due they are good and are a good bunch of lad’s( family run buisness).They also do the work on Curries unit’s and trl’s. 