September
Banca Italease expects to complete its joint venture with VR
Leasing Group by the beginning of September.
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The troubled Italian lessor announced earlier this year that it
is in talks with VR, a subsidiary of DZ Bank, with a view to
establishing a joint venture for business emanating from both
banking and direct sources.
Plans for the proposed joint venture came as Banca Italease
announced it had finalised a receivables warehousing transaction of
some of its lease receiveables, and that it had tapped €640m of
funding to do so. The deal was executed by BNP Paribas and Natixis
as the disbursing banks and co-arrangers.
This flurry of activity comes as the bank turns itself around
following a disastrous year’s trading in 2007. During Q1 2008 the
company returned to profitability reporting a pre-tax income of
€27.7m, net income of €15.4m and an interest margin of €73m.
Leasing contracts in the quarter totalled some €1bn.
The volume of new leasing agreements completed in Q1 2008
totalled some €1bn (7,957 contracts) which gives Banca Italease a
market share of around 11.2 per cent – more or less the same as
that at the end of 2007.
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By GlobalDataNet commissions in Q1 2008 totalled some €17.8m, substantially
in line with the same period the previous year. This was largely
due to the fact that Q1 2007 included €8.5m of commissions paid by
the company to the third-party network for the distribution of
derivatives products, whereas in 2008 such commissions were
eliminated as a result of the derivatives business being put on
hold.
During Q1 2008 Italy’s leasing business contracted by around 15
per cent, with new leasing contracts completed totalling around
€10bn. The market has been adversely affected by the worldwide
economic downturn, with the largest rate of contraction seen in the
aircraft/marine and railway equipment sectors (-27.3 per cent) and
real estate (-26.8 per cent). The automotive sector was essentially
flat (-0.3 per cent) while the capital goods segment experienced a
slight drop of -3.7 per cent.
Banca Italease’s Q1 results compare favourably with its
performance data for the year ended December 31 2007 when the
company reported a net loss from trading of €652m (2006: €515m
profit) and a net financial loss of €452m (2006: €453 profit).
During the year the bank suffered from its exposure to the
derivatives market and also various management issues.
In June the company merged its Italeasing and Leasimpresa
operations in a move partly aimed at the re-organisation of its
distribution channels.
The product portfolio is to be rounded out and new initiatives
are to be undertaken for streamlining costs and ensuring governance
of risks in the leasing business.
Brian Rogerson
