American leasing giant’s UK
subsidiary forms new team. Antonio Fabrizio reports.
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The UK division of GE
Capital has made a number of appointments in its business
development team, in line with its plans to expand operations
across the country.
The most recent hires are
five new regional directors, all within its asset-based lending
operations (see GE’s new dream team).
The appointments confirm
the company’s “mandate to grow” across Europe, as GE Capital chief
commercial officer in EMEA Isabel Fernandez revealed to Leasing Life in May.
According to GE Capital
commercial director for UK lending and leasing John Nelson, the new
positions “reflect GE Capital’s commitment to the SME market across
the UK and our realignment of regional capabilities.”
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By GlobalDataThe company said it has
identified a number of specific growth areas where its customer
base is, and is strengthening its team accordingly.
Nelson said: “Our focus
must lie in understanding local business needs and getting closer
to local business communities.”
The strengthened
commercial finance team reporting to Nelson now includes 15 people,
all focusing on asset-based lending across a variety of sectors in
London, Birmingham, Reigate and Sale, as part of the company’s
efforts to “serve clients regionally”.
Last year, GE Capital
provided more than £5bn (€6bn) of working capital to UK
companies.
In the first half of
2010, the lender has continued to sign a significant number of
deals, including providing a £17m invoice finance facility to
menswear company Baird Group Limited.
Alongside invoice
financing, the GE-owned lessor now expects to grow its vendor
finance side of the business. It will focus on developing
relationships with existing partners and “exploring new growth
markets”.
These will include
renewable energy financing, with the lessor already becoming
involved in the photovoltaic sector. The company recently partnered
with solar energy company Solarcentury to provide financial
services support for its Solar4Schools programme aimed at
introducing solar power to hundreds of schools across the UK over
the next two years (see GE
Capital backs solar schools).
According to Nelson, both
efforts – strengthening the asset-based lending business and
looking at new markets in vendor finance – are in line with the GE
Capital’s renewed commitment to the SME market.
He said: “While demand
for borrowing from UK SMEs decreased in 2009 and UK companies focus
on de-levering, we question whether existing capacity will be
sufficient to support recovery.”
“GE Capital UK is
actively looking to lend to UK SMEs as we see a structural shift in
how companies fund themselves. We expect companies in the UK to
begin to diversify their funding relationships and we will work as
a partner with our customers to provide asset-based lending
solutions to their financing problems.”
The lessor said it will
work alongside businesses and will help them “overcome immediate
and future growth challenges through the provision of tailored
asset based financial solutions and services”.
