Richard Carter
Head of HSBC Equipment
Finance
Richard
Carter was appointed to head-up HSBC Equipment Finance (HEF) in
April of this year, having previously been in charge of many of
HSBC Commercial Banking’s back office operations, including hire
purchase and leasing.
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At the time of Carter’s arrival, the
business was in the midst of implementing a totally new operating
system in a turbulent market, but initial results have been
outstanding.
As of September 2009, HEF has a
profit before tax position 56 percent up year-on-year, and is
running within budget. Full-year profit before tax is expected to
be up 75 percent on 2008.
The business has been focused on
ensuring a greater share of HSBC capital for the HP/leasing needs
of HSBC customers, as well as looking for ways to secure new
banking relationships through lease offerings. Carter has
strengthened HEF’s structured finance business led by Bill Cuff,
and made equipment finance structures available to customers which
have found regular lending to be either closed or priced out of
reach.
He also quickly implemented a broker
policy that formalised existing arrangements, as well as clarifying
expectations and compliance requirements for new relationships.
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By GlobalDataIn addition the credit and risk
teams were merged, and asset management strategies have been
further developed.
Carter has brought to HEF his deep
knowledge of HSBC’s general banking activities, as well as an
impressive business card library built up during his time in
Scotland, the North of England and HSBC’s trade finance
business.
Carter is also keen to play his part
in the wider leasing community – he has participated in a round
table discussion and is a member of the Senior Executives FLA
forum. However, with so much happening at HEF at present, time has
been limited so far.
Vahid Daemi
CEO of LeasePlan
Corporation
Although
Lease-Plan’s philosophy is not to highlight the performance of one
specific staff member, the company’s recent accomplishments were
clearly linked with the management of its CEO, Vahid Daemi.
With a ‘stable’ portfolio of €14
billion at the end of June 2009 (unchanged from last year), the
lessor reported a net profit of €61 million for the period.
This was a significant fall against
first-half of 2008’s equivalent figure, but still above many of its
competitors, and quite exceptional in the struggling car and van
leasing sector.
According to Daemi, LeasePlan’s
results were “negatively affected by the current economic
conditions that led to unprecedented losses in the remarketing of
end of contract vehicles across the world”.
However, he said he was “pleased”
with the performance, given the difficult wider economic
conditions.
His strategy is now to continue to
focus on maintaining margins instead of growth, which he said
helped LeasePlan “maintain the value of our lease portfolio in a
contracting market, reconfirming and reinforcing our global
leadership position”.
Daemi has been CEO of LeasePlan
since 2006 and a member of the fleet management company’s managing
board since 1998, and is well known for his in-depth knowledge of
the fleet and vehicle management business.
Rüdiger von Fölkersamb
Chairman of Leaseurope;
Vice-president of BDL – German leasing association; Board member of
Deutsche Leasing
Since his appointment in 2001 to Deutsche
Leasing’s board of directors, Rüdiger von Fölkersamb has driven the
much-vaunted internationalisation of the business. Today, Deutsche
Leasing has subsidiaries in 19 European countries as well as in
Canada, China, and the US, and is the biggest independent leasing
company in Germany.
Von Fölkersamb is vice-president of
the German Leasing Association (BDL), a member of the board of
trustees of the China Institute in Frankfurt, a member of the
advisory board of the German-Asian Business Circle, and a member of
the International Banker Forum, also based in Frankfurt,
Germany.
For three years, von Fölkersamb has
also sat on the board of Leaseurope, where last year he succeeded
John Bennett as chairman of the federation. His central task has
been to strengthen the representative voice of Europe’s leasing and
automotive rental industries in Brussels and further afield.
He has drawn political focus to the
many regulatory challenges currently faced by the industry,
including inter alia lease accounting, taxation, block exemption
review, truck rental market liberalisation, enforcement of
cross-border fines and the implementation of the Insurance
Mediation Directive.
In addition, since 2001, von
Fölkersamb has lectured in business administration, first at the
Technical University of Munich, and more recently at the
universities of Suzhou and Xi'an, both in China.
The University of Applied Science
for Medium Enterprises in Bielefeld, Germany, recently awarded him
the title of honorary professor. Von Fölkersamb this year published
the book “Finanzdienstleistungen für den Mittelstand” [Financial
Services for SMEs].
Roman Ivanenko
General manager of Euro Leasing;
Chairman and founder of the Ukrainian Union of Lessors
Association
As well as
running a growing leasing company, Roman Ivanenko has been
instrumental in the transformation over recent years of the
Ukrainian leasing sector.
Thanks to his efforts, the sector
has seen a decrease in fraud, has become the subject of self
regulation, is subject to fair taxation and accountancy systems,
and has also won considerable credibility in the minds of the wider
financial services market. Furthermore, he has helped to put
leasing on the map in his native Ukraine.
All this followed his founding of
the country’s first ever leasing association – the Ukrainian Union
of Lessors Association – back in 2005. Today, the association is
the only authoritative representative of the leasing industry, and
represents nearly 80 percent of the market, and has continued to
support the industry right up to the present day.
In March this year, for instance,
the association, along with the State Committee for Financial
Markets Regulation, published the results of unique research into
the state of the Ukrainian leasing market, and also provided a
ranking of the top 10 players in the sector.
Ivanenko achieved this while also
running three finance companies: Euro Leasing, Ukraine’s
sixth-largest lessor; Budget Ukraine Rental Company; and Auto
Finance LLC. In addition, as well as drafting new leasing laws for
Ukraine, he has recently drawn-up a guide on how Ukrainian lessors
can withstand the effects of the recession.
Bulent Tasar
Chairman of FIDER –Turkish Leasing
Association; Chief executive officer of Siemens Financial Services
Turkey
Known as “the voice of Turkish leasing”, Bulent Tasar is
another strong contender for leasing personality of the year.
In addition to being the CEO of
Siemens Financial Services’ Turkish business, a position which he
has held for 12 years, since establishment. Additionally, Tasar is
the chairman of FIDER, the national leasing association, whose
members represent 90 percent of Turkey’s total leasing
business.
As chairman of FIDER, Tasar has
lobbied extremely hard for the Turkish government to repeal the
leasing tax rate, which rose from 1 percent to 18 percent in 2008,
crippling Turkish lessors. This quickly met with success as, soon
after the first representations to government were made, the
Turkish government made some concessions, including lowering VAT
levies to 8 percent for construction and production machines.
Before becoming the chief executive
at Siemens Financial Services in Turkey, Tasar was a board member
of Siemens Financial Services in Poland and Hungary, and East
region sales head for the German lessor for seven years.
Prior to joining Siemens, Tasar
established and managed local Turkish lessors such as Vakif Leasing
and Rant Leasing. He was awarded the Banking Award of Turkey in
1991.
