Total new leasing volumes in the first quarter of 2014 were up 9.5% on the same period last year, according to Leseurope’s quarterly survey of 17 lessors in the European market.
The first quarter of 2014 marks the thirteenth edition of the survey and shows new leasing volumes totalled 16bn for the respondents.
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The number of outstanding contracts declined 2.4% compared to the first quarter of 2013, while risk-weighted assets fell by 11.4%.
Total pre-tax profit increased by 16% for the 17 respondents, compared to the first quarter of 2013, despite some firms continuing to make a loss.
Profitability also increased from 31.6% to 32.7% in the same period, but Leaseurope warned of high dispersion of profitability ratio quartile values within the sample.
Operating income also increased by 3.2% for the firms considered. Expenses fell by 0.8%, boosting the average cost/income ratio to 45.3% for the first quarter of 2014, one of the lowest values witnessed since the establishment of the index.
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By GlobalDataLoan loss provisions also fell by 7.3%, compared to the first three months of 2013, marking the first decline since 2012. Average annualised cost of risk maintained the relatively low level witnessed during the first quarter of 2013, at 0.7%.
Corrado Piazzalunga, chief executive officer of Italian leasing giant UniCredit Leasing, commented that the figures marked the first significant recovery across all indicators in recent years.
"Q1 2014 has proven to be a very strong quarter for the European leasing industry, with substantial improvements on 2013," he said,"Return on equity is particularly positive, clearly reflecting leasing’s high degree of capital efficiency."
"Although improvements are definitely being seen, new business volumes have yet to recover as fully as the financial KPIs,"Piazzalunga warned, but raised an optimistic outlook for the rest of the year.
"As EU economic conditions continue to improve, and domestic demand recovers, I expect leasing will continue to go from strength to strength," he said.
