Small-ticket IT lessor, Grenke Group notched up a 10.7 per cent
increase in new business as it closed its books for 2007.
In a statement released January 3, Grenke said inclusive of
business by its franchise partners, the group generated €509m in
newly purchased leasing assets and factoring volume against €409m
reported in 2006. Excluding factoring activities, Grenke wrote
€460.4m in new leasing assets
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Grenke will release its full year audited results on February
1.
The rise in new business was in line with expectations and comes
as a result of a traditionally strong fourth quarter, the
Baden-Baden based financial group said.
Contribution margin (CM) 1 – used as a measure of the
profitability of new business – for the leasing operations met the
group’s target of 10 per cent at €47.1m compared with €45.5m in
2006. CM2 amounted to €65.1m, up 7.2 per cent from 2006.
The profit margin for its factoring business of €48.8m was 2.25
per cent.
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By GlobalDataIn a breakdown of its new business performance by region and
activity, the German market contributed €301.8m, or close to
three-fifths of total new business, while the remainder of €207.4m
came from international markets.
Although Germany remained the group’s top earner, it was the
rest of Europe which posted an impressive growth in new business of
27.1 per cent.
This raised total international share of new business to 40.7
per cent from 35.5 per cent in 2006. In contrast, new business from
Germany only rose a marginal 1.7 per cent. Much of the foreign
market growth came from France which contributed almost half of
total international new business.
“France is the first foreign market where we exceeded €100m in
new business and generated new business volume of €102.8m,” Grenke
said.
CM2 from the international segment increased by 32.6 per cent,
reflecting a highly dynamic trend, the group added.
Of the six main European markets in which Grenke has a presence
in leasing, either through direct interests or franchisees,
Switzerland bucked the growth trend, reporting a 6.5 per cent fall
in new business from leasing. In the second half of the year, the
Swiss market grew 10.2 per cent, offsetting some of the decline
reported in the first half.
“In line with our expectations we closed 2007 with growth in new
business volume exceeding 10 per cent,” said Dr Uwe Hack, chief
financial officer of GrenkeLeasing AG. “We outperformed the
expected industrial sector growth of 9.5 per cent forecast by the
German Leasing Association (BDL). This success becomes even more
obvious considering that the BDL expects a decline of 1 per cent in
the office equipment and IT segment.”
GrenkeLeasing AG’s stock price gained 3.8 per cent on January 3
to close at €23.48 on the Frankfurt SDAX from the previous day’s
close of €22.62.
