The Bulgarian leasing industry, which
seemed for a while as if it would maintain growth despite the
global recession, seems finally to have run out of steam.
Whereas the country’s total lease book stood
at €2.9 billion at the close of March, 39 percent up year-on-year,
the figure represented a 1.6 percent drop from December’s peak, and
a drastic deceleration from the nation’s final-quarter 2008
inter-annual growth rate of 60 percent. Worse yet, the default rate
in this troubled national portfolio has soared from €49 million
last quarter to a positively brutal €249 million, demonstrating an
increase of 500 percent.
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At least the industry has managed to outpace
Bulgaria’s GDP, of which leasing business now makes up 8.6 percent,
and which looks to have suffered an interquartile battering of
between 3 and 4 percent.
This bleak pronouncement was made in a
preliminary statement by Economy Minister Petar Dimitrov at the
opening of the Plovdiv international fair, and represents twice the
decline feared by macroeconomists.
Leasing association chairman Teodor Marinov
commented: “We have got no reason to stop worrying, but I do not
expect any further deterioration in the second quarter of 2009.
March has been the peak. We could expect growth in transport
leasing in one year, and after 18 months in equipment leasing.”
Meanwhile, UniCredit’s Bulgarian CEO Levon
Hampartsumian was more relaxed.
He said: “This is normal. The meltdown caused
a number of sectors to close – construction, transport, heavy
industries, etc. We could expect a return to growth in December
2009. Though the rise in defaults is causing anxiety, it is normal
in times of crisis.”
Bulgarian yacht leasing, too, has taken a
drubbing, with businessmen in Burgas on the Black Sea coast giving
up leased yachts as they wallow in financial loss.
In 2008, leading Bulgarian lessor Hypo Leasing
financed more than 100 luxury yachts worth €45 million, but may
soon be looking to write-off a portion of that book as boomtime
wealth deserts Bulgaria.
Fred Crawley
