Investigators have announced that rolling stock lessors may be
over-charging their customers. The statement was made by the
Competition Commission which is six months into an
investigation into the rolling stock leasing market. Chairman of
the CC’s rolling stock inquiry group, Diana Guy, said “In a
situation where customers have few alternatives, then there is a
possibility that prices could be higher than those in a
well-functioning market. As part of our consideration of this issue
we will be carrying out a detailed analysis of the rolling stock
companies’ profitability.”
Go deeper with GlobalData
Access deeper industry intelligence
Experience unmatched clarity with a single platform that combines unique data, AI, and human expertise.
Deutsche up 24%
Deutsche Leasing Group has reported a 24 per cent increase in
new business written for the financial year ended September 30
2007, bringing total new business to €7.8bn. Deutsche Leasing also
said cross-border leasing deals surpassed the €1bn benchmark for
the first time. Deutsche Leasing kept an optimistic new business
growth target of 10 per cent to 11 per cent for 2008, citing a
robust and growing market for equipment leasing in Germany.
Fast growth
Henry Howard Finance, the UK lessor which has capitalised on the
back of green leasing opportunities and which has seen its sales
grow an average of 121 per cent each year since 2004, is ranked
21st . in the Sunday Times’ just published list of the UK’s fastest
growing companies. Equipment and software refinancing specialist,
Capital Solutions Group (CSG), is the 25th fastest growing UK
company with sales growth of 112.3 per cent over the past three
years.
Poultry financing
State Securities has structured a deal to provide a
stage-payments finance package totalling £450,000 for a
newly-acquired poultry company, Naik Halal Poultry Ltd, a company
that disposes of non-egg laying poultry from around the UK in
accordance with Halal requirements. State devised a tailored
re-finance package which included reduced payments for the first
six months while the company re-established its customer base.
P&CF growth
Private & Commercial Finance Group’s profit before tax
increased to £0.43m (2006: (£0.1m) for the six months ended 30
September 2007. Robert Murray, managing director of the group’s
business finance division, said group turnover increased by 26 per
cent to £23.4m (2006: £18.6m) and the portfolio of receivables now
exceeds £134m – a growth of 23 per cent during the period. Over
£22m of unearned income in portfolios is to be released over the
next three to four years (31 March 2007: £16.9m).
