Leasing worth 873m euros in nine months

The leasing contracts concluded in the first nine months this year have come to total 873.5 million euros, close to the full-year level in 2002.

“Unfortunately, the growth from last year was mainly based on the vehicle leasing which I think is at its peak now,” said Cornel Coca Constantinescu, chairman of the Association of Leasing Companies in Romania (ASLR). Under the circumstances, the leasing contracts might be worth less than the 1.5bn euros estimated early in the year, ASLR chairman feels.

“The other segments, such as the equipment or real estate leasing have not grown as much as we expected them to,” the ASLR official added. This does not necessarily mean those segments have not moved at all. “The growth of the vehicle segment was due to commercial and utility vehicles. Real estate leasing increased, as well, even though we are not talking a very high value here,” Dan E. Stoica, ASLR deputy chairman said. Real estate leasing accounted for less than 1% of the total leasing contracts last year only to reach 1.7% nine months through this year.

However, vehicle leasing continues to be number one. ASLR statistics show more than 91% of the total leasing contracts were those concluded for vehicles, with cars totalling over 97%.

Industrial equipment stands for 5.5% of the total leasing contracts concluded in Romania this year. Things will change, though, ASLR officials feel, as soon as the draft to modify the law regulating the operation of the leasing companies in Romania is enacted so that the market could amount to the 4-5bn euro a year estimated by analysts in this field. “I hope the changes get through by yearend,” Stoica added.

ASLR chairman says the changes will first of all allow refining the definition of the financial and operational leasing concept. “Financial leasing has caught on in Romania, but the operational leasing was not that attractive, largely because of the much less clear definition in the legislation,” Constantinescu explained. He specified the proposed changes to the leasing law would help refine the definition of the financial and operational leasing concepts, as well as of certain specific terms, such as crossborder leasing, buy-back or lease-back. “

“The leasing companies must be assimilated to lending institutions. We believe leasing companies should at first increase their share capital from the at least 500 million ROL at the moment to a minimum of 4bn ROL, that is about 100,000 euros,” ASLR chairman added.

He also said Europe was currently debating the introduction of certain regulations binding leasing companies to have at least 1 million euros in share capital. ASLR data show there are 7,500 companies dealing in leasing in

Romania at the moment, but only 100 of them are actually operational.

“I don’t think any of the major or even lesser operators will be affected by this capital modification,” ASLR chairman said. ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro