UniCredit sets out to dominate market

Four months into the year, UniCredit Leasing has already closed contracts worth over 140 million euros. UniCredit Leasing Corporation, the company formed as a result of the merger between UniCredit Leasing and HVB Leasing, estimates that this year it will take control of the leasing market, after the two separate entities had occupied the second and third positions on the market.
“This is the year when we will prove that we can dominate the market from the very top, even in a year of post-merger consolidation,” Septimiu Postelnicu, general manager of UniCredit Leasing Corporation, told ZF. HVB Leasing and UniCredit Leasing merged at the end of last year, when the Italian financial group UniCredit acquired HVB.
Postelnicu says the year started with a surge in the value of new contracts.
“We started this year at full throttle, and four months in, we have closed contracts worth over 140 million euros, a significant increase on previous years,” said Postelnicu.
According to Postelnicu, one cannot compare the performance of the new leasing company and the results cumulated by HVB Leasing and UniCredit Leasing over the first four months of last year, given that UniCredit Leasing Corporation has a new functional structure of products and services. Real estate leasing for companies is the dominant segment of the company’s activity. “One of the reasons that corporate real estate leasing is markedly ahead of other segments lies in the projects UniCredit Leasing Corporation undertook at the beginning of 2007,” added Postelnicu.
The focus of UniCredit Leasing Corporation on real estate leasing supports the general trend of the Romanian leasing market. This is typified by a concentration on this market segment and on equipment leasing, to the detriment of the car-leasing segment, which accounted for 80% of total funding three years ago.