acquisition of Fortis’ operations in Belgium and Luxembourg, BNP
Paribas Lease Group (BPLG) and Fortis Lease are taking steps to
combine their structures.
A BPLG insider has
confirmed to Leasing Life that a protocol has been signed
between the two companies, but that “now everything has to be
fine-tuned.” He did not expect anything concrete would happen
before mid-December, however.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Fortis’s worldwide presence has been the subject of many changes
in the past couple of years. In 2006/2007, Fortis Lease opened
businesses in eight countries in Central Europe, the Nordics, and
the Far East, but then performed a massive U-turn by closing down
its newly-opened companies in Finland, Hungary, Hong Kong and
Singapore in 2008.
The make-up of the two companies is very different, also. With
fewer than 700 employees, Fortis Lease is a much smaller company
than BPLG, which employs 2,410 people. Yet in 2007, BPLG’s total
business volume was €11.2 billion, against Fortis’ €11.01 billion.
At this point it is unknown whether BNP Paribas intends on keeping
Fortis’ employees.
While BPLG sources
the majority of its business through vendors, Fortis Lease sources
only 5 percent from vendors. The vast majority of its business (47
percent) comes from its parent bank, Fortis.
“Fortis’ model is very different from ours. At the moment we
really don’t know what is going to happen,” said the BPLG employee.
“What is interesting is that Fortis is in some countries where we
are not, and in others where we are; so we’ll see how things
go.”
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By GlobalDataBPLG claims to have 20 percent of the French financial leasing
market, and includes all forms of capital goods and property among
its French offerings.
BPLG provides “own brand” leasing services for other companies,
including forklift-truck manufacturer Manitou, automaker Toyota,
and agricultural machinery supplier Claas.
BPLG has exclusivity agreements with other major firms, too,
including a joint financing venture with manufacturer JCB in the
German, Spanish and Italian markets. Vehicle-fleet leasing is
handled by another subsidiary, Arval.
BNP Paribas said that both BPLG and Arval were number two in
Europe in their respective markets in 2007.
BPLG, Arval, and
further subsidiaries Artegy and Arius form the Equipment Solutions
business unit of BNP Paribas. Overall, the Equipment Solutions unit
showed revenues decreased by 5 percent year-on-year at the end of
Q208, to a value of €284 million, and a 3.4 percent rise in
operating expenses, leading to a 17.1 percent fall in operating
income.
Pre-tax income at Q208 stood at €49 million, a plunge of 52
percent from Q207’s figure of €102 million.
BPLG also has sizeable leasing operations in the UK, and numbers
among its subsidiaries the UFB group of companies, and the
Humberclyde Finance group.
At year end 2007, BPLG’s holdings in the UK reported a sales
turnover of £16.7 million, 6.6 percent below 2006’s year-end total
of £17.8 million. Retained profits for the year totalled £3.2
million, down £463,000 from the year before.
As of the end of 2006, Fortis Lease was strongest in its home
market of Belgium, holding a 27 percent share of the country’s
leasing market.
Also in the Benelux region, Fortis Lease held a 12.5 percent
stake in the Luxembourg market and a 12 percent stake in that of
the Netherlands. The company enjoyed its second-highest market
influence in Switzerland, however, where it provided 15 percent of
all leasing business.
David de Buck was appointed in January as the new CEO of Fortis
Lease, while Tom Joosten is head of international vendor services,
Peter De Neek chief risk officer, and Philippe de Vos its CFO.
Fortis: list of major vendor partners
• Picanol Group
• BARCO
• Pinguely-Haulotte
• Holland Lift
• ECS
• Nashuatec
• SIG
• Samro
• Doosan
• Comexi Group
• Econocom
• Iveco
• Kmec
Jason T Hesse and Fred Crawley
