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As Leasing Life celebrates this month with the
publication of its 200th issue, Fred Crawley provides a guided tour
of the way things were at issue one, back in 1993, and how things
have changed.
“This month’s transaction chronicle suggests there really is
still life in the leasing industry. Leasing Life has been
launched to reflect that life and to be a forum for European
leasing’s interests, hopes and concerns. It is your publication,
please use it to express your views. Future issues may be slimmer,
but the editorial philosophy will remain constant.”
These words, written in September
1993, launched this magazine into an industry that had suffered
through recession, and had come out looking to reaffirm its
identity and culture in uncertain times.
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By GlobalDataMore than 16 years later,
Leasing Life runs at twice size of its early issues, but
has a lot more to cover. Despite reeling from a recession that has
dwarfed the downturn of the early 1990s, Europe’s lessors wrote
around €300 billion of business last year, compared to just over
£50 billion in 1993.
Leasing has not only
increased in size – it has also become part of a much wider
financial world. While early issues of Leasing Life were
dominated by large rail and plane deals, these sectors now take a
back seat as leasing has become an integral and prominent part of
Europe’s wider commercial finance industry.
But what has happened to the
culture of leasing during all this expansion?
The first profile Leasing
Life published was that of Fritz Peter, founder of Leaseurope
and a leasing company director since the 1950s.
When asked his opinions on the
future of leasing he replied: “I think it is suffering from having
the big banks as shareholders. It risks losing its pioneering
spirit.
“Clearly it is vulnerable
concerning losses, but its future is still bright – providing the
industry is willing to work hard and insists on its special
character.”
Clearly, bank-owned leasing is an
irreversible reality by this stage. Independent lessors are fewer
with each year that passes, and even the subsidiary businesses of
banks are being pulled more closely into the management and systems
of their parents.
But that does not mean the spirit
of the leasing industry must be diluted.
ING Lease CEO John Howland Jackson,
speaking on the role of leasing in European banking at Leasing
Life’s annual conference in Berlin last year, made one thing
very clear despite his message of integration: “We must be
extremely careful not to bury its qualities in banking.”
Leasing Life will keep broadcasting the voice of this
industry within the wider world of finance. It remains your
publication, and will continue to report on the business of
leasing, wherever it is being done.
