AFE50 survey confirms BNP Paribas’s leadership

The latest edition of the Asset Finance Europe 50 survey, sponsored by Alfa, is the first where the effects of recent major changes at the top of the industry have found their way into the audited and published financial accounts that form the basis of the report.

These include the acquisition of most of Leaseplan by ALD, part of Societe Generale Group, and leading to what is now Ayvens; Credit Agricole’s acquisition of Leaseplan or ALD subsidiaries in six countries, as required by the European Commission for the Leaseplan acquisition to be approved; and Group BPCE’s acquisition of Societe Generale Equipment Finance (SGEF).

The AFE50 measures total business asset finance, including both equipment and fleet finance. On this basis, the clear winner is BNP Paribas, as it is now the only large bank with significant pan-European operations covering both equipment and fleet through Arval. Societe Generale retains its second-place ranking because of Ayvens.

Based on the latest published accounts, it remains unclear whether Group BPCE – including former SGEF – is the largest equipment lessor excluding fleet in Europe.  This is because the accounts were finalised before the completion of the deal, so the value to be transferred was still only an estimate. The situation should become clear in next year’s Asset Finance Europe 50 table.

The overall growth in book sizes of the top 50 firms in 2024 was 2.0% to €349 billion. Lenders’ financial accounts don’t usually show new business volumes, but we can estimate that through a few steps and tie the result to figures published by Leaseurope.

First, the AFE50 covers only the top 50 firms. Taking the UK as an example, the firms included in the Europe 50 account for around 70% of the volume of the firms in the UK50 ranking survey.   The situation varies by country, some are dominated by the Europe 50 firms, others (particularly Germany) have a more diverse range of providers.  But if the 70% figure from the UK is roughly correct, it would suggest the overall book size is around €500 billion.

If book values are around €500 billion, and we assume an average lease duration of 4 years and allow for the effects of discounting of cashflows in the accounts, that would suggest annual new volumes of around €300 billion.

Leaseurope publishes figures for new business, based on data it collects from its member associations across Europe. For 2024 it has reported growth of of 3.1% to €454 billion of new business.  However this includes consumer car leases that are outside of the AFE50 that only covers business leasing, as well as some property leases. Removing those, the B2B equipment and vehicle leasing new business in Europe is likely to be around €320 billion per year, close to the estimate above from the AFE50 of £320 billion.

Whether we look at book sizes or new volumes, it’s clear that growth in 2024 was limited, indeed in real terms the industry at best stood still.  That seems to reflect a combination of factors causing European businesses to defer investing in new assets, including economic uncertainty and the current high cost of investing in electric vehicles.

Limited growth in asset finance is not great news at a time when Europe needs businesses to invest more than ever to improve efficiency and sustainability, but we can only hope that the unprecedented level of policy initiatives in Europe, including the measures under the banners of Competitive Compass and Omnibus simplification measures, will help to boost demand for new business equipment and vehicles.