Julian Rose asks: “Where do UK companies fit in the European leasing industry?”

One reason is that data for many UK lessors is already included in their European parents’ figures, including Societe Generale (the top ranking firm in Europe), ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, Caterpillar, Deutsche Leasing, De Lage Landen, RCI and Siemens. Perhaps there are concerns about confidentiality – although league tables are common across other parts of the UK financial sector. Beyond that, it might simply be that not everyone is aware of the survey and how to participate in it.

Asset Finance Policy wondered what the rankings would look like if more UK lessors were to participate. We dug out the latest publicly available annual reports of some UK lessors and estimated their total new asset finance business in 2013.

Unless new business figures were available directly in the accounts, we took the leasing receivables, multiplied by 1.2 to convert to euros, and divided by three as a rough stab at the ratio of new business to receivables.  This approach is likely to overstate new business volumes for banks with large big-ticket portfolios in run-off and understate volumes for faster-growing funders.

Here are the results of this “back-of-the-envelope” analysis using only publicly-available data (so missing some lessors where we couldn’t track down the reports). In each case the position shown is where that lessor would slot into the Leaseurope new business rankings.

Who’s missing from the Leaseurope top 60 rankings?

It appears that at least 10 (and probably several more) UK-based lessors should be part of the Leaseurope top 60 rankings.

Perhaps in the next survey some more UK firms will take part. There’s no charge, and those participating get to see extra tables showing equipment finance only (the rankings shown here include both business and consumer car finance as well as business equipment leases) and outstandings. See the Leaseurope website for details.

Julian Rose is the founder of Asset Finance Policy Ltd, previously he was Head of Asset Finance at the UK Finance & Leasing Association. www.assetfinancepolicy.co.uk