Greek lessors forge new business opportunities in foreign markets

By Brendan Malkin

While the real estate market has been hit by new tax rules, public sector and energy leasing may offer new hope in a heavily penetrated market.

Ioannis Klokidis, managing director Aspis Leasing SA and Aspis Credit SA, and also president of the Greek Leasing Association, recalls how 25 years ago, when he began his leasing career, Greece was awash with foreign-owned leasing companies. “Now they are nearly all gone,” he remarks. Today there are just three foreign bank-owned leasing companies: Commercial Leasing, owned by Credit Agricole, General Leasing, part of Societe Generale, and BNP Paribas Leasing.
Now, however, it is the turn of the Greek banks and their leasing subsidiaries to turn their attention to new markets. Piraeus Leasing, EFG-Eurobank-Ergasias Leasing, and National Leasing, which is owned by the National Bank of Greece, have been the most active in setting up operations in new markets. Others, however, are showing increasing interest in foreign markets. Aspis Leasing, part of Aspis Bank, for instance, has plans to set up a subsidiary soon in Bulgaria, a country where 41 per cent of leasing business is sourced from the three Greek leasing companies named above.

Pastures new

The move to fresh pastures, a trend which started in 2000 and which over the last four years has been occurring at a faster rate, is an important part of Greek lessors’ strategy. This has partly been caused by the declining number of opportunities available to Greek lessors in their home market. “Expanding to new countries is a large opportunity for Greek lessors as the Greek domestic market is mature, and it is becoming harder to grow there,” says Klokidis. New production in Greek leasing last year totalled €3bn, while credit advances increased year-on-year by €1bn.Total outstandings reached just under €8bn last year, 16 per cent up on year end 2006.
Some attribute the slowdown in Greek leasing to a decline in real estate leasing, which has been caused by tax changes. According to Pelly Papakyriaki, managing director of EFG-Eurobank-Ergasias Leasing, a recent rule change has meant VAT is not deductible on purchases of commercial real estate made by Greek leasing companies. This only applies where the asset being bought is owned by a real estate or manufacturing company. This rule is applicable to lessors, but not to other providers of loans.
This has made real estate leasing far less attractive to customers, although there still exists zero tax on sale and leaseback deals in this sector, says Papakyriaki. She adds: “If we don’t find alternative things to do then the rule change will reduce new production for real estate leasing by 5 to 10 per cent.”
Not all Greek lessors agree that the real estate leasing market is on the decline. Either way, any collapse of real estate leasing could potentially have a disastrous effect on the whole asset finance sector. The percentage of local lessors’ investment in this sector has grown sharply since a recent law change enabled commercial premises to be financed through lease products, and today real estate leasing represents 58 per cent of all leasing in Greece.

Leasing limits

Leasing in Greece has natural limits. A law enacted in 1986 bars ships from being financed by way of leases, rather only by other types of loans, although some yachts and smaller craft are leased. Considering Greek ship owners control the world’s largest fleet, amounting to 28 per cent of global tonnage, and with some 40m tonnes of new capacity in the pipeline, any rule change in favour of ship financing by way of leasing will have a dramatic effect on Greek lessors.
Also, vendor finance business in Greece remains small compared to Western Europe, although international truck dealerships, including MAN, Scania and DAF, offer customers a range of deals provided by a panel of lessors, rather than through the captive finance arrangements common elsewhere in Europe. Only Mercedes-Benz has a captive finance company in Greece, although it has a limited market share.

IT finance

In the IT sector international players such as Dell and Microsoft provide captive finance, although EFG-Eurobank is in talks with Cisco Capital to provide all of its customer financing arrangements in Greece. However, IT financing represents a miniscule proportion of leasing in Greece – around 3 per – and local lessors are not optimistic about future growth. Software leasing has more potential, however. BNP Paribas Leasing, for instance, provides finance to SAP in Greece.
Also, despite continued investment in infrastructure in Greece, combined with a provision of €22bn in EU state aid covering the period 2006 to 2013, the leasing of machinery, which represents 16 per cent of total leasing, declined last year. Ioannis Mavrellos, managing director of Piraeus Leasing, says, however, that in fact machinery leasing is growing but, because of the sharp rise in real estate leasing, then proportionate to the overall leasing market it appears to be contracting. “In absolute terms it has risen,” says Mavrellos.
Meanwhile, however, the foreign leasing arms of Greek banks are thriving. These foreign subsidiaries provide some 9.2 per cent of total new business for Greek leasing companies, and 9 per cent of total outstandings.
The three Greek leasing companies in Bulgaria, EFG Eurobank Leasing, Piraeus Leasing, and Interlease, the local name for Greek company National Leasing, have captured 41 per cent of the local market, and last year transacted a combined total of €625m of new business. These three lessors are also the only Greek lessors in Serbia where they represent 5 per cent of the total market and last year transacted deals worth a total of €32.2m.

Turkish delight

In Turkey, National Leasing has become one of the largest local players, signing a total of €653m of new business in 2007. Combined with EFG Eurobank they represent 8 per cent of the Turkish market. EFG Eurobank, which is planning to follow its parent bank into Russia and then Ukraine, is planning to invest more heavily in Turkey and believes it is a market with lots of potential, particularly as the country’s real estate market leasing is undeveloped, and because it is seeing an upturn in the operating leasing of cars and boats.
Despite Romania being a relatively large market, Greek lessors National Leasing, EFG Eurobank, Piraeus Leasing, Alpha Leasing, Marfin Leasing and Cyprus Leasing represent 28 per cent of the total local market, and last year they transacted around €650m of new business.
Greek lessors are also making their mark elsewhere in Europe with some having opened up recently in Egypt (Piraeus Leasing), Poland (EFG Eurobank Leasing), Albania (Piraeus Leasing and EFG Eurobank Leasing), and earlier this year Cyprus Leasing launched a subsidiary in Russia. It is early days for all of these, but they are keen to scale-up and continue their march to new territories.

Home soil

It is not just, however, foreign opportunities available to Greek lessors. Changes are afoot at home, too. Some lessors report that leasing to local authorities is strong, particularly for car and waste related assets. Others say they are leasing heavily to health providers, although these figures do not appear separately in Greek Leasing Association statistics. Not all Greek lessors lease to the public sector, however, so it appears to be early days in the development of this market. Also, it is not possible to lease to central government, although, according to Mavrellos, this rule is currently under review.
Another is that some Greek lessors’ plan to invest in new asset types, particularly in the energy sector. If they do so then the average deal size will grow with it as many energy transactions are between €10m and €15m in value. Mavrellos referred to corporate jet leasing, a tiny market at present, as also having good potential.
Also, government plans to make operating leasing more widely available could transform the marketplace which, at present, except for cars and a small number of broadly undeveloped sectors, such as film finance, is dominated by finance leasing. The Central Bank of Greece has investigated the possibility of opening up operating leasing to new assets and, according to Klokidis, it will define the “extent the scope of the finance leasing companies to offer as well operating leasing under separate accounts”.
Lessees might have good reason to sign operating leases as such deals can be off-balance sheet. Also, the 250 or so Greek companies that have signed international accounting standards can apply these rules in respect of their leases. It is believed that it will be most widely used in the leasing of medical and construction equipment. However, there are “huge obstacles” to the application of operating leasing in real estate, says Klokidis.
Trucks look set to continue to be funded through finance lease as to get an operating lease license costs an operator hefty sums, ranging from €86,000 for a truck,€70,000 for coaches, and €300,000 for petrol transporting trucks. There are proposals to reverse this, although it is expected they will take anywhere between three and seven years to come into force.
It is important now for Greek lessors to look for new business in Greece. Opportunities abound, but in the longer term the real growth potential can probably best be achieved by expanding into new territories.

KEY FACTS ON EFG EUROBANK LEASING
Ranking: Number one in Greece for new business and volumes for the last seven years
Staff number: Greece: 69 Foreign subsidiaries: 150
Market share: 20%
Outstanding balances (year end 2007): €1.5bn
Asset breakdown: Real estate (70%), vehicles (12%), machinery and equipment (18%)
Number of customers: 5,500
New business volume (2007): €539m
Countries of operation: Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and Poland
Plans for 2008: Enhancing business relations with vendors, creation of additional subsidiaries so it is based in the same countries as its parent, development of new facilities for customers

πηγή: LEASING LIFE – The Journal for Asset Finance (June 2008, Vol. 15, No 177)