Bulgarian Leasing Market To Maintain Strong Growth Despite Global Crisis – Industry Official

“In 2009 growth is expected to be lower than in the previous two to four years but it will be still too high compared to the growth registered in Central and Eastern Europe. I think it will not be less than around 30%,” UniCredit Leasing CEO Plamen Minev told SeeNews on the sidelines of a signing ceremony for an 80 million euro ($100 million) loan deal with the European Investment Bank (EIB).

Some Bulgarian leasing companies have slowed down their financing operations in the past month due to the financial crisis as businesses have started to curtail their capital spending plans, Minev told the signing ceremony.

“My previous forecast was that the growth in 2008 will be the same as in 2007: 50% in terms of claims under new lease agreements,” Minev told SeeNews.

“For the first nine months this forecast has come true. I expect a certain slowdown in the last quarter as a result of the financial crisis but it will be insignificant, so generally, I expect my forecast for the whole year to come true.”

Claims under new lease agreements in Bulgaria grew by 49% on the year to 1.1 million levs ($709 million/562 million euro) in the third quarter of 2008. Total assets of Bulgarian leasing companies rose to 6.7 billion levs at the end of September, up 74.5% from a year earlier, according to Bulgarian central bank data.

UniCredit Leasing had 254.4 million euro in claims under new lease contracts at the end of 2008, up 93% from a year earlier. Its portfolio accounts for over 15% of Bulgarian leasing market.

(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)