SPECIALIZED FINANCING REVEALS DECREASES IN 3RD QUARTER

The evolution of specialized financing in the first nine months of the year followed the behavior of the Portuguese economy, with a contraction in production resulting from restrictions on activity in some sectors and the climate of uncertainty, with an impact on investment and productive capacity. This is the conclusion of the Portuguese Association of Leasing, Factoring and Renting (ALF), which has just presented the accumulated data for the 3rd quarter of 2020 of the sectors it represents.

 

The Factoring sector in the first nine months of the year registered a decrease in turnover of 8.4%, compared to the same period in 2019, with ALF members taking 22.7 billion euros in invoices.

Domestic Factoring fell by 9.0% in comparison with the same period of the previous year, reaching 10.8 billion euros in turnover. In the case of Confirming (a payment management service aimed at facilitating business between companies and suppliers, who may request advance payments), there was a 2.5% downturn in activity, with an accumulated value of 9.1 billion euros.

In International Factoring, the Export segment represented 2.6 billion euros in turnover, which means a decrease of 22.7% compared to the same period in 2019, and the Import segment registered a production of 141.9 million euros, contracting 3.7%.

In the period under review, the volume of investment made through Leasing reached more than 1.6 billion euros, 26.5% less than between January and September 2019 - the year in which it reached 2.3 billion euros in investments.

Until the end of September 2020, the Financial Leasing of Movable Assets observed an investment of almost 1.2 billion euros, showing a drop of 29.5%, compared with the same period in this segment. Of this total, 745 million Euros were invested in the acquisition of 21,663 light vehicles (572 million) and 2,153 heavy vehicles (173 million). Equipment Leasing registered 5,932 new contracts, in a total amount of 395 million Euros.

Real Estate Financial Leasing was responsible for total investments of 497 million Euros in real estate, marking an 18.5% drop. Companies and public entities, representing a value of 432 million Euros, signed 87% of the total Real Estate Leasing contracts (1,111).

Renting results show a 23.2% drop in the number of vehicles acquired in the first 9 months of the year, totaling 19,699 new light vehicles, of which 15,949 were passenger cars and 3,750 commercial vehicles. In terms of production value, there was a total investment of 400 million Euros, resulting in a 22.6% drop when compared to the same period last year.

The fleet managed by the Renting companies totalized 119,122 vehicles at the end of the 3rd quarter (93,524 passenger cars and 25,598 commercial vehicles), a slight reduction of 0.2%, and representing a value of 1.9 billion Euros, which results in a growth of 2.2% when compared to the previous year.

 

"These results reveal a retraction in the Leasing, Factoring and Renting sectors, derived from the contraction of national and international economic activity. We are in a fragile moment of recovery and any forecast at this stage will be very uncertain, although the resume of some relative normalization has already started. The evolution of the specialized financing sector is not unrelated to the resilience that the companies have demonstrated and has contributed and collaborated to continue to make their services available, without interruptions of operation," says ALF's president, Alexandre Santos, pointing out that "ALF’s members will continue to play a key role in the recovery process of national companies”.

 NEWS