In brief

Acquis Insurance Management, a specialist insurance provider for asset finance and equipment leasing companies, has appointed Kamil Sokolowski as business development manager, Poland, the company has announced.

“Kamil brings a wealth of experience within the Polish asset finance market. In a career spanning 20 years, Kamil has held senior positions in Citigroup, Société Générale Equipment Leasing, PKO Leasing SA and Siemens Finance Poland, with a strong track record in both sales and relationship management,” the company said in a press release.

US-based CSI Leasing, one of the world’s largest independent equipment leasing companies, has expanded its Asia-Pacific operations by opening a subsidiary in Japan.

This expansion follows the recent launch of CSI Leasing India in November 2020. The company has seven leasing subsidiaries in the Asia-Pacific region and operates in more than 40 countries worldwide.

The new entity, CSI Leasing Japan KK, will immediately begin servicing CSI’s portfolio of global customers with subsidiaries in Japan, and will also seek new business with companies headquartered there, the company said.

Arbuthnot Commercial ABL, the asset-based lending division of Arbuthnot Latham, has reached £300m (€350m) of facilities deployed within three years of its launch.

The figure represents total facilities deployed for 66 mid-size SME clients since the business launched in May 2018.

In the last 12 months, Arbuthnot Commercial ABL has completed a total of £138m of transactions ranging from acquisitions to management buy-ins, MBOs and corporate carve-outs for businesses, the company said.

Ed Rimmer, interim chief executive at Time Finance, has been confirmed as its permanent chief executive with immediate effect. Having previously held the position of CEO until April 2020, Rimmer was reappointed as interim CEO three months ago.

The company said Rimmer “brings with him a wealth of experience having built a highly credible career over 25 years, and boasts a strong commercial, financial and operational track record in financial services”.

Total asset finance new business – primarily leasing and hire purchase – grew by 80% in April 2021 compared with the same month in 2020, according to new figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA).

In the first four months of 2021, new business was 15% higher than in the same period in 2020, the FLA found.

The commercial vehicle finance sector reported new business up by 140% in April compared with the same month in 2020.

The Maples Group has expanded its Irish legal services offering in Asia with the launch of a new Irish asset finance practice in Singapore.

The new Irish practice has been established to support aviation clients who increasingly require multi-jurisdictional and time zone-sensitive legal advice on the ground in Asia.

This is the group’s fifth international location, offering Irish legal advice with Irish lawyers based in its Cayman Islands, Ireland, London, Hong Kong and Singapore offices.

Brendan Gleeson, former group CEO at White Clarke Group, has accepted an executive leadership role with IDS as its newly created chief strategy officer.

The move comes in the wake of IDS‘s acquisition of White Clarke Group which has created “the world’s largest provider of secured finance technology for equipment, automotive, and working capital finance sectors” according to a press release.

Gleeson will play a strategic role in identifying industry and technology trends and translating them into strategic insights, the company said.

Global vendor finance company De Lage Landen (DLL) has entered into a partnership with Mitsubishi Logisnext Europe (MLE), part of Mitsubishi Logisnext, a provider of logistics and materials handling.

The collaboration will adopt the name Logisnext Financial Services.

Mitsubishi Logisnext Europe was created in April 2020, as a result of the integration of Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift Europe and UniCarriers Europe, and has a multi-brand strategy with brands such as Mitsubishi Forklift Trucks, Cat Lift Trucks, TCM, UniCarriers and Rocla AGV.

Grenke AG, a provider of leasing for European SMEs, generated a net profit of €14m in the first quarter of 2021 (Q1 2020: €19.7m) despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the German-based lessor said in a statement.

The cost-income ratio was 51.2% (Q1 2020: 43.7%) and exceeded the full-year target of below 50%. This is mainly due to the extraordinary consulting and audit costs of €6.7m for the first quarter as a result of special audits, Grenke said.

Richmond Group, a London-based specialist outsourcing company for the leasing sector, has unveiled two cloud-based services for equipment and auto finance providers.

The company’s pay-per-use offerings will either adapt to the user’s existing back-office systems or “use our preferred software partners’ systems for additional cost savings”, the company said.

The Move to Improve service will allow users “an opportunity to offer clients further large cost and efficiency savings”, the company said.