Lisbon / Bad Homburg, 11 June 2010. Last year, Germany exported goods for a total of € 808 billion according to preliminary data of the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden. Some three-quarters of the goods “Made in Germany” went to other European countries. The second-most important sales market was Asia accounting for some 14% of German exports followed by the Americas at about 10%. Machinery remains Germany’s core export with 15% value share of the total.

Germany’s market leader in manufacturer-independent leasing and Europe’s fifth-largest asset finance provider, Deutsche Leasing Group (DL) consequently focuses on Germany’s prime export: machinery. Deutsche Leasing’s foreign network covers all major export markets of German industry and can thus optimally serve German SMEs in their ventures abroad.

"Our success factors are a tightly woven network of foreign subsidiaries in 22 countries with central contact partners in Germany and local specialists in the respective countries," says Hans-Michael Heitmüller, Deutsche Leasing’s CEO, at the group’s international press conference in Lisbon, Portugal. This allows Deutsche Leasing to offer its business partners sales financing solutions for a single product as well as global solutions for global players. Our figures show that this is a winning concept: Our 430 employees abroad realised for our clients business investment projects totalling some € 1.4 billion in fiscal 2008/09 (ended 30 September) and our foreign business portfolio came to € 2.7 billion overall as of the same date.

Foreign business is an integral part of our Deutsche Leasing 2018 strategy. Proceeding from DL’s corporate strategy, we have evolved our foreign business strategy.

Deutsche Leasing Group’s foreign business strategy rests on four distribution pillars:
1. Vendor business where Dl provides German and international capital goods manufacturers with sales financing for valuable business assets remains a core activity,
2. German desk business where DL provides business investment finance to German companies, especially savings bank clients, in foreign markets covered by DL subsidiaries will help us realise business potential through our close cooperation with the savings banks,
3. IT business where DL serves its German direct clients and key partners in their business investments abroad through our foreign subsidiaries plays a key role, and
4. Local direct business where Dl serves select foreign customers in financing valuable assets is the fourth mainstay. This activity has grown over time and mainly involves revolving business with established customers in Eastern Europe and new clients with solid recommendations.

While Deutsche Leasing has mostly pursued a policy of building a broad international presence in recent years and constantly established new foreign subsidiaries, we are now shifting our emphasis to cultivating global vendor business and activities with a German connection going forward; particularly focussing on foreign activities of German SMEs and savings bank customers. By serving more German IT customers in their activities abroad, Deutsche Leasing also supports Sparkassen Finanzgruppe’s foreign business strategy.
To successfully build our foreign business, Deutsche Leasing Group will continue to control its activities abroad according to earnings and risk parameters. To this end, we will fine-tune our internal controlling instruments. We will continue adjusting our foreign network to flow of goods and demand structures. This allows us to reinforce our relations with existing vendor partners and win new ones.

Deutsche Leasing Group
Deutsche Leasing Group (DL) has about 50 years of experience in business investment finance and serves as Sparkassen Finanzgruppe’s Centre of Leasing Excellence. DL’s mission is to realise our clients’ investment ideas and develop solutions custom-tailored to help our clients face their business challenges ahead. Our staff has extensive expertise in leasing and financing moveable objects, real estate, and intangible assets serving our clients and partners on location in 22 countries across the globe.