Leasing companies sell thousands of repossessed goods
Leasing companies are trying to resell thousands of goods repossessed from clients that could no longer pay their instalments, with offers ranging from cars and lorries to yachts, villas, kitchen ovens and equipment for beauty salons.
Since the beginning of this year, financing companies have been
faced with a wave of goods repossessions, especially cars that now
sit in car parks all day and wait for buyers.
"The number of repossessions is currently down, and companies have
'cleaned up' their client portfolios somewhat. For non-specialised
companies like us, cars dominate the offer of repossessed goods.
Clients that could not pay their instalments tend to be small and
medium-sized enterprises, which act in a chain reaction: if the
construction company goes down, so does the distributor of
construction materials, and so on," says Claudiu Stanescu, general
manager of BCR Leasing, the second-largest company on the leasing
market at the end of last year.
The company set up a specialised website dedicated to resales, with
its offer of repossessed goods including no less than 430 cars,
lorries, various equipment and ATVs.
An ATV, for instance, costs between 1,900 and 3,000 euros, and the
cheapest car, a Chevrolet Spark from 2008 that has travelled 26,000
kilometres, costs 3,500 euros (prices include VAT). The most
expensive car put up for resale by BCR Leasing is a Chrysler 300
from 2005, which had travelled 41,000 kilometres, at a price of
22,000 euros.
Companies with the largest number of repossessed goods are Afin
Leasing (1,200), VB Leasing (1,170), Impuls Leasing (750) and BCR
Leasing (430). However, not all companies publish their offer of
repossessed goods on their websites, so the actual number of
repossessions on the entire market is not known. According to some
estimates, it has already exceeded 10,000.
Among thousands of repossessed cars and lorries, there is also a
yacht. Bavaria 37 Cruiser (one year-old) is put up for sale on the
website of TBI Leasing, at the price of 79,000 euros.