The story
Foundation and first decades
Deutsche Leasing GmbH, among Germany's first leasing companies, was entered in the Commercial Register in Düsseldorf on January 10, 1962. The two other predecessor companies of Deutsche Leasing were Maschinen-Miete GmbH and Mietdienst GmbH, which were founded in 1962 and 1963 respectively. In 1971, these three companies merged to form Deutsche Leasing AG. Until 1991 the founder of Maschinen-Miete GmbH, Albrecht Dietz, was Chairman of the Board of the new company.
In 1970, the company founded the subsidiary Deutsche Auto-Leasing GmbH, which introduced leasing for private individuals for the first time in Germany from 1975. The founding of LGS Leasinggesellschaft der Sparkasse GmbH in 1982 enabled the company to integrate its leasing offer into the financing offer of the savings banks. In April 1987, Deutsche Leasing moved into its administrative building in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe.
Expansion and Internationalization
The first foreign company was founded in Italy in 1993, followed by further companies in Hungary, the Czech Republic and France. In 1995, Deutsche Leasing AG became a partner of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. Two years later, the company founded the subsidiary Polski Leasing Przemyslowy S.A. in Warsaw, Poland. A French subsidiary commenced operations in 1999 under the name Deutsche Immobilien Leasing GmbH (DIL), thereby expanding its range of services to include real estate leasing business. In addition, savings banks acquired the shares of Deutsche Leasing from several Landesbanken, Hamburger Sparkasse and Landesgirokasse Stuttgart via holding companies at a price of DM635 million. Deutsche Leasing began a cooperation with a partner company in Russia and founded Deutsche Leasing Vostok.
In 2002, the company founded further subsidiaries in Spain and Slovakia and a subsidiary in England in the following year. Deutsche Leasing entered into a partnership with the European Investment Fund (EIF) in 2004, through which projects in areas of sustainability and new technologies in European countries have since been financed with funds amounting to billions of euros.
With the acquisition of the majority of shares in Anlagen- und Grundstückvermietgesellschaft mbH & Co. the majority of the shares in Anlagen- und Grundstücksvermietungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG (AGV) and Deutsche Anlagen-Leasing GmbH & Co. KG (DAL) in 2005, Deutsche Leasing expanded its offering in the real estate sector. In 2008, leasing companies were placed under the supervision of the Financial Market Authority in Germany. In 2009, Deutsche Leasing opened branches in Austria, the Netherlands, and the Benelux countries. This was followed by the establishment of further companies in Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, and Brazil by 2012.
Recent Developments
In 2012, Deutsche Leasing took over Universal Factoring. This was followed by the acquisition of a majority stake in Deutsche Factoring Bank in 2016.
Deutsche Leasing's net profit for the 2019/2020 financial year fell by 56% from €87 million to €38 million, but in 2020/2021 the annual result returned to the pre-Covid-19 period.
In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the company stopped new business in Russia at the beginning of March 2023 and eventually sold its Russian subsidiary.
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In June 2023, Deutsche Leasing was the target of a hacker attack. The company shut down its IT systems for two weeks after the attack was discovered.
From Wikipedia’s article on Deutsche Leasing, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4