During the presentation of the financial communication of the group Tunisia Leasing, Fethi Mestiri, C.E.O of the Group, is oriented towards the companies’ future perspectives rather than towards getting into details about the impacts of the international financial crisis. The assessments undertaken by this four -company Group are mostly positive and the projects which it intends to tackle represented the major part of discussion between Fethi Mestiri , the Stock Market intermediaries and the journalists present at the AIB head office.
A successful Maghreb Expansion:
According to F. Mestiri, the group’s subsidiary in Algeria , Algeria Maghreb Leasing, has contributed in the progress of the net income of the group which rose to 6.4 MTD, an increase of 92% in comparison to 2007. The leasing activity has generated 64% of this net income, whereas the factoring has contributed by 7%, 4% for the LLD. As for the participations, they contributed by 16 %. According to the CEO of this group, the Algerian subsidiary, 100% Tunisians, is very important for the development process of the group in particular for the five coming years. “Currently, our share market is about 25% of the whole leasing activity in this neighbor country, and our covering rate is around 100%”, remarked Mr Mestiri, he added that some aspects are favorable for the activity in this country which remain “very broad and still a virgin one.” This good service of the Algerian market was an incentive for the group to target other markets, in particular the Libyan one. The group is already present in the Sub-Saharan Africa through its ‘Atéos’ subsidiary. In order to assure its expansion, the group is intending to establish a new agency in Oran, Algeria, hence the third one after that of Alger and Sétif. In this vein, “ there are some legal and tax restrictions in both Algeria as well as in Libya ” pointed out Mr Mestiry, “for the signatures of which we are still waiting in order to position ourselves better in both countries.”
The long-term hiring and the Symbolic Dinar !
Concerning Tunisia, this group intends to launch new projects, in particular that of “the long-term hiring”. A financial product targeted to big international groups established or intending to get established in Tunisia. It’s a kind of car hiring where all the costs of insurance, maintaining etc are taken in charge by the leasing company, yet where “the profit margin is quite important.” The group leader announced, in the same occasion, their important participation in two projects in Tunisia. The first one will be in the Technological pole of Electronic and Mechanic Industries, where the group has acquired in symbolic Dinar, a surface of 40 thousand hectares which are being considered to restore and to put of provision of the industrialists and the investors. The second participation will have the same spirit but it will be 10 hectares additional and it will be located in the industrial zone of Enfidha.
