Cooler business climate in the leasing sector - weaker car leasing dampens the investment indicator

The business climate in the German leasing sector is currently marked by two opposite developments: A no longer so positive assessment of the current situation is offset by a slightly more optimistic appraisal of the business outlook. On balance, the business climate remains at about the level of the previous quarter, in which it surprisingly declined. The smoothed indicator has already fallen for the sixth time in succession and is at its lowest level in 3½ years. On balance, the assessments of the current situation worsened vis-à-vis the previous quarter from +22 percent to +16 percent and thus were at the previous-year level. The six-month outlook improved, with a balance of +15 percent. One in five leasing companies expect a favorable development, whereas 6 percent have a more pessimistic outlook. The employment level stabilized, following visible improvement in the first three months of 2006.