BNB Leasing S.A.

What it is

BNB Leasing S.A. is a financial leasing company that is part of the BNB Group; through a range of products it makes goods available to individuals and companies, giving clients a financing tool to acquire or upgrade equipment for their businesses.

Concretely, it covers mortgages, machinery, construction equipment and vehicle leasing — essentially, the client uses an asset and pays regular instalments, then may buy it at the end of the term, without tying up their own capital upfront. BNB Leasing received its operating licence from ASFI (Bolivia’s financial supervisor, licence ASFI/003/2010) and began operations on 3 January 2011.

Who owns it

At the end of 2009, the BNB Group decided to establish a financial leasing company through BNB Leasing S.A., with Banco Nacional de Bolivia S.A. holding an 85% equity stake. The remaining 15% is held by other shareholders; the exact breakdown of the minority is not disclosed in available primary sources.

The parent group, BNB Corporación S.A., also comprises BNB SAFI (investment fund management), BNB Valores (a brokerage), and BNB Valores Perú. Banco Nacional de Bolivia, founded in 1871, is Bolivia’s second-largest bank by total assets.

Who runs it

The 2023 Annual Report — the most recent publicly accessible — names Ignacio Bedoya S. as Chairman, Antonio Valda C.

as Vice-Chairman, Gonzalo Abastoflor S. as Secretary, with Francisco Alvarez M.

as General Manager (Gerente General) and Ximena Del Castillo N. as Commercial Manager.

At the parent holding company level, BNB Corp.’s 2024 results were supported by the combined profits of all subsidiaries including BNB Leasing S.A.; the BNB Corp. board is led by Pablo Bedoya Sáenz as President and Antonio Valda Careaga as Executive Vice-President.

The money, in plain words

BNB Leasing is tiny by most measures — nine people, equity of roughly BOB 33.6M (≈ USD 3.41M) — but it punches well above its weight on quality. In 2023 the company focused on growing its lease portfolio and strengthening its financial margin; at year-end, its lease book grew 4.17%, making it the sector’s growth leader.

The bottom line for 2023 was a net profit of USD 364,000, delivering a return on equity of 6.67% and a return on total assets of 0.82% — lean numbers in absolute terms, but healthy for a niche, single-product financial company in a constrained Bolivian economy. Its non-performing loan ratio of 0.74% was well below the sector average of 1.93%, meaning it collects almost everything it lends.

For 2024, the holding company’s annual report confirms BNB Corp. grew assets 5.19% and cut operating costs by 20.64%, producing a group ROE of 12.42%.

BNB Leasing’s own ROE came in at 6.64% in 2024 — still the highest in its sector. Using that rate on end-2024 book equity, our calculation puts BNB Leasing’s 2024 net profit at roughly USD 227,000, down from USD 364,000 in 2023, reflecting Bolivia’s difficult macro year.

What it is doing now

For 2024 the company foresaw a gradual recovery in demand for financial leasing, driven by its flexibility and efficiency, and set out to grow its competitive position while promoting leasing as an investment-optimisation alternative for both businesses and individuals.

On the capital markets side, BNB Leasing has active bonds trading on the Bolsa Boliviana de Valores — including the BNB Leasing series at 5.5% due March 2028 (BNL-3-N1U-23) — meaning it raises money from the public bond market to fund its leasing portfolio, an unusual degree of capital-market activity for a nine-person firm. Bolivia’s wider macro headwinds — international reserves fell to roughly USD 1,976M by end-2024, and a parallel foreign-exchange market widened the gap versus the official rate — are the main near-term drag on new lease origination.

What to watch

• Bolivia’s dollar crunch. Dollar scarcity limits the import of machinery and vehicles — exactly what leasing customers need. If the foreign-exchange gap widens further, new lease volumes will suffer.
• Sector consolidation. The Bolivian financial leasing industry had only three companies at end-2023; BNB Leasing’s near-zero bad-debt rate and bank-group backing give it a durable edge if a weaker rival exits.
• Capital headroom. Authorised capital is BOB 25 (US$3)M against paid-in capital of BOB 14.9 (US$2)M — leaving room to issue new shares and grow the book without a restructuring, if demand returns.
• Leadership continuity. The 2024 standalone BNB Leasing annual report and board roster were not publicly accessible at the time of writing; any management change since 2023 is not yet disclosed.

This is news, not investment advice.