Lease 2022 ended in Milan. The fifth edition of the Salone del Leasing organized by Newton and Assilea was characterized by a high profile of contents and panelists. The final appointment was dedicated to “Support for businesses: guarantees and pnrr”, with Stefano Firpo – former Head of Cabinet of the Minister of Digital Transformation and next General Manager Assonime, Pierpaolo Brunozzi – Head of Business Unit Guarantee Instruments and Mediocredito Centrale , Giammarco Boccia – Head of Corporate Finance Sace, Sandro Marcucci – Cfo Alba Leasing. “When capital becomes a scarce resource, all forms of guarantee are essential for growth” – Marcucci recalled – “we also went to reason with Bei and Fei, but the increasingly stringent collaboration with Mediocredito Centrale and Sace is essential for the world of leasing and business growth “. A strong request came from Assilea to confirm the economic capacity and the guarantee percentages adopted in the pandemic period also in 2023.The Fund managed to favor access to credit for SMEs by supporting leasing operations, assisting millions of companies from March 2020. As regards the Sace guarantee, which is also open to leasing companies, the operators in the sector have made proposals to better adapt it also to SMEs. In the PNRR, no instrument to support businesses has been envisaged, “but if we understand the importance of investments in digital, I believe that the PNRR can be a regenerating tool for all Italian manufacturing”, said Firpo. The President of Assilea, Carlo Mescieri, reiterated the need for all the projects of the Plan to include leasing among the financing instruments.At the opening of the second day the debate was opened by the digital transformation, the creation of a new relationship between the user, asset and leasing companies, to develop new businesses and make existing processes more efficient. Stefano Rebattoni, CEO of IBM Italy, underlined how “to achieve a path of sustainable economic and social growth we cannot do without digital technological innovation, which also refers to skills and processes.” “One of the great trends of the moment is to reduce the number of data, identifying the necessary and non-redundant ones, for example in the credit process by identifying the elements useful for assessing the default risk ”, explained prof. Stefano Olgiati – Founder and Board member of Leasetech. “In the case of the application of leasing vertical solutions are already ready, but in Italy there is a digital gap, aggravated by a geographical particularity of the country”, according to Tullio Pirovano, Lutech CEO. “The NRP allocates about 27% of the resources to cover it and is an important challenge for the entire production system”. The regulatory, legal and budgetary framework on ESG was instead at the center of the round table “Sustainable growth for development of companies and territories “, with Emanuele Simoncelli – Kpmg Advisory Associate Partner – Francesco Paolo Bello – Head of Public & Administrative Law Equity Partner Deloitte Legal – Michele Casò – President of ACBGroup Studio Associato – and Stefano Schiavi – Vice President of Assilea. From the debate, it clearly emerged that the issue does not only concern large groups, but also supplier SMEs, which will be increasingly involved in them, and will increasingly direct access to credit. “The sustainability report must be an opportunity, so we need to make sure that it does not become a threat to our SMEs”, according to Casò. “The combination of leasing with investment projects can be the key to development of the territories, both in terms of sustainability and grounding the Pnrr”, echoed Bello. Among the various initiatives implemented by Assilea, Schiavi recalled the Green Lease project to equip leased production buildings with photovoltaic panels, in order to reduce emissions and production energy costs.
