Vehicle leasing company Custom Fleet says it will not be offering any new leases for the foreseeable future.
Custom Fleet, ultimately owned by giant US conglomerate General Electric, said its moratorium on new leasing in this country and Australia was short term. It would continue to service existing leases, The New Zealand Herald reported today.
The company said the volatility of world credit markets meant it could not say when things would return to normal.
Custom Fleet is a subsidiary of GE Commercial Finance, a sister company to GE Money which announced last week it was cutting jobs and pulling back from home lending and car finance on both sides of the Tasman.
GE Money said the moves were a result of the international credit crisis. It relies heavily on the wholesale funding markets, where money is now scarce and increasingly expensive.
Emma Rugge-Price, GE Commercial Finance's Australian-based vice-president of marketing, said the Custom Fleet decision was driven by the same conditions.
