BADEN-BADEN (dpa-AFX) - Leasing specialist Grenke further improved its new business in the second quarter and also became more profitable. New leasing business increased by 10.7 percent year-on-year to 650.3 million euros, the SDax-listed company announced in Baden-Baden on Wednesday. The operating margin of the so-called contribution margin 2 increased by one percentage point to 16.9 percent. The receivables management (factoring) offered by Grenke also developed positively. The share price rose.

Grenke's margin had weakened noticeably in the meantime due to the rise in interest rates in the market, because the company can only pass on the higher interest rates to customers with a time delay. Chief Executive Sebastian Hirsch now spoke of a still challenging environment, mainly due to volatile interest rate developments and growing recession concerns. In view of this, the figures are an "excellent result". Demand is stable, he said, and the leasing of e-bikes is continuing on an upward trend.

Grenke's new business developed particularly well in the Northern and Eastern Europe region in the past three months, according to the statement. In the UK and Finland, it increased at an above-average rate. In Western Europe, demand was strongest in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Southern Europe region, on the other hand, saw Grenke suffer losses in growth, but compared to the first three months of the year, contribution margin 2 developed positively, it said. The profitability ratio describes the difference between revenues and variable costs.

The financial services business, which accounts for a good quarter of Grenke's business, also developed largely well. Demand in the factoring segment increased by 7.3 percent compared with a year ago. The small business segment of microloans, which is handled by Grenke Bank, however, remained behind the previous year's figure, but also had a volume of only 11 million euros in the past quarter.

The figures were well received on the stock market. The share price rose on Wednesday morning, thus underpinning the stabilization attempt of the past few days. Since the beginning of the year, the share price has risen by more than 40 percent, although in the meantime it has already reached a number of highs and lows.

Initially, the share price rose until the beginning of March, then fell by almost 30 percent within three weeks. From there, the share reached its high for the year to date of 32.65 euros per share at the beginning of May, but has since fallen back by around 15 percent. The last price of a Grenke share on Wednesday was 28.20 euros, up 4.6 percent on the previous day's closing price. Grenke plans to present its detailed interim report on August 10./lew/men/knd/men