BADEN-BADEN (dpa-AFX) - The leasing specialist Grenke generated noticeably more new business in the second quarter than a year earlier, benefiting from growth in Southern Europe in particular. Group-wide, new leasing business amounted to 790 million euros. According to the SDax company, this was 21.5 percent more than in the same period of the previous year and a record. The Baden-Baden-based company increased the so-called contribution margin 2 of new leasing business by almost a fifth to 130.9 million euros. The corresponding margin fell accordingly by 0.3 percentage points to 16.6 percent. According to the press release, CEO Sebastian Hirsch said that the result was "a stage victory on the way to our ambitious annual target of generating over three billion euros in new business"./men/zb