Collectius, a Swedish-Singaporean debt collection and receivables acquisition company with close to 20 years of experience in the South East Asian region, has announced the conglomerate Stena as its new investor, making a multimillion dollar equity injection and increases its commitment through a credit line.
Being one of the largest family-owned companies in Sweden Stena has global operations in five business areas: Ferry Operations, Offshore Drilling, Shipping, Property, Finance and New Business.
Collectius has meanwhile just reached 1 million customers, while Stena’s investment reflect Collectius’ potential as a market-leader within distressed consumer credit or so called non-performing loans (NPLs) in South East Asia. The investment will help the company reach its short- and mid- term goals.
“We are hungry and reaching one million customers. Stena is a good partner who brings not only capital but an entrepreneurial business culture that we treasure. We are aligned,” states Gustav A. Eriksson, CEO Collectius Group.
Collectius focuses on helping banks dispose of their non-performing loans (NPLs). According to the company’s chairman Mr. Tibor Veres (previously chairman for Aktiv Kapital and co-founder of Hoist finance) says debt sales are common in the US and Europe and something that banks are constantly doing as a part of their operations and funding.
Debt sales in Asia is expected to increase significantly because it makes huge economic sense to sell the write-off portfolios also with time tighter regulations and accounting measures will drive NPL portfolio sales. Ted Osborn (partner at PwC Hong Kong) says that banks benefit by selling NPLs to third parties in many ways including improving their capital position and liquidity and by freeing up resources.
“We are very impressed with what management team has been able to achieve with the company. We look forward to supporting Collectius Group to expand into new markets and continue to invest in further growth. We have full confidence in management’s strategy to build a market leading position in Southeast Asia,” says Andy Boehm, Managing Director Stena Switzerland in the PR statement from Collectius.
