Treasure 7/18/03 11:57 AM Page 1

Opportunities for Action in Industrial Goods

Treasure Chest or Time Bomb?

Reevaluating Your Financing Sub
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Treasure Chest or Time Bomb?

Reevaluating Your Financing Sub

Over the past several decades, many industrial compa-

nies have provided credit to their customers through
wholly owned financing subsidiaries, often with
impressive results. Companies such as Boeing and
Bombardier, Ford and GM, John Deere and Cater-
pillar have expanded their financing subsidiaries
to the point where some have even surpassed their
parent companies in terms of both growth and
absolute earnings. By the end of 2001, the financing
subs of nonfinancial companies accounted for nearly
30 percent of the approximately $4 trillion in loans
and leases in the United States alone. And from 1993
to 2002, industrial companies (excluding automotive
companies) with well-developed financing subsidiaries
significantly outperformed their industry peers in
terms of shareholder value creation.

Despite this positive track record, continuing to own a

financing subsidiary may no longer make strategic
sense for many industrial companies. The traditional
advantages of do-it-yourself financing have largely
become obsolete, and the costs and risks of ownership
now often outweigh the benefits. Even a financing
sub that is currently profitable can swiftly become a
drain on the parent company’s resources. A downturn
in the subsidiary’s performance can quickly under-
mine the parent’s credit rating and diminish its access
to capital—thus further raising the cost of financing
the subsidiary and triggering a negative spiral.
Although the financing subsidiaries of some compa-
nies, such as Caterpillar, Harley-Davidson, and John
Deere, have continued to make healthy contributions
to their parents’ coffers throughout the downturn,
many subs have become financial burdens.
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This danger can be hard for some companies to face,

because they tend to see these units as their crown
jewels. Moreover, many industries consider providing
credit to customers a competitive necessity. And in
fact, owning a financing sub may still make strategic
sense in some cases. Usually, however, companies may
do far better to offer credit by partnering with banks
or other financial institutions. The question is, what
strategy makes most sense for your company?

To answer that question, it will be helpful first to

review how shifts in the economic and industrial land-
scape have redistributed competitive advantage
among participants in the credit extension business.
Against this background, you can assess where your
competitive advantage or disadvantage may lie. Then
you can determine whether and how your own fi-
nancing subsidiary is creating value—and whether it
makes sense to continue to own the financing func-
tion or to outsource it.

The New Competitive Terrain for Financing

Traditionally, industrial companies have had many

compelling reasons to extend credit to customers. By
bundling financing with their products, they have
expanded their markets, made their products more
attractive, and increased their customers’ loyalty.
They have also managed to make themselves look a
lot bigger. For many companies, in-house financing
has become a major source of growth in earnings; the
spectacular success of GE Capital is a notable exam-
ple. This opportunity for growth has been particularly
welcome for industrial companies, whose core mar-
kets have been expanding at lackluster rates, if at all.
And finally, by offering financing, companies have
gained flexibility in their strategic approaches to sales
and pricing.
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However, beneath the surface of this successful per-

formance, which was fueled in part by a booming
economy, a number of issues were developing. Today,
some of the reasons for extending in-house credit
that originally looked so persuasive are open to ques-
tion. In the new competitive environment, bigger
is not always better; EPS growth does not always cre-
ate lasting value; and, in terms of who owns the
credit function, the home court advantage may no
longer hold.

Bigger is not always better. In many cases, the debt

that fueled the growth of in-house financing has
transformed the traditionally conservative capital
structures of industrial companies into highly lever-
aged balance sheets resembling those of banks or
other financial institutions—but without their sophis-
ticated risk-management systems. Hence the eco-
nomic downturn caught financing subsidiaries and
their corporate parents largely unprepared. With bal-
ance sheets already strained and operating cash flows
deteriorating, most companies were not in a position
to afford mounting credit losses.

As the parent companies were forced to provide

credit support to their financing subs, their own
credit ratings suffered, thus increasing their cost of
capital and depressing their share prices. A number
of companies have had to sink large amounts of
money into formerly high-performing subs, in some
cases winding down credit operations or exiting the
business altogether. The much-publicized case of the
auto industry—in which the zero-financing fight has
reduced some leading companies’ de facto credit
ratings to below investment-grade level—may be atypi-
cal, but it can serve as a warning to other sectors.

EPS growth does not always create lasting value.

Earnings per share—the measure by which many
Treasure 7/18/03 11:57 AM Page 6

financing subs have achieved stellar performance—

can be illusory, because standard accounting practices
generally fail to reflect the second-order costs of
extending credit. For instance, in calculating the cost
of subsidized credit, you must take into account not
only the difference between present values of the pay-
ment streams at market rates and at subsidized inter-
est rates but also the impact of the loan on the com-
pany’s immediate cash flow. When customers accept
credit, the subsidiary typically must seek funds in the
capital markets, further increasing its leverage and
thus contributing to deterioration of the credit rat-
ings of both the subsidiary and the parent company.
As the company’s credit rating goes down, its cost of
borrowing goes up—and so does the real cost of the
customer’s below-market-rate loan. With margins
already razor thin, any increase in cost can easily
transform an expected profit into an actual loss—
especially if the credit product has various options
built into it (as do leases, for instance).

The home court advantage may no longer hold. In

some areas of the credit extension business, industrial
companies and their wholly owned subs still have
competitive advantage over financial institutions. In
others, however, the advantage has migrated to the
traditional lenders. Drivers of value creation in this
business include access to cheap capital; the ability to
assess credit risk, process loans, and manage opera-
tions; and skill at sales and marketing. In which of
these areas does your company have a solid competi-
tive advantage over a bank or another financial in-
stitution?

Access to Cheap Capital. In the past, many manufactur-

ing companies had very strong credit ratings com-
pared with financial institutions. Those ratings were
founded on solid profits, relatively conservative bal-
ance sheets, and substantial long-term assets. As a
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result, the companies could borrow capital at very low

cost—an advantage they were able to share with their
financing subsidiaries. Unfortunately, for many indus-
trial companies, this advantage no longer exists. Can
you compete long-term with Citigroup or MBNA in
borrowing? If not, perhaps you should seriously con-
sider outsourcing your capital-raising function.

The Ability to Assess Credit Risk, Process Loans, and

Manage Operations. Traditionally, manufacturers have
had a competitive advantage over banks in two areas:
being closer to their customers and having better
knowledge of their own products. These advantages
positioned companies to make better credit decisions
than banks. For example, 20 years ago in the automo-
tive industry, the person best positioned to make an
informed credit decision was the local dealer, who
knew the local customers, their employers, and the
overall state of the local economy better than anybody
else. These advantages are no longer with the dealer.
With the enormous amounts of transaction data read-
ily available in their databases, large banks can now
make credit decisions faster and more accurately. In
addition, they can almost always process loans and
manage operations more effectively than can the
financing subsidiaries of industrial companies (except
for several really big players). For most nonfinancial
companies in the developed world, competing with
banks is an uphill battle.

In terms of product knowledge, by contrast, some

manufacturing companies still have an advantage over
banks, particularly in categories such as highly special-
ized industrial products (including, for example,
chemical-processing and power-generating equip-
ment) and large vehicles. In these markets, manufac-
turers’ superior knowledge of the products’ econom-
ics and life cycles should enable them to price the
products and their financing better than anybody
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else. These manufacturers are also in a strong posi-

tion to evaluate the creditworthiness of likely buyers
or lessors, whose fortunes are very much linked to the
industries that the manufacturers serve and know
well. Indeed, in these areas, manufacturers’ financing
subsidiaries consistently realize lower credit losses
than their banking counterparts. The challenge for
these companies is to ensure that they continuously
maintain and effectively leverage their advantage.

Skill at Sales and Marketing. Here your credit subsidiary

probably has an advantage over a bank: the cost of
customer acquisition is likely lower for you than for a
financial institution that has never seen the customer
before. But is it really necessary for you to own the
whole operation to capitalize on this advantage? A
fee-based arrangement in which you retain the rela-
tionship with the customer while a financial institu-
tion extends the credit may be more appropriate.

Does Owning a Sub Still Make Sense?

To answer this question, you will need to evaluate

your financing sub’s performance in terms of actual
value creation, rather than just accounting perfor-
mance. The first step is to create complete clarity
about the costs and benefits of each transaction
“bundle” (the product together with its financing).
An important benefit of creating clarity about the
economics of these bundles is the opportunity to de-
average your credit transactions. It makes sense to
offer below-market credit if the profit margin on the
product is high, as it is, for example, on high-end
SUVs. It doesn’t make sense if the margin is low, as it
is on many entry-level cars—or if the buyer is other-
wise prepared to pay cash. By carefully tailoring
incentives to specific products, regions, and customer
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segments, financing companies can dramatically

improve their performance.

Once you understand the real costs and benefits of

each transaction bundle, you can determine whether
the sub is genuinely profitable—even when the cost
of the credit support provided by the parent is
accounted for. It is important to keep in mind that
most P&L entries are estimates at best. In the depreci-
ation of leased products, for example, it is almost
impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy
what value will be realized in the secondary market
when a leased car or plane is returned to the com-
pany at the end of the leasing period. At banks, it is
common practice to reserve additional capital against
uncertainty of this kind. Industrial companies would
do well to follow the banks’ practice.

Profit is not, of course, the whole picture. What really

matters is whether the subsidiary creates or destroys
shareholder value. For the subsidiary to create value
on a standalone basis, its returns must exceed its cost
of capital—a much higher hurdle than just achieving
profitability. Also, it is important to benchmark the
sub’s value-creating performance against comparable
financial companies, not against its industrial parent.

If, after completing this analysis, you discover that

your financing subsidiary is not creating value on its
own, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you should
stop extending credit, because your subsidiary may be
creating value elsewhere. For example, if extending
credit allows you to sell your product at a very high
markup, it may be worthwhile to do so, even at the
cost of some loss of the subsidiary’s value. In a case of
this kind, however, it is critical that you develop a
clear view of what benefits the financing subsidiary
conveys, and where and how they are realized.
Treasure 7/18/03 11:57 AM Page 10

The Strategic Challenge

Once you have fully understood your subsidiary’s cur-

rent and anticipated contributions (or costs) to your
corporate portfolio, you can assess the potential risks
and benefits of continuing to own the sub. Clearly,
there is no simple formula. In some cases, far from
being panaceas, credit subs will cause their parents to
hemorrhage money—and value. Nonetheless, in
many industries, offering credit is simply an impera-
tive. The key question is whether it makes sense to
keep that operation in-house, shop it out, or share it.
The strategy you choose should be the one that best
allows you to minimize the risk, limit the drain on
capital, and maintain the closest possible relation-
ships with your customers. By thinking about these
issues as early as possible, you can ensure that your
credit operation creates value—and avoid painful sur-
prises down the road.

Ari Axelrod
Mark Joiner
François Rouzaud

Ari Axelrod is a manager in the Boston office of The Boston

Consulting Group. Mark Joiner is a senior vice president
and director in BCG’s New York office and worldwide leader
of the firm’s Corporate Development practice. François
Rouzaud is a senior vice president and director in BCG’s
Boston office and worldwide leader of the firm’s Industrial
Goods practice.

You may contact the authors by e-mail at:

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

© The Boston Consulting Group, Inc. 2003. All rights reserved.

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