Automotive Project News

In today’s economy, start up and seasoned businesses have an unique acquisition and financing opportunity to acquire an attractive deal for any type of heavy duty truck and trailer. The first option, for the buyer, is to visit their local dealer and find his truck there. This is great place to start and obtain pertinent information that will be used later in the data gathering process. From there, it is recommended searching the internet and its mass volume of data that is available. The potential buyer can visit such sites as truck paper and truck trader etc to view thousands of listings of trucks available across the United States. He is able to sort and sift through this vast data and should be able to find a truck, in any city and/or state across the U.S that meets his trucking acquisition requirements. Once he has located a source of trucks available to him, he is able to contact these sellers and negotiate a deal that might be able to meet his needs. Once he is agreed to a price and its particulars, his next hurdle is to find adequate financing in today’s complex lending world of this commodity.

The type of heavy duty trucks we are identifying for this article is the following:

Dump trucks  semi trucks,  garbage and refuse trucks, tow trucks, concrete and cement trucks,  boom trucks, all Class 8 type trucks

Today, the financing arena for heavy duty trucks and trailers has become much smaller, especially for over the road trucks.. Lenders, in the past, that use to finance this niche market have either pulled their portfolio funds out of this area or have modified its lending requirements. It is not unheard of today that a start up business must commit to a down payment of between 10% – 30% of the acquistion cost of the International truck to enter this market. The seasoned business with good credit might be able to get in as little as one payment down plus documents fees but must have either A or B Credit. Other seasoned businesses that don’t meet these credit requirements, may be required to put up 10-20% down or either put up additional collateral as their credit scores fall below 600. Most buyers don’t enjoy these tightening financial requirements, are locked out of this market, and will start looking for alternatives that are available due to market conditions. In addition to the market requirements of substantial monies due upfront, the conventional lender has modified his risk/reward factor for the failure and possible repossession of these trucks. Therefore, the rate and/or interest factor that the lender charges has gone up making it a bigger challenge to complete the financing end once the want to be buyer locates his acquisition….

As the economy has weakened due to market conditions, the route of conventional financing has changed as we know it. The lender has acquired another problem that makes their equation a little more complicated  As the increase of defaults on the payments on all  trucks have risen to all time highs, the lenders have been taking back these trucks by the droves that are earmarked as repossessions. This has caused a problem with normal lending practices and trying to balance it with a non producing income portfolio. If these lenders don’t act swiftly and prudently, the combination of these two types of portfolios can be devasating to the lenders’ bottom line.

By definition, an off lease Truck has been returned to the lender as the lease has expired. The lessee has made a decision to return the item in lieu of exercising the buyout option. A repo is different than an off lease because it has arisen due to a default of the lessee for non payment terms or a violation of the terms of the lease. Either way, the lender has taken these trucks back and/and now must recondition these trucks and either sell these trucks or re-lease them.

The lender can either advertise their off lease and repo inventories through their internal sales force, trade journals such as truck paper, truck trader etc or utilize outside professionals such as brokers to move their inventories as quick as possible. Sometimes, as these inventories either sit or whatever reasons aren’t moving, the lender will put these items up for auction.

At the present time, the lenders have two different types of financing portfolios to consider and must act accordingly. Normal lending on new business deals still require stringent lending practices based upon the credit markets and the risk/reward factors lenders perceive out there in the financial markets. The second type of portfolio, for the off lease and repos, require possibility a more lenient approach to liquidating their inventories prudently and recreating the income stream for the lenders. This will be discussed below.

Some lenders offering repos and off work trucks in the repo market offer these trucks with a minimum credit score of 525. This gives the startup and/or seasoned business an opportunity to start and/or expand their fleet with bad credit. This opportunity would have never existed in the past. Other lenders offer no credit check but are reference and income driven to make sure they have qualified a good candidate to take over one of their over the work trucks.

The work truck financing and leasing doesn’t stop here, others lenders with good credit and time in business offer no down payments and up to 60 months

to repay. This obviously gives the over the work truck owner operator an unique opportunity to acquire work truck financing. Other work truck

financing. leasing programs start at 575 and the down payments can be anywhere from 6-10% down based upon the applicant and the specific work truck. In addition, if you are a cash buyer, there is large opportunity to acquire a work truck at a substantial discount….In today’s economy, we have even found reference driven lenders, credit reports aren’t considered as the main criteria for financing and leasing. Prior Bankruptcies can be a road block for many finance deals, however these lenders will look at them on a deal by deal basis and in most instances will not be a deal buster…All trucks are reconditioned and subject to your inspection prior to release….

These favorable financial arrangements by the lender has stimulated the buyers wants and needs to either enter the trucking industry as an owner operator and/or possibility an expansion of a existing business. First Time buyers, whom were locked out of this market in the past, now has an unique opportunity to earn more revenue by acquiring a heavy duty truck for himself

In conclusion, this is a buyer’s market for heavy duty trucks. One should evaluate all the factors relating to this acquisition including gas costs, air emissions, environmental type requirements., buyout clauses acquisition costs and its related financing.

Happy hunting for your acquisition and related financing…