Global private equity firm Bain Capital said on Thursday that it had acquired an 80 percent stake in Chinese financial leasing company Lionbridge Financial Leasing (China) Co Ltd for an undisclosed sum.

People close to the deal told China Daily that the investment is more than 1 billion yuan ($163.3 million). It is also the largest transaction in China's financial leasing sector this year, according to a joint statement released by both companies.

"The investment marks Bain Capital's entry into China's financial services sector and is part of our efforts to capture business opportunities in the underserved small and medium-sized enterprise sector, where there is a large unmet financing demand," said Jonathan Zhu, managing director of Bain Capital.

Lionbridge is one of China's fastest growing financial leasing companies, with total leased assets of about 3 billion yuan by the end of June this year. It has an extensive service network of 174 offices covering 22 provinces. Focusing on China's small and medium-sized enterprises, the company provides financial leasing services in four industry verticals－h(huán)eavy-duty vehicles, medical equipment, manufacturing equipment and agriculture equipment.

Wan Jun, founder and CEO of Lionbridge, said: "We (Lionbridge and Bain Capital) have a consistent view on Lionbridge's corporate strategy. Bain Capital's extensive global connections with international banks can help Lionbridge diversify its funding sources and attract strategic investors. Our strategy is that Lionbridge will persist on retail financial leasing, regarding leased property as a core of our risk control system, and offer value-added services to clients."

Wan said that the leased property should be of high value and high residual value, and can be moved and rebuilt. As for offering value-added services, Wan said Lionbridge can not only lease individual clients heavy trucks, but also organize them together to offer them more business opportunities.

Wang Lihong, also managing director of Bain Capital, said the company would help Lionbridge's management team to draft effective corporate strategies.

According to Wang, the four verticals that Lionbridge is present in belong to industries like logistics, healthcare, numerical control machine tools and agriculture equipment. "All of them are high volume industries in China," he said.

Going forward the company will add more verticals, with new energy being one of the potential candidates, Wang said. "We also plan to help Lionbridge raise funds overseas, especially in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, for lower financing costs and longer holding periods. We are bullish on China's finance sector and would continue to pursue opportunities in the third-party payment and wealth management segments," he said.

China's financial leasing sector has grown nearly 40-fold in the last few years, from 8 billion yuan in 2006 to more than 3 trillion yuan in 2014, making the country one of the world's biggest leasing markets, according to a report published by the China Financial Leasing Alliance.

The penetration rate in China remains low, when compared with other developed countries, indicating huge potential for future growth. China's leasing penetration rate is only 4.1 percent compared with 7.2 percent in Japan, 22 percent in the United States and 23.8 percent in the United Kingdom.

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