For its half-year trading to March, vehicle finance lender MTF's total assets grew from $566.4million a year ago to $570million, but sales decreased 5%, after-tax profit slipped from $3.2million to $2.9million and market share declined from 12.2% to 11.4%, chief executive Glen Todd said in a statement.
"Motor vehicle sales have continued to perform above expectations and competition for a share of the finance segment, through discounting margin, continues to be aggressive,'' he said.
Mr Todd said MTF's growth opportunities were in its core business channels of franchises and car dealers, with the key to achieving sustainable growth being MTF's ability to make obtaining finance a "simple and painless proposition'' for customers.
He noted that MTF's underlying profit, which stripped out the volatility of unrealised fair value movements, increased 4.9% from $3.6million a year ago to $3.8million.
While sales were down 5% on a year ago, Mr Todd said they were "showing encouraging signs'' of recovery with a 4.6% rise in the second half of 2015.
"The car lending market generally remains very competitive and is reflected in the [MTF] market share for the period, measured by PPSR [government agency Personal Property Securities Register] registrations, which reduced to 11.4%,'' he said.
MTF has 40 franchises across the country, accounting for 60% of new business.
Mr Todd said the next development phase was for the franchises to provide a stronger focus on bushiness planning, training and marketing initiatives to drive growth.
He said "speed of [loan] origination'', including same-day loan payout, was a critical difference for both lenders and customers' satisfaction.
MTF was trialing some initiatives, including electronic document and signature capturing, that should offer some relief from "burdensome'' document processes, following recent legislative changes.
Mr Todd noted the bank Heartland New Zealand had not presented a takeover offer, following overtures made last year.
Existing shareholder Turners car auctioneers and insurers made an offer to acquire up to 20% of MTF and ended up with an 8% stake, but the original offer prompted Heartland to make an offer for 100%.
The two aggressive suitors were hunting for controlling stakes in MTF. Turners was offering $1.15 a share for 20% of the company and Heartland more than $1.50 a share for a full 100% takeover.
Should either have acquired more than 10%, that would have formed a blocking stake against a full 100% takeover in the future.
Mr Todd yesterday restated that MTF's board would not approve Heartland gaining a 10%-20% stake, also noting approval from the board and MTF shareholders was required before any party could take a more than 10% stake in MTF.
Since Heartland signed a confidentiality agreement in October, it had continued to undertake "limited due diligence'', but had not yet presented an offer to MTF's board, he said.
