CASE equipment dealer Birkey’s Farm Store will be leaning heavily on the OEM’s captive financier under the dealer group’s new chief executive.
Elevated interest rates have spurred Birkey’s to expand its relationship with CASE’s captive finance arm, CNH Industrial Capital, Chief Executive Brady Foster told Equipment Finance News. Foster assumed the role Jan. 2 following 15 years with the dealer, most recently as president.
Birkey’s Farm Store focuses on partnerships with customers and vendors to select the best financing, Foster said.
“The biggest part of our business is Case IH and Case Construction, and they have an arm of CNH Industrial Capital, so we’re trying to partner with them with everything that we can,” he said.
Birkey’s Farm Store uses a centralized sales process that focuses on finalizing the sales, finance and insurance process at the corporate level rather than at one of the dealer group’s 19 rural Midwest locations, Foster said. The structure means increased reliance on CNH Industrial Capital but still allows outside financing.
“Sometimes customers want to use their bank or any relationship they want to use, but we want to try to use that CNH Capital line because that’s a partner of ours and they work with us,” he said. “We try to enforce some of that because of the incentives they may give us. They may give us 0% financing and we want to make sure that we’re promoting that to the customers and giving that to them.”
CNH Industrial Capital began increasing its origination volume last year as regional banks began to slow down following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. CNH Industrial Capital’s originations increased 23% in the third quarter of 2023, according to the company’s earnings release.
Independents and captives are expected to continue to gain market share as regional banks continue to pull back, according to equipment finance advisory firm Alta Group’s 2024 insights report.
Registration is now available for Equipment Finance Connect. The dealer-centric equipment lending and leasing event of the year offers opportunities for dealers to learn new strategies, foster valuable partnerships and emerge with ideas to immediately apply to their businesses. Learn about free dealer registration at EquipmentFinanceConnect.com.
