Element signs North American vendor finance agreement with Quebec-based Lion Bus

TORONTO, Sept. 30, 2013 /CNW/ - Element Financial Corporation (TSX: EFN) ("Element" or the "Company"), one of North America's leading independent equipment finance companies, today announced that it has entered into a North American vendor finance agreement (the "Agreement) with Lion Buses Inc. ("Lion") of St. Jerome, Quebec, one of North America's leading manufacturers of the most innovative school buses in the industry.

Under the terms of the Agreement, Element will act as a preferred provider of manufacturer-sponsored financing for Lion's customers in Canada. The demand in North America for Type C buses is comprised of regional and local school boards that contract with bus operators to provide transportation services for their students. Annual expenditures by these customers for new and used equipment amount to approximately $300 million in Canada and US$2.7 billion in the United States.

"All of the criteria that we look for in a manufacturing partner - established market presence, financial durability, competitive product advantage and strong management - were easy to check off as we developed this Agreement with Lion Bus," said Todd Hudson, Element Financial's Executive Vice President. "We look forward to working with Lion to provide comprehensive financing solutions for their customers as they continue to penetrate the North American market with their industry leading innovative products."

In the school segment of the Type C bus market, both the manufacturers and operators are consolidating as school boards look to find ways to reduce costs and manufacturers look to add scale to leverage technology innovations that improve operating efficiency and increase safety.

"Lion Bus was founded in 2008 to capitalize on these converging market forces," said Marc Bedard, President of Lion Bus. "Using composite materials, Lion manufactures buses that are more durable, less expensive to operate and offer added safety features over the legacy equipment that operators are retiring from service."

About Element Financial Corporation

With total assets of approximately C$2.5 billion, Element Financial Corporation is one of North America's leading independent equipment finance companies.  Element operates across North America in three verticals of the equipment finance market - Element Capital provides large ticket equipment leasing, Element Finance serves the mid-ticket equipment finance market and Element Fleet provides vehicle fleet leasing and management solutions.

This release includes forward-looking statements regarding Element and its business. Such statements are based on the current expectations and views of future events of Element's management.  In some cases the forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as "may", "will", "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "intend", "potential", "estimate", "believe" or the negative of these terms, or other similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this release, including reference to the issuance of subsequent tranches of notes, the availability of third party ratings on the notes and/or the sale of notes to additional institutional investors may not occur and could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting the company.  No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed.  Forward-looking statements and information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement or information.  Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements or information.  Except as required by applicable securities laws, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and Element undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

SOURCE: Element Financial Corporation

John Sadler
Senior Vice President
Corporate Affairs & Investor Relations
[phone] ext. 2313
[email protected]

Michel Béland
Chief Financial Officer
[phone] ext. 2225
[email protected]