How to calculate a non-bank lender's leverage ratio, and the levels Mexican lenders run at

A lender's leverage ratio is its liabilities divided by its equity. The Mexican rating agency HR Ratings averages both over twelve months and takes out repo borrowing first. On that basis the 84 institutions in its non-bank sector sample ran at 2.2 times in June 2026, from 1.9 times in payroll lending to 2.9 times in agricultural finance.

The rating agency's leverage ratio averages a year and takes out repo borrowing

The formula sits in the glossary of every HR Ratings report on a lender. In its report on Crediclub of 11 June 2026 it reads: «Razón de Apalancamiento Ajustada. Pasivo Total Prom. 12m - Saldos Acreedor en Operaciones de Reporto Prom. 12m / Capital Contable Prom. 12m». In English: average total liabilities over the last twelve months, minus the average balance owed under repurchase agreements, divided by average shareholders' equity.

Three choices are built into it. The ratio counts every liability, not only debt that bears interest. It uses twelve-month averages, so a lender that grew fast in the last quarter reads lower than its balance sheet on the last day. And it removes repos, money raised by selling securities the lender holds with an agreement to buy them back, which funds the treasury rather than the loan book. The agency's sector report of 25 August 2026 prints a shorter form, average liabilities over average equity, and so does its 2023 report on Mexican banks. The longer form is the one that reproduces the published number.

Repos are 37,364 of the sector's 264,363 in liabilities at June 2026, about 14%, so the adjustment is not a rounding detail. The figures are in millions of the lenders' reporting currency. One ratio in the same report does not reconcile from the printed lines: equity over securities plus the net loan book gives 33.6%, against a published capitalisation of 31.9%, because the agency's base of assets subject to risk is not itemised in full.

Two companion ratios are read with leverage, and the rating moves on capitalisation

HR Ratings reports leverage beside two other ratios, defined in the same glossary. The capitalisation index is equity over assets subject to risk, that is, securities plus the net loan book. Current portfolio to net debt is performing loans over debt that bears interest, less cash and securities. When almost all assets carry risk the first one is a mirror of leverage: a capitalisation of 31.9% implies liabilities of about 2.1 times equity.

The level has barely moved in three years. Adjusted leverage for the whole sample was 2.1 times at the end of 2023, 2024 and 2025, and 2.2 times at June 2026. SME lenders came down from 3.3 times to 2.8 over the same period, while payroll lenders rose from 1.5 to 1.9.

Rating reports name the capitalisation at which a lender's grade would move

Each HR Ratings report on a lender closes with the factors that could raise or lower the rating, and for solvency the agency names a capitalisation index, not a leverage multiple. Consol Negocios is an unregulated SOFOM, the Mexican licence for a non-bank lender (sociedad financiera de objeto múltiple). HR Ratings would downgrade it at «29.5% o inferiores de manera sostenida»; its capitalisation stood at 32.8%. Its report explains the fall from 36.7% a year earlier by «el crecimiento de 27.2% en la cartera de crédito»: the book grew faster than the equity behind it.

A first credit line moves all three ratios in one draw

A worked example, modelled. A lender holds loans of 90 and cash of 10, funded by equity of 40 and debt of 60, with no other liabilities. Its leverage is 1.5 times, below every segment in the table above, its capitalisation 44.4% and its portfolio to net debt 1.8 times. It then draws a first line of 40 and lends that and its cash. Loans are now 140, debt 100 and equity still 40: leverage 2.5 times, capitalisation 28.6%, portfolio to net debt 1.4 times.

One draw takes the lender from below the least levered segments to above the sector average of 2.2 times, and its capitalisation to below Consol Negocios' downgrade line. Warehouse lines filed with the SEC test it as well: On Deck's Form 8-K of 8 August 2018 lists a «maximum leverage ratio» among the financial covenants of its ODAF II facility. The same arithmetic is tested twice, by the agency and by the lenders.

No statute caps leverage for an unregulated SOFOM

Banco de México's Financial Stability Report of June 2026 lists who must hold a minimum. «La Banca Múltiple, las Sofomes reguladas vinculadas patrimonialmente con instituciones de Banca Múltiple o Grupos Financieros y las Uniones de Crédito deben mantener un nivel de ICAP mínimo superior al 8%», and sofipos and socaps keep net capital at 100% of their requirement. The unregulated SOFOM is in neither list. Its ceiling is set by the rating agency and by its creditors.

The regulatory ICAP is not the agency's capitalisation index. ICAP divides net capital by risk-weighted assets; HR Ratings divides book equity by unweighted assets subject to risk. The two percentages are not comparable, and a bank-style 8% says nothing about where a SOFOM's rating would move.

Sector, segment and lender figures are HR Ratings' published figures; the reconciliation and the worked example are our computation from them.