Chesswood Group, a North American commercial equipment finance provider for small and medium-sized businesses, reported its results for the third quarter and nine months ended Sept. 30, 2020 and also provided a COVID-19 update.

“Our efforts to return customer contracts to their regular payment schedules continued in Q3, with total modified leases and loans declining to 5.8% in the U.S. and to 1.8% in Canada,” Ryan Marr, president and CEO of Chesswood Group, said. “As a result, our charge-offs and allowance for credit losses declined meaningfully in the quarter, resulting in strong profitability. As well, we are in the process of appropriate rehires of employees at our operating companies.

“In addition, we successfully repositioned our balance sheet during the quarter as a result of our previously announced ABS transaction. These restructuring efforts have provided us with the ability to restart our dividend program beginning with a dividend for the month ending November 30. To start, the dividend will be set at $0.02 per share payable monthly. We are excited by the opportunities in front of us and expect to build further momentum into year end and 2021.”

The $0.02 per share dividend will be payable to shareholders of record at the close of business on Nov. 30 and will be paid on Dec. 15.

Chesswood Group operates three wholly-owned subsidiaries, including Pawnee Leasing, Tandem Finance and Blue Chip Leasing.