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April 17, 2001
Headlines:
The Value of Sierra Cities Stock---Depping as the Gazelle Heller Financial Chooses Doc 4i CitiCapital's Profit Off 67% --Wall Street Journal Story U.S. Bancorp building in Marshall to Break Ground Thursday Intuit Acquires More Tax and Accounting Software--appropriate after April 16 Largest Peterbilt HD Truck Dealers Reports DownTurn Intel First Quarter Profits Down 80 Percent, while they slash new Pentium IV Prices
The List is Up-Dated Lease Association Conference Count Low---report later this week ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sierra Cities Stock Kit, for the record, Sierra Cities went public in May 1997 as First Sierra at 8 or 8.25 per share. Bruce Kropschot BKropschot@aol.com May 16, 1997, if you had invested $10,000 at$8.375 per share Split Adjustment Factor 1:1 Shares Owned Today (split adjusted) 1,194.03 Investment Value Today $6,791.04 Percent Change -32.09% June 16,1997, if you had invested $10,000, $10 a share Split Adjustment Factor 1:1 Shares Owned Today (split adjusted) 1,000.00 Investment Value Today $5,687.50 Percent Change -43.13 April 16, 1998, if you invested $10,000, $26.12 $26.125 Split Adjustment Factor 1:1 Shares Owned Today (split adjusted) 382.78 Investment Value Today $2,177.03 Percent Change -78.23 April 16, 1999 if you invested $10,000 , $17.75 per share, it would be worth today: Investment Value Today $3,204.23 Percent Change -67.96 April 17,2000, if you invested $10,000, $11 per share Split Adjustment Factor 1:1 Shares Owned Today (split adjusted) 909.09 Investment Value Today $5,170.45 Percent Change -48.30 February 28, 2001, if you invested $10,000, 5.625 per share Split Adjustment Factor 1:1 Shares Owned Today (split adjusted) 1,777.78 Investment Value Today $10,111.11 Percent Change 1.11 What does this prove? It depends on what you paid for your share of First Sierra-Sierra Cities stock. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UAEL invites you to visit www.uael.org! The UAEL website is continuously growing and improving, and we'd like you to take full advantage of the site. In this www.uael.org update we showcase membership benefits and resources. As a UAEL member you have access to our full online Membership Directory, Funding Source Directory, as well as the Discussion Boards where you can communicate with other UAEL members in 4 different rooms (Brokers, Funders, Lenders, and Services). If you are a UAEL member and don't know your username and password for the site be sure to contact Marlon Urias at marlon@uael.org and he will get you set up. Have a great day and don't forget to Hit the Site! UAEL marlon <marlon@uael.org> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gibraltar Financial Complaint I have posted complaints about Gibraltar Financial on past occasions. Hopefully people do not forget that they kept a lessee's deposits and were unable to issue an approval. Another party has informed me that the same thing happened to them. Since then, I have complained to the ELA about their 10 year + member. My first complaint was issued 8/31/00. Guess how much progress has been made since? ZERO!!!! After re-submitting my complaint three times over the proceeding 2 months, it finally got acknowledged. Since, I have called Ms. Koch and Mr. Flemming on several occasions. The only thing I know is that Gibraltar is aware of the complaint. Someone please let me know what it takes to get results. -Capital Funding Group paulv@leaseapp.co Paul von Bruck 888-468-5822 x 208 ( We have it posted at Leasing News: http://www.leasingnews.org/bulletin_board.htm. editor ) First International I first want to say that I thoroughly enjoy your daily e-mails on our industry. Secondly, I couldnt help but respond with my own personal experiences in dealing with First International Bank. I almost said to their representative once that they scare me due to their lack of knowledge in our business and their partial control of the central money supply. Even with UPS buying them, it will take a while for the marriage to work. I am sure UPS is relying on their "knowledge" of this business. ( name with held ) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pioneer Planet Report U.S. Bancorp building in Marshall U.S. Bancorp will break ground Thursday for a new 75,000-square-foot building in Marshall, Minn., to house its business equipment finance group, which leases a variety of equipment to businesses. About 325 employees will work there when construction is completed this fall. The Minneapolis-based bank purchased Lyon Financial Services Inc. from Schwan's Sales Enterprises Inc. last September and renamed it U.S. Bancorp Business Equipment Finance Group. The business will remain at Schwan's headquarters until U.S. Bancorp's new building is completed. ##################################################################### Heller Financial Uses Documentum 4i for Enterprise Content Management
eBusiness Platform to Power Both Heller Internet and Intranet Sites Globally PLEASANTON, Calif., April 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Documentum (Nasdaq: DCTM), the leading enterprise content management provider, today announced that Heller Financial, Inc. (NYSE: HF), a leading provider of commercial finance products and services, has begun integrating the Documentum 4i platform for its enterprise content management needs. Heller has already implemented Documentum 4i in one of its businesses and expects that the platform will be made available to four additional businesses by the end of 2002. "One of our corporate objectives is to streamline the processes by which we manage a growing volume of content, enterprise-wide," said Mike Nuteson, Vice President of Information Technology at Heller. "Our first step in meeting this goal was to implement Documentum 4i eBusiness Platform in our Global Vendor Finance business. We are now in the process of rolling out Documentum 4i throughout the company. At the same time, we will be utilizing the Web content management and workflow functionality to allow various business units self-service access to their content. During the product evaluation, we were particularly impressed with Documentum 4i's open, flexible architecture and wide range of standard APIs that facilitate integration with virtually any back-end system we use." Heller's use of Documentum 4i-and the improved enterprise content management capabilities that result-is expected to yield a number of benefits that will allow Heller to accelerate product and service availability, personalize online interactions, mobilize e-business networks, and facilitate further globalization of its businesses. Enhanced customer service, better control over deal integrity, and increased staff productivity are the immediate benefits. The company is also looking forward to streamlined content creation and versioning processes with the internal and external collaboration features of the content management platform, as well as its automated workflows and lifecycle management features. "By standardizing on Documentum 4i technology, Heller Financial has exhibited strong confidence that Documentum will be able to facilitate their transition to a new business model based on enterprise content management and collaborative e-commerce," said Dave De Walt, president and chief operating officer for Documentum. "We're pleased that Heller has placed their confidence in Documentum. This vote of confidence is further proof that Documentum content management is fast becoming the standard for all organizations looking to capitalize on e-business opportunities for a decided competitive edge." About Heller Financial Heller Financial, Inc., is a worldwide commercial finance company providing a broad range of sophisticated, collateralized financing solutions. With $20 billion in total assets, Heller offers equipment financing and leasing, sales finance programs, collateral- and cash flow-based financing, financing for healthcare companies and financing for commercial real estate. The Company also offers trade finance, factoring, asset-based lending, leasing and vendor finance products and programs to clients in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Heller's common stock is listed as "HF" on the New York and Chicago Stock Exchanges. Heller can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hellerfinancial.com . About Documentum Documentum is the industry's leading enterprise content management provider, automating the production, exchange and personalization of all types of content, making it easier for the Global 2000 to gain competitive advantage by connecting employees, business partners and customers, worldwide. Built on an Internet-scale, XML-enabled and standards-compliant platform, Documentum products manage Web content, power portals, enable collaborative commerce, and solve regulatory content challenges. Over 300 partners across all major industries, including high tech, pharmaceutical, healthcare, consulting services, government, manufacturing, financial services, automotive, retail, and consumer goods, build and implement specialized applications using Documentum's content management infrastructure. For more information, visit Documentum on the Web at www.documentum.com NOTE: Documentum and the Documentum logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Documentum, Inc. in the US and throughout the world. All other company and product names are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. In addition to historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Documentum's future actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements discussed herein. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed from time to time in Documentum's public reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, such as those under "Risk Factors" included in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1999 (they may have filed their 2000 10-K), as well as the company's other public reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements. SOURCE Documentum, Inc. ##################################################################### CitiCapital's Profit Off 67% By Paul Beckett, Wall Street Journal Citigroup reported an 8.2% decline in first-quarter net income but inched past the expectations of analysts, who said the results show that the nation's biggest financial services company can withstand a slowing economy better than many of its rivals. Citigroup, whose stable of brand-name financial services includes Citibank, Salomon Smith Barney and Travelers insurance, reported net income of $3.54 billion, down from $3.86 billion in the first quarter of 2000, when U.S. equity markets were still performing strongly. Net in the first quarter of this year was reduced by $42 million because of a change in U.S. accounting standards. Per-share net on a diluted basis, including the accounting adjustments, was 69 cents, down 8% from 75 cents a year ago. Without the adjustments, earnings a share were 71 cents, one cent higher than a consensus of analysts' estimates compiled by Thomson Financial/First Call. Citigroup's revenue rose 6% to $20.28 billion from $19.13 billion a year ago. "The strength and diversity of our earnings by business, geography, and customer helped to deliver a strong bottom line in a period of market uncertainty," said Citigroup Chairman Sanford I. Weill. In 4 p.m. composite trading Monday (4/16/01) on the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Citigroup, a component stock of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, slipped 35 cents to $46.95, amid a decline among several financial stocks. As has happened in past quarters when the company's investment and corporate banking activities were hurt by some weakness in financial markets, Citigroup's huge consumer business picked up much of the slack. Profit in the global corporate division, which includes the Salomon Smith Barney brokerage firm and the Citibank corporate bank, fell 7% to $1.75 billion. That included a 67% drop in profit to $19 million at CitiCapital, the company's global equipment financing arm, largely because of the continuing workout of problems in the truck-leasing portfolio Citigroup took on with last November's acquisition of Associates First Capital of Dallas. There also was a steep drop-off in income in the company's private-client, or retail brokerage, division, where profit fell 47% to $191 million from a year ago, though the investment-banking business benefited from increased issuance of bonds for clients. Offsetting many of those declines was strong growth in the global consumer business, where profit rose 18% to $1.78 billion. That was fueled by a 23% rise in profit at the U.S. credit-card business, to $469 million, and a 24% increase at the Citibank consumer bank in North America, to $164 million. In the third, smaller pillar of Citigroup's business - investment management and private banking - profit rose 11% to $193 million, bolstered by a 21% rise in profit at Citigroup Private Bank to $97 million. The overall results also were hurt by the market-related slump in the company's proprietary investment activities, where profit fell 79% to $136 million. Still, analysts said the generally strong performance was an indication that being as diverse as Citigroup helps; other financial concerns such as Bear Stearns Cos., Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. and American Express Co. have either reported much weaker profits or announced to Wall Street bad news in advance of earnings. Indeed, this year is shaping up to be important for the future of Citigroup, which operates in more than 100 countries. Now that it has largely overcome the friction that followed the 1998 merger of Travelers Group and Citicorp that created Citigroup, Weill is anxious to show that his company deserves to be included among the handful of financial companies that attract high price-to-earnings ratios. He sees this market slump as a chance to make Citigroup stand out from the pack, especially from other Wall Street firms. "We don't want to disappoint people," Weill said in an interview, adding, "I think we should have a higher [stock] multiple. "Citigroup has a price-to-earnings ratio of about 18 times trailing earnings. That puts it above traditional brokerage firms such as Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, but still trails such companies as Bank of New York Co., with a multiple of about 26, and Charles Schwab Corp., with a multiple of about 37. "It was a terrific result given the weakness in the market," said Diane Glossman, analyst with UBS Warburg in New York. "We keep talking about this as a 'Prove it' period for the company. If they want a higher valuation, they have to earn money through thick and thin, and that's what they're doing." ###################################################################### Intuit Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Tax and Accounting Software Corporation; Acquisition to Strengthen Professional Tax Business
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.----April 17, 2001--Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq:INTU) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of Tulsa, Okla.-based Tax and Accounting Software Corporation (TAASC). The acquisition is being made by Intuit's Lacerte Software Corporation subsidiary and is expected to close by the end of the day. "TAASC is an excellent fit for Intuit," said Steve Bennett, Intuit's president and chief executive officer. "The acquisition will provide us with added technology and a solid customer base, and it will help us meet our overall growth objectives in the future." TAASC (www.taascforce.com) offers a fully integrated suite of software tools for accounting and tax professionals. The company, which was founded in 1980 and is privately held, has a strong track record of innovation and customer service. "Teaming with Intuit represents a clear win for TAASC customers," said Tim Kloehr, TAASC's founder. "Intuit has set the standard for excellence in professional tax preparation products and services, meeting the needs of virtually every type of tax practice through its Lacerte and ProSeries software. We believe this acquisition will continue TAASC's vision of providing the best solutions possible, backed by high-quality service and support." Intuit provides the professional tax preparation community with a comprehensive line of integrated and reliable tax preparation software under both its Lacerte(R) and ProSeries(R) brands. "The addition of TAASC is consistent with our long-term growth strategy," said Bennett. "The acquisition is further evidence of our commitment to grow our professional tax business by providing innovative, leading edge solutions to tax and accounting professionals." Under the terms of the agreement, TAASC's operations will become part of Intuit's Dallas-based professional tax division. TAASC's tax customers will have the option of converting to either Intuit's Lacerte or ProSeries products, and Intuit is developing a conversion program to make this transition as smooth as possible. TAASC's EasyACCT accounting products, which allow accountants to prepare financial statements and forms, will be added to Intuit's existing product line and will integrate with future versions of Lacerte and ProSeries products. Operations at TAASC's Tulsa headquarters will be scaled back, with Intuit offering regular or temporary employment to approximately 100 of TAASC's 350 employees. TAASC will provide all its employees, including those who accept jobs with Intuit, at least 60 days of salary. Intuit will provide TAASC employees with information about other job openings at Intuit and will offer outplacement assistance to TAASC employees who are not offered Intuit employment in Tulsa. |