Leasing News

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+15 years experience structuring, underwriting, and collecting leases to privately and publicly held companies. Creative and results oriented. Proven ability to achieve bottom-line results. Email:dkalitow@pacbell.net

Senior corporate officer with financial services credit background. M and A, fund raising and workout expertise. Email:nywb@aol.com

Admin./International: 10+years global ops mgmt. int. biz admin.w import/export/reg. compliance, global biz development, in, transaction P/L, global recruitment/training/staff mgmt. middle market to Fortune 20 account development. Email:ddpeterson1818@yahoo.com

Twenty five plus years experience in middle market lease/ asset based/cash flow transactions. Heavy banking and credit background, with particular expertise in structure and negotiation. Email:brown235@bellsouth.net

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American Leasing Alliance and MainStreet Cooperative Group announced plans in April

This will not be a “funding source” or “super broker” but a powerhouse of

The cooperative, OneWorld Leasing, Inc., will serve as a marketing and loan syndication company for small- and medium-sized companies in the industry. The cooperative expects to have 7 founding members and is close to this goal, plus according to reliable sources, is about to make an announcement of funding opportunities.

Unlike lease consolidation plays, the members will own this, yet continue to be independent," Richard Selby said. MainStreet's Richard Selby will serve as interim CEO during the cooperative formation period. Six to nine months after launch, a leasing industry veteran will be identified to lead OneWorld. At last report, the co-op is moving ahead, despite the economy and skeptics.

To learn more, contact:

Rich Selby

rselby@mainstreet.coop

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Leadership. Without it, no endeavor can succeed. With it, no obstacle is too great. Great leadership can change the minds of many. It can alter the course of history. It is contagious. It is empowering.

The story of the leasing industry is one of leadership. It's about entrepreneurs, about innovation in taking and managing risk. It shows that leadership is more than a human dimension, more than the ability to communicate and share a vision. Leading your company and your market requires having a strategy, managing change, effectively gathering and using information.

There are Leadership Matters and Leadership DOES Matter-especially today. Refining your business model, creative funding, economic and regulatory navigation, cutting edge technology, customer relationships and personnel management are the matters that demand your leadership. The 41st Annual Convention focuses on leadership and its importance in maintaining the position that the lease and other structured finance products enjoy today.

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Last Thursday, my wife and I flew to Phoenix on Continental Airlines, on round-trip tickets that cost $404 each. Because each of us last year flew over 25,000 miles on Continental, we qualify for when-available upgrades to first class.

As has happened frequently this year, with so many fewer people buying high- fare seats, we were upgraded to first class. The flight was on time; the food was good; the first-class flight attendant was cheerful and helpful. Even the movie was watchable.

It was pleasant enough to almost forget about the standard experience of going through the security checkpoint back at the airport. You know the one: being perp-patted and curtly ordered to drop your belt and remove your shoes by a security guard who seems to have been recruited from the overnight shift at the state penitentiary.

The point here is that the major airlines, whatever other vilification is justifiably hurled their way about their indefensibly convoluted fare structures, often seem to be making a serious effort to provide a pleasant flight, under staggering financial and political constraints.

"The airlines get it; the federal government doesn't," said Michael Boyd, a consultant whose Web site (aviationplanning.com) often publishes sharp commentary criticizing the government's management of airport security.

The so-called airport hassle factor is by now well established as a reason many Americans are flying less. And it's only going to get worse early next year, Mr. Boyd and other analysts say. That's when all 429 commercial airports in the United States are required to have in operation huge bag- screening machines that are supposed to inspect checked luggage for possible explosives.

There are a lot of new problems ahead, according to Mr. Boyd and other analysts. Last month, I flew out of the airport in Salt Lake City, where the big machines have been in place since the Winter Olympic Games, and was amazed at how cumbersome the bag-checking process was. It required half a dozen employees, and a total of 12 minutes, for my checked bag, accompanied by me, to move from the ticket counter to the checkpoint, through the machine, and then onto a cart for delivery to the airplane.

"The machines don't work," Mr. Boyd said. "They're supposed to do 500 bags an hour. They do about a bag a minute. Plus they require a phalanx of people. You've got the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra out there wandering around operating these things."

Robert Moore, on the other hand, has eliminated flying altogether. Mr. Moore doesn't make a big point of criticizing the airport experience. He just decided not to engage it. Mr. Moore, a software executive in St. Louis, managed this by buying a 40-foot motor home six months ago. He travels on business about 50 percent of his work time, and so far, he said, he has not had to use a plane.

"That isn't to say I'm afraid of flying, because I have a pilot's license myself," he said. "All things considered, I think that traveling by airplane is still the safest form of travel."

He added: "The airports today have become demoralizing, to the extent that innocent people who are not trying to blow up a plane are being screened pretty intensely. I'm not taking a stand against that at all. But to the extent that I can alleviate that for myself, and at the same time bring my wife and other businesspeople that I'm associated with along on these trips, I'm happy to do it. I don't have to ask my wife if anyone else has been in control of her bag before she can put it on the motor home."

Mr. Moore, 41, is the president of 321 Studios.com, a company that develops software for copying DVD video and audio discs. In the last year, most of his road trips have been made to promote the software and to further the company's stand against major movie studios, which contend that new federal copyright law prohibits duplicating of DVD movie discs even for use as personal backup copies.

"I bought the motor home when it became clear that I was going to have to do a lot more traveling this year," he said. "I have everything I need. I have satellite for both television and Internet access; I have a fax machine through my laptop, a scanner, and a printer that doubles as a photocopier."

He doesn't just use the vehicle for short trips. "I just got back from San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, and I'm getting ready to head to New York," he said.

For trips to big cities, he and his wife, Donna, who usually comes along, tow an automobile behind the motor home, which has a 110-gallon fresh-water tank and a diesel generator that allows for parking, and even for overnight stays, in urban spaces where power hookups are not available.

"My wife loves coming along," he said. "I can be driving down the highway and she can be in the living room watching television, or she can get on the Internet and stay in contact with our kids and with the office. Then when she's driving, I can be in the back chopping away on my laptop."

He doesn't rule out air travel altogether, though right now he works hard to give the airport a pass. "Of course if I got a call tomorrow and somebody said, look you need to be in Atlanta tomorrow, and it's 4 in the afternoon here in St. Louis, what am I going to do? If I think it's beneficial to the company, I would probably fly. But I would prefer not to. So far, it hasn't happened. I haven't had to fly in the six months since I bought it, knock on wood."

SANTA CLARA – Intel Corp. released four new personal-computer microprocessors, the fastest yet as the world's biggest computer-chip maker tries to rekindle demand. Located

not to far from our office, the parking lots are not full. It is not just vacation, but

The additions, Pentium 4 chips that run at 2.8 gigahertz, 2.66 GHz, 2.6 GHz and 2.5 GHz, bolster Intel's position in the race to deliver microprocessors that play music, video and games on PCs at faster speeds, spokesman Robert Manetta said. Intel's 2.8 GHz Pentium wholesale costs $508 each in lots of 1,000.

The Santa Clara-based chip maker, which is cutting 4,000 jobs after a prolonged slump in PC demand, is trying to stoke sales by offering higher-performing semiconductors. It moved up yesterday's release and plans to introduce a 3-GHz chip in time for Christmas shopping, faster than originally scheduled, trying to get a jump on AMD, which accounts

for less than 5% of chip sales and only claim in the past is to have a cheaper and faster

Intel shaved 63 percent off the price of an existing 2.53-GHz chip, to a wholesale

price of $243 in quantity from $637. Local Fry’s Electronics has specials on 1.2 ghz

The Cardinals generate just under $2 million per home game in economic activity. Without that stream of income, hotels and restaurants see lean times ahead.

In any other baseball season, the Marriott Pavilion Hotel would be turning away fans coming to town for a three-game, stretch-drive series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs.

"We'd already be sold out by now," said Bill Tirone, marketing director for the hotel, which overlooks Busch Stadium.

But the Marriott, at Market Street and Broadway, still has plenty of vacancies for the Cardinals- Cubs weekend Sept. 6-8.

The mere threat of a strike by Major League Baseball players already is hurting business at the 672-room hotel, which counts Cardinals games as its single biggest source of bookings.

Businesses across downtown and throughout the area are nervously watching the negotiations between major league players and owners, hoping the sides can reach a new deal before Friday's strike deadline.

"We went through it before, in 1994, and it hurt us pretty good," said Charlie Gitto, who owns Charlie Gitto's, an Italian restaurant at 207 North Sixth Street.

A strike would cost the restaurant about 40 percent of its current business, he said.

"Baseball has a big impact on downtown St. Louis," Gitto said. "If we lose it, a lot of people won't survive."

The Regional Chamber and Growth Association projected in April that the Cardinals' 81 regular- season games would generate $159 million in economic activity, or just under $2 million a game.

The RCGA pegged the direct impact, such as spending by fans and the team, at $91 million. It estimated the indirect impact of those dollars circulating through economy at $68 million.

A strike that ends the season, then, would slash the economic impact by nearly one-fifth, or about $32 million.

Jacob Pierce, executive kitchen manager at the TGI Friday's downtown, hopes that those calculations prove entirely theoretical.

If Pierce is wrong, the restaurant at 529 Chestnut Street will be a quieter place next month.

TGI Friday's is usually crowded before games, with fans killing time between the end of their workdays and the start of play.

Fans also gather at the restaurant afterward, to grab a bite to eat and wait out the post game traffic, Pierce said.

All told, baseball accounts for 40 percent to 50 percent of TGI Friday's business this time of year, he said.

Despite the talk of the strike, fans still trickled into the Cardinals' ticket office at Busch on Monday to buy tickets for next month's games.

Caroline Huth walked from her downtown office on the noon hour to pick up six tickets for one of the Cardinals-Cubs games. Her sister and brother live in the Chicago area and want to come down for the game.

Before handing over her $54, Huth asked whether the tickets were refundable and what she should do if the season ended prematurely. The ticket agent said they would be refundable in case of strike.

But Huth is expecting to be in the stands rather than sitting at home because of a strike.

The potential impact of a strike is lower for businesses on the fringes of downtown and the outer reaches of the area.

"It would affect our bar business more than it would our food business," said Nick Bouyoukos of Harry's Restaurant and Bar, 2144 Market Street.

Harry's runs a shuttle between its restaurant and Busch Stadium on game days. The service helps it draw anywhere from 20 to 100 baseball fans per game to the nightspot, Bouyoukos said.

The dining room attracts a different clientele, mainly out-of-town businesspeople, he said.

The Best Western Camelot Inn in Fairview Heights gets plenty of Cardinals fans during the summer months.

But even before the possibility of a strike, the 55-room hotel was planning for a drop in that business, said Tia Munoz, assistant manager.

"The weather's getting cooler and kids are going back to school," she said. "There's not as much traveling going on."

The sluggish economy and a slow business-travel market is one reason many downtown hotels have been counting so heavily on the Cardinals to generate bookings.

"We are desperately worried," said Mike Jorgensen, general manager of the Westin Hotel St. Louis and a spokesman for the St. Louis Area Hotel Association. "If there's a strike, that pretty much shoots the whole month of September."

Although they have much to lose in a strike, the big downtown hotels are better equipped to endure the loss of baseball traffic than the smaller businesses in and around the stadium, Tirone said.

The Marriott and other hotels can make up their lost bookings through special promotions, Tirone said. The people who work inside the stadium, selling beer, hot dogs and other merchandise, have no way to replace that income, he said.

Tirone was at a loss Monday to predict whether the week would end in a strike or a settlement.

"Part of me says 'It's not going to happen.' Then part of me says, 'I remember the last time it happened,'" he said. "So I guess I'm 50-50 at this point."

Phone: 314-340-8291

20 listings include the week's ranking, with rating for the week and season-to- date rankings in parentheses.

An ``X'' in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation. The rating is the percentage of the nation's estimated 105.5 million TV homes. Each ratings point represents 1,055,000 households.

8. (X) ``NFL Exhibition Football: San Francisco at Denver,'' ABC, 7.6, 8.0 million homes.

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