December 26, 2000

Happy New Year, Ray!!!

I just read Bob Rodi's 12/13/2000 letter to the membership about Dr. Ray Williams leaving UAEL. We have only been members since 1997 and on several occasions he has helped us locate information helpful to our business.
When I visited UAEL in Oakland a couple of years ago and at other various UAEL functions, Ray always was positive, upbeat and made each event that much more interesting and enjoyable. Please pass along my wish for good luck, health and happiness to Ray.
Best Regards,
Ken Sullivan 21st Century Leasing
kens@21stcenturyleasing.com

( The original story appeared in our Leasing October edition. Ken is referring to the December 13 Letter to all UAEL Members. Our readership has almost doubled since the October edition. editor).

ex-United Capital Employee

Tis the Season! After catching up on my leasing news I had to add my two cents. I am one of those lovely former United Capital employees that was laid off. I am grateful and sad to see an end to the relationship. In the beginning working there was almost paradise. Everyone was having fun, making money, it was a great place to work. You ask what was the best part about the experience? It was the leadership hands down! They lead by example and set the tone! They created the atmosphere! Remember that classic phrase, Who is living the leasing dream? What were they thinking? The time that I was there I learned more about leasing business than all of my years prior to for which I am grateful. Due to my recent departure I have failed to keep up with the soap opera! At the onset of this letter my intentions were not that good. I was not let go for failing to perform. I was released for purely personal reasons. For those of you who had an intimate relationship with United Capital and have been in the business a while you know what is happening. You've seen it before. I truly hope that they pull this out minus the Old Kent reject. I did not know Steve Dallas as well as I should have, but based on valued opinions he was not a bad guy. For what it is worth I wrote this for closure. I wish all in the broker community the best of luck. I have truly met some fantastic people.

( not signed )

Leasing Credit Card: Leasing Scam????

I am a recent subscriber to your newsletter. Your open forum (or is it guided chaos) has been a valuable addition to my industry knowledge. It is one of the very few e-mails to which I regularly look forward.

I noted with interest the piece you recently ran about Preferred Capital and it's "pre-approvals." In the summer of 1999, I ran a personal essay titled "Leasing Scams" on my web site. " The relative portion is printed at the bottom of this e-mail.

In September, 1999, David Murray, then President of Preferred Capital, sent an e-mail to me, complaining about my negative characterization of the practice of "using Dun & Bradstreet lists as a marketing tool."

I responded, pointing out that I had no problem with the use of such lists - indeed, I use them, myself. My problem is with misrepresentations. I ended my reply with "....I have not specified your firm in my essay, but if the shoe fits, I hope you will reconsider some aspects of your marketing."

Sincerely,
Barry Reitman
KEYSTONE EQUIPMENT LEASING, INC.
baldguy@keystoneleasing.com

Leasing Scams (www.keystoneleasing.com )

Let's be direct. Unsolicited, "Pre-Qualified credit line" mass mailings are unethical at best. You know the pitch: "Because of your excellent Dun & Bradstreet rating your company has been selected to receive a $75,000 leasing line of credit! Just call your customer Service Rep to activate your line".

When you call you are congratulated and then faxed a "membership confirmation form." You are told to start selecting equipment from vendors of your choice, arrange for delivery and let the vendor know that you are pre-approved by the leasing company.

What are the problems here? In no certain order, the problems are:

>Your company is NOT pre-approved. The "membership confirmation" is nothing but a credit application.
>The rate or payment per month can (and often does) change because of something on your credit report even though you were pre-qualified. (Duh!)
>There is now an extortive effect: the equipment is about to be delivered, and you must go along with the high price (or other unpleasant terms), or have to admit to the vendor that your being "pre-approved" was not accurate -- there's a question about your credit.
There are many scams and unfair practices that are all too common in the finance industry (See "What to Watch For," below.). The mailing list "Pre-Approver" has given you a signal that he is prone to dishonesty. Be Aware.

We recently received a call from an entrepreneur who has been trying to clean up his credit report. This fellow has paid off all but $20,000 of a quarter million in delinquencies, charge-offs, and judgments, in spite of his attorney's telling him to just go bankrupt. I like this guy. He chose to do the right thing. But he is not ready to be approved at anything like a reasonable rate. What's the damage? Not only did the "Pre-approver" unrealistically raise his hopes and then humiliate him to the three vendors from whom he wanted to acquire equipment, they also "shot-gunned" his application to other leasing companies (apparently trying to broker the deal). This actually created unnecessary "inquiries" on his credit report, making it worse than it would have been.

Thank you.

Keep up the great work Kit. I really appreciate your effort. I feel as though I have a direct pipeline into the entire leasing industry by perusing your newsletter daily.

Happy Holidays to you and yours! From the very-very-very cold northeast! :-(

Gerry Oestreich
Adirondack Leasing Associates Ltd
gerryo@nycap.rr.com

SierraCities.com Completes Sale of UK Assets

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 26, 2000--SierraCities.com Inc. (Nasdaq:BTOB), an innovator of technology solutions for online B2B financing, announced that it has successfully completed the sale of two of its three wholly owned UK-based leasing subsidiaries, and has closed the sale of the third UK subsidiary in escrow as of December 22, 2000. The escrow on this third sale is scheduled to close on December 27, 2000. The net result of these three sales is an aggregate $10 million in net cash proceeds, after the repayment of bank debt related to the UK subsidiaries and after closing expenses. Once the last of these transactions is finalized, SierraCities will have exited its business in the United Kingdom. SierraCities' merger agreement with VerticalNet, Inc. (Nasdaq:VERT) obligated SierraCities to use reasonable best efforts to sell these assets. The transaction will result in an approximate pre-tax loss of $21 million for SierraCities.com, $13 million of which relates to the write-off of goodwill. These amounts are consistent with the amounts disclosed in VerticalNet's Registration Statement on Form S-4 relating to the merger agreement.

SierraCities.com is an innovator of technology solutions for B2B financing. The Company's technology platform supports real time funding of e-commerce transactions through one of the most comprehensive online business financing fulfillment solutions available. SierraCities.com's credit technologies enable B2B e-commerce by empowering businesses to complete transactions more quickly, thereby gaining time and cost efficiencies. SierraCities.com's infrastructure solution automates much of the process involved in customer acquisition, application, data retrieval, data warehousing, underwriting, documentation, servicing, collections, funding, auditing, and data mining. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.SierraCities.com.

This release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, including the risk that the Company may be unable to obtain regulatory approval for the Internet bank in the future in the event that the Company decides to pursue this course of action, the outcome of the exploration of the division of the Company's operations and the state of the secondary market for sales of the Company's financial assets. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which reflect SierraCities.com's management's view only as of the date hereof. SierraCities.com undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Readers should also carefully review the risk factors described in documents SierraCities.com files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1999.

CONTACT:

SierraCities.com Inc.

Sandy Ho, 713/221-8822 (Chief Financial Officer)

Alan L. Langus, 914/286-6365 (EVP)

or

Morgen-Walke Associates

Teresa Thuruthiyil (Investors) o

r Christopher Katis (Media),

415/296-7383

KEYWORD: TEXAS UNITED KINGDOM EUROPE

IPO market goes to the dogs
By Cecily Barnes
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

year in review Among the dozens of dot-com flameouts, one company epitomizes the IPO market in 2000: Pets.com.
The online pet store seemed to have everything going for it early this year when it sold shares to the public, including

o Get the "Big Picture"
o Related News o Message Boards
o financial backing by e-tail giant Amazon.com;
o a simple, easy-to-remember Web address;
o a successful branding campaign built around a sock puppet dog, including a TV campaign in which $2.6 million was spent to advertise during the Super Bowl;
o and timing, considering it was going public when the Nasdaq and IPO market were nearing a crescendo.

Pets.com was able to launch its IPO in February, raising about $82 million by selling 7.5 million shares at $11 each. The stock later climbed as high as $14.
Then the wheels fell off as the Nasdaq tanked, the IPO market imploded, and Pets.com investors realized that it's difficult to make a profit selling chew toys and dog food online. A mere nine months after its stock market debut, Pets.com folded, and its assets such as the domain name and the rights to the puppet were sold. By mid-December, it held the distinction of being the worst-performing IPO of 2000.
"In the final analysis, the only thing you really had equity in is the sock puppet," said Randall Roth, an analyst with the IPO Plus Aftermarket Fund. "It's the one thing in that company's remains that had any staying power."

Do you have an opinion or comment on this story? Tell us.
For seasoned investors who had nervously questioned how profitless companies often lacking tangible products could climb to such high valuations in the IPO market, the year 2000 answered their queries: They could not, or at least not for long.
Last year, executives and investors focused on revenue growth and market share as a means of determining value, particularly among e-tailers. The year 2000 saw the return of a more conservative standard--a shift that occurred almost overnight and blindsided many unprepared investors.
Profitability, or at least a clear path to it, and seasoned management returned as important benchmarks for companies going public. Internet companies that were postponing their break-even dates, sometimes indefinitely, were harshly punished, with newly public dot-coms suffering the brunt of the sustained market drubbing.
Although the year's 451 IPOs posted average first-day gains of about 55 percent, the vast majority tumbled by year's end to an average loss of 15 percent from the offering price, according to Thomson Financial Securities Data.
"Even well-received IPOs were finding themselves doing an about-face not too long after going public," said Mark Dicioccio, managing director of Lehman Brothers. By comparison, the average IPO in 1999 had a first-day gain of 66 percent and ended the year up a stunning 194 percent.
All told, just 6 percent of this year's deals are trading up 100 percent from their IPO offering price, compared with 46 percent at the end of 1999.
The week of April 10, when the Nasdaq composite index lost 19 percent of its value, served as the catalyst for the downturn in the IPO market.
David Menlow, president of the IPO Financial Network, described the correction as "more deeply damaging to the marketplace than any other phase of the new issues market in the last decade." The pessimism spread well beyond the e-tailing, content and Net sectors, enveloping even such Wall Street darlings as optical networking, semiconductor and telecommunications equipment. As Dicioccio describes it, the momentum investing that drove many IPOs to dizzying heights also worked against them.
"Everyone had become very enamored with the optical-networking companies," Dicioccio explained.
"An institution could say, 'OK, I'm buying this whole sector.' Later in the year that same psychology (worked) in the other direction." Investors disenchanted with a sector sold not just one company but the whole lot. In reaction, IPOs--by definition a risky proposition--slid along with their more established counterparts