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Kit Menkin's Leasing News www.leasingnews.org Monday, July 8, 2002 Accurate, fair and unbiased news for the equipment Leasing Industry ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Headlines---- Machine tool consumption up 7.7 percent in May, falls from year ago Dot.com Shakeout Slowing Down Internet Attacks On Companies Up 28 Percent, Report Says ACC Capital announces internal promotions Monday---Odds and Ends Twenty-Five Years, One Billion PCs FCC Stymies Broadband in U.S. ### Denotes Press Release The Week's Economic Events July 8 MONDAY Consumer Borrowing: May TUESDAY None WEDNESDAY None THURSDAY Producer Prices: June Sales of Leading Retailers June Weekly Jobless Claims FRIDAY Retail Sales: June Machine tool consumption up 7.7 percent in May, falls from year ago By Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) U.S. purchases of machine tools in May rose 7.7 percent from the previous month, but dropped 29.8 percent from the same time a year ago, two industry groups reported. Annual consumption decreases were most pronounced in the Northeast and Midwestern region of the country, while the Western region, the only region up from a year ago, saw a slim increase. Companies spent an estimated $185.67 million for machine tools in May, the Association for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors' Association say in a report being released Monday. May consumption was up 7.7 percent from April, but down from $264.60 million in May 2001. With a year-to-date total of $868.49 million, machine tool sales are down 31.1 percent when compared with the same period in 2001. ''The signs that life is creeping back into manufacturing are there,'' said Don F. Carlson, AMT president. ''The upward trend in machine tool orders appears to be building momentum into the summer.'' Compared with figures from May 2001, machine tool consumption dropped 52.2 percent in the Northeast and 23.2 percent in the Central region, while declining 39.4 percent in the Midwest and 9.9 percent in the South. In the West, consumption was up 2 percent from a year earlier. Analysts consider the demand for machine tools as a reliable indicator of the strength of the manufacturing industry and the overall productivity, since machine tool consumption reports provide information about the industries' investment in capital metalworking equipment. Statistics are compiled from figures submitted by companies participating in the U.S. Machine Tool Consumption report. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dot.com Shakeout Slowing Down NEW YORK (Dow Jones/AP) – In a sign that the Internet sector may be nearing the end of its brutal shakeout, the number of shutdowns and bankruptcies by dot-com companies in the first half of this year fell 73 percent from the same period last year, a new report from Webmergers.com shows. At least 93 Internet companies closed their doors or filed for bankruptcy protection in the first six months of 2002, down from 345 such casualties during the same period last year, according to the San Francisco research firm that has been keeping a tally of shutdowns. June, which had 13 shutdowns, marked the sixth consecutive month in which the number of shutdowns came in at less than 20. That's a considerable contrast from the 16-month period preceding January, when casualties averaged 44 a month. Since January 2000, when the Internet froth was at its peak, at least 862 dot-com companies have failed, according to Webmergers.com data. E-commerce and content companies – many of which were business- to-consumer concerns that were quick fatalities during the first wave of the Internet shakeout – dominate the Internet company failures to- date. Of the 862 shutdowns, 368, or 43 percent, are e-commerce companies, while content companies have a tally of 217, or 25 percent. Infrastructure, Internet access and professional-services companies account for 16 percent, 10 percent and 6 percent of shutdowns, respectively. Over the past two months, shutdowns were dominated by Internet- content providers, infrastructure companies, Internet-services providers, and other providers of dial-up and broadband Internet- access service. As companies disappear, many people would prefer to forget the excesses of the dot-com frenzy, when start-ups, often based on little more than a PowerPoint presentation, scooped up millions from investors before collapsing. Webmergers.com has found, though, that a number of individuals are interested in remembering tales of such excesses. The research firm, along with the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, last week launched an online archive designed to create a permanent record of the dot-com era. The Web site, www.businessplanarchive.org, encourages former Internet executives, employees and investors to submit e-mails and other items from both failed and successful dot-com companies. So far, more than 400 individuals have registered with the site and its researchers have been promised hundreds of business plans, says Webmergers president Tim Miller. In one case, an East Coast venture capitalist who was about to destroy 1,500 business plans called up researchers and offered instead to ship them to the Business Plan Archive, says Miller in his latest report. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Internet Attacks On Companies Up 28 Percent, Report Says By Michael Barbaro Washington Post Staff Writer Internet attacks against public and private organizations around the world leapt 28 percent in the past six months, with most targeting technology, financial services and power companies, according to an industry report due out today. The report, conducted by the Internet security firm Riptech Inc. of Alexandria, indicated that the information backbone upon which many countries rely remains vulnerable to cyber- attacks. "The Internet is still an extremely dangerous place and attack activity is increasing at a significant pace," said Elad Yoran, Riptech's executive vice president. The study tracked cyber-security breaches at more than 400 organizations that Riptech monitors, including government agencies, private companies and nonprofit groups, and found more than 180,000 successful Internet attacks from January to June. There were only 160,000 attacks against the same organizations during the previous six months. The report's most startling findings point to the growing attraction of large, critical service providers to hackers worldwide. Seventy percent of the power and energy companies under review suffered at least one severe attack during the first six months of 2002, according to the report, compared with 57 percent for the previous six-month period. There were 1,280 crimes against such firms, compared with 667 attacks on health-care companies and 617 against those in manufacturing. "In the hacker community, you are going to score more points for hitting bigger companies," said Dorothy Denning, a Georgetown University professor who specializes in security and information warfare. "There is also an economic gain to going after the large financial services targets -- they have the money." Those who prey on computer networks are not spread uniformly around the world. About 80 percent of cyber-crimes were launched from the same 10 countries, the report said. More than 40 percent of the 180,000 attacks were conducted through computers in the United States. The report does not indicate where the victims of the attacks were located. Cyber-attackers appear to be busiest during the five-day business week. The report shows attacks occurred most frequently Monday through Friday and dropped off dramatically on the weekend when many of the world's industries are closed. The most popular day for attacks, Riptech found, was Wednesday. The report shows no increased Internet threats from countries that the U.S. government describes as sponsors of terror. But that does not mean people in these states are not perpetrating cyber-crimes, the report said. Tracking cyber-attacks inside Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Libya is hampered by "primitive or non- existent Internet infrastructures" there, the report stated. It is possible terrorists based in these countries are launching attacks, Riptech's Yoran said, likely through host computers located in other nations. "But we have no way of finding out," he said. "They can use our computers here in the U.S. to attack other U.S. companies." Though the vast majority of attacks occurred in country's with wide Internet access, hackers also are active in nations where the online infrastructure is fledgling. Among such countries, the greatest number of attacks originated in Kuwait, followed by Iran, according to the report. But the actual number of security breaches begun in both nations remains extremely small, less than 1 percent of all attacks calculated in the report. __________________________________________________________________ www.leasingnews.org Monday, July 8, 2002 Accurate, fair and unbiased news for the equipment Leasing Industry ############## ####################################### ACC Capital announces internal promotions ACC Capital Corporation (formerly Amembal Capital Corporation) is pleased to announce the promotion of Catherine Long to Director of Intermediary Relations. After two years of service to the lease broker community Catherine will be replacing Mark Haycock. We are also happy to announce that Mark Haycock has accepted a new position as the Vice President of ACC's Corporate Advisory Group. In this new capacity Mr. Haycock’s group will consult Fortune 1000 companies on how best to structure capital equipment acquisitions. Larry Grant and Marci Kimball-Slagle remain as Executive Vice President and Vice President of Intermediary Relations, respectively. They will continue to serve the broker community. ACC is a diversified equipment finance company, located in Salt Lake City, Utah. ACC specializes in the structuring, origination and servicing of a broad array of lease products to middle and lower-middle markets in the United States. For additional information visit: www.acccap.com. Chris Shilts, Director of Marketing ACC Capital Corp. 420 East South Temple, Suite 240 Salt Lake City, UT 84111 Phone: 801-530-7714 Fax: 801-595-9069 e-mail: cshilts@acccap.com Web site: www.acccap.com ### ####################### ####################################
Monday---Odds and Ends July 4th Message—Business Practices Today Compared with American History Good perspective. Thanks for writing it and sharing it. Arthur Rosenfield BizWiz --- I appreciate your insight and hope that the information you send will continue to help our difficult industry.......thanks in advance........ cliff feldman --- Have you heard anything on mike cingari...rumor is he skipped town...? He lost another labor case.....didn't even show last Friday. Makes it 9 cases over 175k. Dan McDonald http://www.leasingnews.org/Conscious-Top%20Stories/MSM_skeletonStaff.htm ----
Marketiiicredit.com
Would you please do me a favor. Inexplicably AT&T cut off both our toll free phone and fax lines as of July 1st. We have had these numbers since our Fisher Anderson days and people outside the immediate area aren't aware they are also the same numbers locally. If the 803 area code is used instead of the 877 prefix the lines are fine. The AT&T message on the toll free lines is that they are disconnected leaving the impression that we are out of business. Not a good sign these days. We are very much in business and would appreciate passing this on to your readers. I wish to apologize to anyone who may have been inconvenienced by this error on AT&T's part. We have contacted the Public Service Commission and hopefully this will be resolved soon. In the meantime, please use 803 865 0475 for the phone and 803 865 0476 for the fax if you wish to contact Mark III Credit Corp. Thanks, and keep up the good work. This industry is fortunate to have a forum such as Leasing News to keep us in the loop on current events and developing issues that impact our business. Don Shadel dhadel@markiiicredit.com Name = Don Shadel Address = 1 Smallwood Ct City = Columbia State = SC Zipcode = 29223 Phone = 803 865 0475 Fax = 803 865 0476 Email = dshadel@markiiicredit.com
--- Last week I received a phone call from a "consultant" who said that he was looking for warehouse financing for Conrad & Associates in Carlsbad, CA so that they could build up portfolios for future bulk sales. He said that the principals were Bill Hanson, Ty Hanson and Mike Grace. He also said they were willing to pay 10% a quarter (which is 40% APR!). NAME WITHHELD (Bill Hanson is a former officer of Commercial Money Market and related companies. http://www.leasingnews.org/Conscious-Top%20Stories/CMC_stories.htm ------- What would happen to CIT in the event TYCO filed BK within 90 days of the IPO? I am not an attorney, but I have learned from my past experience of handling workouts for both Continental Bank and LaSalle Bank that an asset transfer occurring within 90 days of a BK petition may be treated as a "preference item" which usually requires that those assets be sent back to the BK estate. In the case of CIT's sale, is it possible that the BK court could suck CIT back into a TYCO BK? Would be curious to hear from your BK attorney subscribers on this topic. Dale Kluga President Cobra Capital LLC Leasing News asked Peter Hemar for his opinion: I'm not sure what would happen re CIT if Tyco were to file BK. I suppose a filing by Tyco would affect CIT to the extent that the BK filed also covers CIT, i.e. the BK could also be filed on behalf of subsidiaries or related entities. However, the IPO/sale of CIT by Tyco within 90 days of a BK filing will not necessarily trigger a preference action under BK Code Section 549 because that section only applies to payments or transfers to creditors on account of an antecedent debt. Peter S. Hemar Hemar & Associates Attorneys at Law 2001 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 300 Santa Monica, California 90403 Telephone: (310) 829-1948 Facsimile: (310) 829-1352 ----- Menkin Leaves UAEL Board of Directors It appears difficult for readers, directors, even Leasing News advisory board members to differentiate between my role as an editor, and that as a director of the United Association of Equipment Leasing (UAEL. ) To continue as editor, to be unbiased, in addition to enjoying the reputation of striving to be “fair and accurate, “ Christopher Menkin, American Leasing has removed himself as director of UAEL to eliminate any possible conflicts of interest.
---- --- RW Professional, Long Island, New York The FBI is investigating several leasing brokers who worked with RW Professional in providing “mail boxes,” “invoices”, and “credit applications.” It is reported “deals are being made on a ‘first come, first serve” basis. ------ Funding Tree A California Finance License is reportedly not required if you are using your own money. With a new president, and the hopes of attracting “investors,” the Funding Tree may not need a license and therefore the “cease and desist order” may be lifted. ---- Monitor 100 Top Leasing Companies The latest edition sent by mail to subscribers has the top 100. You may subscribe to this monthly magazine by going to: http://www.monitordaily.com/subscrip.shtm A reader sent in the enclosed Top 100 in Adobe format: http://www.leasingnews.org/PDFFiles/monitor1.pdf http://www.leasingnews.org/PDFFiles/monitor2.pdf ----- New Report Shows it Took 25 Years to Reach a Billion and Forecasts That the Two Billionth PC Will Arrive in the Next Six Years If you don't have one, two or three PCs in your house, it's likely you know someone who does. A new report shows that one billion PCs have shipped worldwide and that in about six years that number will double to two billion. Today, PCs with Pentium 4 processors are 30-thousand times faster than the first consumer PCs from 1974. The new Intel processor being released today will have a 64 bit faster processor and will be faster with more application. . According to the Gartner Dataquest study, new PCs sales will grow fastest in the emerging markets inside Asia and Latin America. Roughly one PC was shipped somewhere in the world every second over the last 25 years. If the forecast for growth is correct, five PCs will be shipped every second over the next six years. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twenty-Five Years, One Billion PCs (Full Report by Internet.com ) By Brian Morrissey Internet.com Industry researcher Gartner Dataquest said the one billionth PC shipped in April 2002, while flat growth of late is expected to pick up pace, as broadband penetration increases and emerging markets adopt PCs at feverish rates. While it took 25 years for one billion PCs to ship, Gartner predicts the two billionth PC will ship in just six years' time. Gartner banks on the industry overcoming some tough recent times by looking to countries like China. The catch for the PC industry, in Gartner's prediction, is that skyrocketing growth, above all, has been fueled by the brutal price wars that have driven down the costs of PCs. Gartner Dataquest analyst Martin Reynolds credits Dell with revolutionizing the industry, paving the way for PCs to become a mass-produced commodity and leading the way to the industry consolidation that produced the HP- Compaq marriage. "The PC industry has evolved into an intensely competitive environment," Reynolds said. "Companies that struggle today would be ferocious and unstoppable competitors in other businesses." While the PC industry's long-term outlook might be rosy, it still has a raft of short-term problems to deal with. Earlier this year, Gartner published research showing 2001 was a year to forget for the industry, with global economic stagnation causing a decline in year-end shipment totals for only the second time in 25 years. Worldwide, 128 million PCs were shipped in 2001, down 4.6 percent from a year earlier. In the United States, PC shipments dropped 11 percent, to 44 million units, as consumers put off buying new computers and businesses cut deep into IT budgets. With economic conditions not rapidly improving this year, the worldwide PC market has remained flat, according to Gartner's first- quarter market analysis. In the United States, PC sales picked up 2.3 percent from last year's first quarter, giving a glimmer of hope that demand would return to its normal acceleration rates. The increased demand was largely driven by the consumer market, especially in the demand for mobile PCs, according to the researcher. Meanwhile, the corporate market has remained sluggish, with Gartner analyst Charles Smulders saying the large-accounts market showed no sign of growth, causing an uncertain outlook for the market in 2002. Reynolds pegged continuing to lower costs, which have come down enough to put a computer within range of the budgets of most American households, as an important factor for the PC industry to return to sharp growth rates. But the key, he said, is untapped markets abroad: emerging markets with much lower per capita income. "Lowering costs will be the greatest challenge for the industry in the next six years," he said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FCC Stymies Broadband in U.S. By Jim Wagner Internet.com The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to put the deployment of high-speed Internet services in the hands of a relatively select number of companies, a report Monday shows, and in the end it's the consumers who lose. Those are the findings of "The Role of ISPs in the Growth of the Commercial Internet," conducted by Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America. "All you have to do is look at the rising prices during a recession, both with the cable and telephone companies," Cooper said. "The high prices just subsidize their operations. The DNA of these two industries have no gene for competition in them." The report comes on the heels of a Monday announcement by a new organization, BroadNet Alliance, which wants the "marketplace to pick winners and losers, not a regulatory agency." The FCC has spent the year filing highly controversial rulings that put the onus of broadband deployment almost entirely in the hands of the businesses that own the broadband network and out of reach for many competitive ISPs. An FCC ruling set forth in February, many say, which labeled ISPs an "information service with a telecommunications component," opened the door to new line-sharing and cable competition rulings later in the year. As a result, many local and regional digital subscriber line (DSL) providers are going out of business, while cable is exempted from even opening its network up to the competition. "Look at Texas; 60 days ago there were three DSL providers in my area," said David Robertson, president of San Antonio-based ISP Stic.net and vice president of the Texas ISP Association. "Since then, two of them have gone out of business." According to the report, in 1997 there were close to 8,000 ISPs nationwide, a number that's declined since then to somewhere around 7,200. Dane Jasper, president of the California ISP Association, said the shutdowns are happening around the country and something the FCC wholly endorses. "We're looking at a future where there's only a handful of companies providing broadband," he said. "Do we trust competition, or do we trust a couple of companies?" Jasper said its obvious which choice the FCC has made, even with a history that proves competition has only spurred lower prices and better customer service. He points to the long distance industry, which the FCC deregulated, as an example. After deregulation, prices dropped and customer support improved. DSL and cable, on the other hand, serve 95 percent of the broadband world, but only five percent control the service. In the short span of a couple years, he said, prices have increased by 25 percent. The report shows the FCC need look no further than the ISP industry itself to show the affects of competition on services. The reports indicated there are 15 ISPs for every 100,000 dial-up customers. In broadband, there are five. In the dial-up community, telephone carriers are only five percent of the competition. The problem with the FCC, the new report shows, is its chairman's insistence that inter-nodal competition -- DSL vs. cable vs. wireless -- is the best method to spur broadband growth. Michael Powell and the FCC have proposed and implemented several key rulings to support their belief in inter-nodal competition, rulings that have the backing of the Bush Administration, and rewrite the conditions put in place by the Telecom Act of 1996. Cooper said that thinking has no bearing on the technological barriers DSL, cable and wireless each gace. DSL doesn't handle video-on-demand well, cable's shared network architecture makes it unsuitable for enterprise networks, and satellite service in rural areas (where neither DSL or cable have plans on entering) is still spotty. "The technologies just don't overlap well," he said. "So while the FCC might think there will be competing broadband services in one area, there's really only a couple choices." George W. Bush, talking at the White House 21st Century High Tech Forum in Washington, D.C., told business leaders to look to the FCC for his administration's broadband policy. "I'm confident that the chairman and the board is focusing on policies that will bring high- speed Internet service, will create competition, will keep the consumers in mind," Bush said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Policy Statement Policy Statement---Nothing is sent out that is not "fair." Always unbiased reporting. Fairness always. If it is questionable, we will ask the writer's permission to quote them. We will print information without attribution, but feel as long as we do not name the person who sent it, we can use the information. Any information we think is suspicious, we try to have if substantiated first by at least two reliable people. We will not purposely send out "negative" news. We prefer "positive" news. We have no "axe" to grind or are not paid or seek or accept any remuneration for product or promotion. We do not Spam anyone. To be added to the mailing list, you must request it. We do not send anything about our company or personal e-mail or jokes to the leasing news list. We do not share our mailing list with anyone. We try not to send more than one report a day, if at that, unless an "alert." We follow Internet Netiquette at all times. Our sole purpose is to provide communication to improve our profession. We reserve the right to deny sending the newsletter when requested. We reserve the right to edit or delete an opinion that is not in good taste or is outright derogatory. Leasingnews.org |
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