Headlines---

Late Breaking News

  Southern Pacific Bancorp

    New Tax Law Affects Equipment Leasing

        Friday---Odds and Ends

         Annual Industry Future Council Report

             Amtrak Troubles Widen

New Domain Names Make Possible for Permanent e-Mail Address

      The List to be up-dated on Monday

Late Breaking News

It is reported that Jim Lahti, formerly president of Affiliated Corporate Services

and past president of the United Association of Equipment Leasing, along

with several staff members will resign from BancPartners of Lewisville, Texas.

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Kit you released this news way to premature.  As of this date Jim is

still the President and until further notice he will remain in that

capacity.  Please reprint that he has not resigned but will keep you

informed.  .. Thanks Kit.

Richard A. Galtelli

Chairman & CEO

BancPartners of Texas, Inc.

1550 Waters Ridge Drive

Lewisville, TX 75057

972-221-7335  Pvt Fax 972-219-0223

Kit, some changes are under way. We are excited about the new

opportunities will be issuing a press release and will certainly send you a first copy. Thanks for your support.

Jim Lahti

jrl@acsitx.com

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January 26, 2001 Leasing News story:

Affiliated Corporate Services Merges With First Commerce Leasing

Affiliated Corporate Services, (ACSI) a Lewisville, Texas-based leasing company, has merged with First Commerce Leasing of Birmingham, Alabama, according to ACSI's Chairman, Richard A. Galtelli.

Both companies will continue to operate under their established names, but will be owned by a new entity, First Commerce Holdings.

ACSI Chairman and CEO Richard A. Galtelli and President James R. Lahti will continue in their current positions. Warren Hawkins of First Commerce will serve as president of the holding company and will continue as president of First Commerce Leasing. The move is considered to strengthen both entities as each party is bringing to the table what will help each other in this marketplace.

ACSI, established in 1982, will continue to specialize in providing small-ticket commercial equipment financing to small and mid-size businesses, according to the principals. ACSI has reportedly originated more than $40 million in equipment leases over the last four years, and is expected to originate $18 million to $20 million during its current fiscal year with the merger. They are also reportedly one of the largest super brokers in the Southwest.

Mr. Galtelli has been very active on the world wide web for a considerable time and considered an integral reason for the success of Affiliated Leasing. Mr. Lahti is past-president of the United Equipment Leasing Association and active at conferences with the National Association of Equipment Lease Brokers. He is very popular. He is a very well-known Dallas Cowboy fan, too.

Founded in 1983, First Commerce Leasing provides master lease lines of credit ranging from $25,000 to $5 million to a variety of industries in Alabama and Tennessee, resulting in an expected $35 million in business during it current fiscal year. The company also offers a customized, private-label leasing program to small community banks in Alabama and Tennessee under the name BancPartners Leasing.

----

It is also reported that Coast Business Credit, allegedly owned by Imperial,

“ is in big trouble. Feds may take over. ICII came up in one of my scans and it's trading at $.18 a  share. Yes that decimal is in the right place.

“I can't believe they haven't been de-listed... The threshold is supposed to

be $1.00 but they let that slid when the tech bubble burst and the economy

turned down so dramatically.  However ICII hasn't been above a dollar for at

least a year...”

 ( name with held )

We have heard rumors that Commercial Money Center has closed their doors,

and a late Thursday afternoon conversation with Ty Hanson, says it is not so.  They have invested more money, have investor money, and would not have gone as far as they

have, if they did not believe they could again raise the insurance for the funding of their transactions.

We have heard other rumors, that we are not going to repeat, and don’t understand

why this flurry of negative news.  Fed Chair Alan Greenspan is saying more and

more, the recession is over.  I guess no one has told the equipment leasing industry.

editor.

________________________________________________________________________

Southern Pacific Bancorp

I am the President of Capital Advance Leasing. We specialize in the

syndication of transactions (both discounted and brokered) that range from

$500,000 to $5,000,000. As such, we spend a lot of time getting banking

partners and other debt sources- and have built, in a relatively short time,

a strong transaction syndication operation and network. We were in talks

with Southern Pacific Bancorp and were at the point of directing transaction

flow to them- when we received the word that they were (for the time being)

not going to be able to take any more intermediary business- that was

several weeks ago.

It is an interesting time in the leasing industry and your newsletter

highlights this point everyday. There is a lot of opportunity for the people

who are willing to work both harder AND smarter, to close business and fund

transactions. The problem is that many of the debt participants that are

still in what I would call the middle market arena aren’t interested in

one-off transactions, they are looking for a flow of business, presented in

a clean and concise format, from a professional and reliable intermediary.

It also doesn’t hurt to have a lot of experience and a large network of

people you deal with. Most small brokerage operations are not set up with

the credit expertise in house, to analyze and present middle market

credit/transactions to the debt source community. That credit talent is both

expensive and hard to come by. Getting larger transactions placed is not

like it was in the mid-90s- there is a lot more work involved and much more

information to obtain from a client to be successful in this niche.

That being said, the real value in the leasing industry is still held by the

individual sales person and smaller operations that have retained the direct

relationships with the Lessees. Clients want to deal with people they know

and trust- that is the real value add. Rate and Structure gets you into the

game, Relationships allow you to write the 3rd , 4th and 20th lease schedule

with a client, long after the competition has lost interest in trying to get

their foot in the door. To all the great leasing sales people out there-

keep up the good work!  Maintain a positive attitude. Work hard to build new

relationships everyday. Continue to figure out ways to add more value to

your clients. The money will follow.

By the way, we are hiring both direct sales and affiliates to expand our

middle market business- we currently have offices in Phoenix and Southern

California, and are not opposed at opening up Branch Offices in other states

for the right person or team. Kit, thanks for providing a forum (sorry for

the lengthy email) and keep up the good work!

Best Regards,

W. Scott McCullum

CAPITAL ADVANCE LEASING

Voice: 949.574.9076

Facsimile: 949.645.9163

Email: smccullum@capital-advance.com

Internet: www.capital-advance.com

__________________________________________________

New Tax Law Affects Equipment Leasing

“For businesses, the measure provides an immediate 30 percent depreciation write-off over each of the next three years for new investments, and a more generous way to deduct losses from taxes paid in previous years. Both items, supporters said, would right away spur business activity and enable companies to hire more workers.”

House Passes Legislation to extend unemployment benefits,(  plus business

tax cuts  promoting capital leasing )

 By Curt Anderson, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) Ending months of gridlock on recession relief, the House overwhelmingly passed legislation Thursday combining tax cuts intended to spark business growth and a 13-week extension of benefits for millions of unemployed people.

Senate Democrats said after the 417-3 vote in the House they would bring the bill to the floor first thing Friday for a vote there. The White House said President Bush would sign the measure into law.

Three previous economic stimulus bills passed by the Republican-led House that contained much bigger tax cuts had languished in the Senate.

''The Senate needs to act and get the bill to my desk, and I look forward to signing it,'' Bush said at the White House. ''We've had too much non-movement on this important issue, and it's time to go.''

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said, ''I am very pleased they have chosen to follow a path that many of us were suggesting long ago.''

Added House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.: ''We think this is the right prescription.''

The House vote coincided with a Capitol Hill appearance by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who gave a more upbeat economic forecast than he had a week earlier. Given the size of the U.S. economy, Greenspan told the Senate Banking Committee, the relatively modest stimulus package would have little impact on recession recovery.

''I doubt very much that the economy, if it didn't get a stimulus, would sag,'' Greenspan said.

Proponents, however, said it would aid sectors of the economy that need it, including manufacturing and high-tech companies.

''It may not help a whole lot, but it will not hurt,'' said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif.

The legislation would pump $51 billion into the economy this year, $43 billion next year and $29 billion in 2004, congressional analysts say. Its total cost over 10 years is about $42 billion, because some tax breaks would generate government revenue in later years.

The measure would extend regular 26-week jobless benefits by 13 weeks and allow for additional automatic extensions in states with high unemployment rates.

Many lawmakers were nervous in an election year about failing to act on lengthening the benefits before Monday, six months since the Sept. 11 attacks that also worsened the economic slide. Daschle said about 1.6 million people have seen their unemployment benefits expire since the attacks.

For businesses, the measure provides an immediate 30 percent depreciation write-off over each of the next three years for new investments, and a more generous way to deduct losses from taxes paid in previous years. Both items, supporters said, would right away spur business activity and enable companies to hire more workers.

The bill creates a ''Liberty Zone'' in the lower Manhattan section of New York in which $5 billion in various tax breaks would be available over 10 years to help the city recover from the attacks. In addition, the bill would extend a list of popular tax breaks, most for two more years, that have expired or will do so this year.

Despite the lopsided vote, Democrats and Republicans traded charges over who was to blame for the bickering that stalled a compromise for five months.

Democrats contended that House GOP leaders had capitulated under pressure, finally dropping such contested proposals as accelerated income tax cuts and repeal of the corporate alternative minimum tax.

''This is a hardheaded lot we have here in the House leadership,'' said House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. ''They are always out of step with everybody else on what is moderate and sensible and reasonable to do.''

Hastert told reporters it was Republican persistence that overcame inaction by Daschle and Senate Democrats.

''We did not back up, we did not wave a white flag or retreat,'' the speaker said.

There was some grumbling in the House that the compromise, however worthy, would worsen the federal budget picture in the next few years because the costs are not offset by either spending cuts or revenue increases.

The three votes against the measure all came from ''Blue Dog'' Democrats who advocate a cautious fiscal approach: Reps. Alan Boyd of Florida, Gene Taylor of Mississippi and Charles Stenholm of Texas.

On the Net:

Information on the bill, H.R. 3090, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov

House Ways and Means Committee: http://waysandmeans.house.gov

____________________________________________________________________

Friday---Odds and Ends

Purchase Options at United Capital

Recently we had a situation wherein we tried to collect a residual on a

transaction previously discounted to United Capital.  All of the old United

leases have been taken over as you know by Old Kent, Heller, GE etc.  Our

lessee told us they paid the residual to United and faxed us a copy of the

back of the check showing United's endorsement!  Since these contracts

belong to someone other than United this is fraud and conversion.  I left

two explicit messages for Steve Dallas at his "new" company.  Guess what!!

No return phone calls. 

I have a meeting set up with the FBI next week to discuss this as well as

other matters regarding unlawful retention of deposits in our industry.  If

any of your readers have any information regarding these two subjects please

email me on or before Monday at 5pm. 

Thank you.

Michael Wagner

President

Dimension Funding, LLC

949-250-0585 x222

949-250-8042 (fax)

email: mwagner@dimensionfunding.com

Train Coming---May Not be Amtrak

Several lessors and superbrokers are losing their lines, have maxed out

their lines or are unable to get increases. You did not hear this from me.

    This follows the retraction by banks on lines of credit to numerous

companies not just leasing, due in part to Enron and in part that we are not

out of the recession. Personally, I believe Greenspan said we are nearing the

end of the recession to prop up consumer spending and confidence. In reality

corporate and personal debt levels are at historical highs. The light at the

end of the tunnel might just be a train coming.

 ( name with held )

----

Stan Played Clarinet

Much to my surprise I saw the name of Cy (Cyril) Touff in your joke winners. Cy was a friend of mine at Senn high school in Chicago. Both of us played in the band. I also hung around with Lee (Leo) Konitz, alto sax, and Bill Russo, trombone and arranger. At one time in the same year, Cy, Lee, and Bill were all voted the top jazz musicians of the year on their instrument in the Playboy Awards.

Cy played the French horn and was a little wild in school. I lost track of him until I saw his name today. Lee moved to Europe where he thought people understood his music more than the American crowd. Bill Russo at an early age joined the Stan Kenton band as a trombone player, and later became his #1 arranger. I played the clarinet and occupied the last chair in the band. Whatever happened to me??!!

Cheers.

Stan. 

Stan Nathanson stanmaven@yahoo.com

 ( February 4 we saluted jazz bass trumpet player Cy Touff birthday.  In every e-mail

of Leasing News, there is the day in American History and we salute a jazz musician’s

birthday. We also give url sites to learn more about the musician.  Lee Konitz was one

of my favorite alto sax players, with Stan Kenton, as was trombonist, arrangement

composer, who I took private arranging lessons in New York City the summer

of 1958. This is definitely a small world. editor ))

___ 

Come to Orlando April 11 - 14, 2002 at the Caribe Royale and learn why

"Lenders Do What They Do".  A panel of lenders will share with you why they

will and will not do various types of transactions.  The better you know

your lenders, the more effective a broker you will be!  Register now at

www.naelb.org <http://www.naelb.com>

Maria Turner

mariat@clemonsmgmt.com

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http://www.leasefoundation.org/IFCReport/2002/2002IFCRpt.pdf

The Equipment Leasing and Finance Foundation's annual Industry Future

Council (IFC) Report is now available.

 More Juice for the Squeeze was the general theme of the Report.

"There will be more opportunities for bundled transactions, thanks to market pressure.

“ Customers want integrated service, not just the cheapest deal." said one IFC Member. "A few years from now, we may look back on this as a difficult but healthy

change for the industry." said another.

The 2002 Report is co-sponsored in part by McCue Systems. The IFC Report,

and all Foundation reports are FREE. The Foundation needs your financial

support to continue providing leading edge studies to the industry.

Corporate and individual contributions are welcome.

To contribute, please contact Lisa Levine at llevine@elamail.com or visit

the Foundation website: www.leasefoundation.org.

On behalf of the Midwest Regional Association of Equipment Lessors, Past

President Hugh M. Shwab President Hugh M. Shwab, III arranged for MRAEL to become the first 2002 Founder donor to the Equipment Leasing and Finance Foundation. As individuals and companies who have donated a minimum of $25,000 to the

Foundation, Founders are its most generous contributors.

MRAEL joins the following Founders: ATEL Capital Group, AT&T Capital

Corporation, BancOne Leasing Corp., CIT, DeLage Landen Financial Services,

ELA, FINOVA, Paul S. Gass, GE Capital Corp., Heller Financial, Inc. IBM

Global Financing, KPMG, MetLife Capital Corp., Newcourt Credit Group, Orix

Financial Services, Sanwa Business Credit Corp., Southfork Asset Management,

and Thomas C. Wajnert.

Please help support the Foundation today. Visit the website for information

on the mission, and products produced by the Foundation, at

www.leasefoundation.org, or contact Lisa Levine, Executive Director for

contribution details at llevine@elamail.com; or 703-527-8655.

Amtrak searches for new president in midst of cash crunch, uncertainty about future

By Laurence Arnold

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON – Outgoing Amtrak President George Warrington said Thursday that perennial financial problems at the nation's passenger railroad are being aggravated by questions about its future and by proposals in Congress to break it up.

"The greatest risk we have at Amtrak is uncertainty about the political process," he told a Senate panel shortly after his resignation was announced.

Warrington said Amtrak needs to persuade outside auditors that the railroad will operate for at least another year. Without such a declaration, Amtrak will have trouble gaining access to a line of credit essential for the railroad's immediate survival.

"We've worked very hard with our banks and our lenders to reassure them that this Congress is committed to Amtrak," he said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, asked whether Amtrak might go bankrupt.

"I don't expect that," Warrington said.

To save money, Amtrak already is cutting 1,000 of its 24,600 jobs and making cuts in training, advertising and equipment maintenance.

Warrington's appearance was the latest in a string of visits to Capitol Hill to urge the creation of a major rail-development program. After testifying, he traveled to New Jersey to accept his new job heading the state's transit authority.

John Robert Smith, chairman of the Amtrak board of directors, said Warrington will stay on for up to 60 days until an interim successor is named.

Warrington, 49, has led Amtrak through a difficult four years during which it tried but ultimately failed to end its three-decade reliance on federal operating subsidies.

He departs as Congress and the Bush administration weigh a range of proposals for passenger rail service. Lawmakers have proposed breaking up Amtrak or, at the other extreme, greatly increase its funding.

Warrington says Amtrak needs $1.2 billion next year and threatened to cut 18 long-distance train routes if it does not get it. Even that amount would not begin to address what Warrington estimates is a $5.8 billion backlog in repairs to trains, tracks, rail yards and stations.

The Bush administration has proposed $521 million – the same as this year – but has indicated it would be willing to consider more money under the right long-term plan.

Deputy Transportation Secretary Michael Jackson told the subcommittee it will take $2.5 billion to $3 billion a year "just to keep what we have" – not including any money to develop new high-speed corridors around the country.

Murray said states in the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, Amtrak's busiest, need to start paying more for their service.

The Amtrak Reform Council, created by Congress in 1997, last month recommended breaking up Amtrak and franchising out its routes to introduce competition into passenger rail. But Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead testified that reorganizing Amtrak or replacing it with private companies will not solve the basic problem of a rail network starved for money.

On the Net:

New .name domains give individuals a place to call home

By Mike Langberg

San Jose Mercury News

Now is the time to take control of your online identity.

Signing up for the new ``.name'' domain costs less than $30 a year and gives you both an e-mail

address and Web location that should be good for life. More familiar domains -- including .com, .net., .org and .us -- are also available at similar prices.

The reasons for controlling your own domain became painfully obvious in the last year.

Waves of layoffs separated suddenly unemployed workers from their old e-mail addresses -- such as joe.jones@shakytech.com or sallysmith@ultragadget.com. The collapse of Excite@Home in December, coupled with callous disregard for customers on the part of AT&T Broadband, forced hundreds of thousands of cable-modem subscribers to cope with the sudden forced switch to a new e-mail address.

At the same time, the process for creating and maintaining a personal domain has gotten much simpler and less expensive.

Here's the problem: Most individuals get their e-mail address from one of three places -- their employer, their school or their Internet service provider (ISP). If you quit your job, graduate from school or change ISP, you're faced with the near-impossible task of trying to remember everyone who needs to know your new e-mail address.

The solution is registering your own domain name.

Domain names, for those unfamiliar with Internet jargon, are what appears to the right of the ``@'' sign in an e-mail address. The segment beyond the final dot is called the Top-Level Domain, or TLD, and includes the familiar .com.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN (www.icann.org), which supervises TLDs, recently authorized seven new ones, including .name.

Businesses called ``registrars'' sell domain names to individuals and businesses. The registrar, at minimum, will forward any e-mail sent to your new domain to your current e-mail address. If your e- mail address changes, it's easy to tell the registrar to change the forwarding address. Similarly, you can use your domain name as a Web address and redirect visitors to the Web site of your choice.

What's unique about .name (www.nic.name) is that it's the first TLD intended specifically for individuals -- unlike .com, originally intended for companies, .net for network operators and .org for non-profit groups. Also, because .name is new, there are many more possibilities available than the heavily mined turf of .com.

Let me explain with a fictitious Stanford University student named Joanne Langberg, who isn't related to me and is a big fan of snowboarding.

Joanne can't register langberg.com, because I grabbed that domain name in September 1997. My e- mail address has been mike@langberg.com ever since, and my Web site is www.langberg.com. Nor could she get langberg.net, which belongs to a domain reseller called Nameplanet.com, or langberg.org, which belongs to The Langberg Foundation of Evergreen, Colo., a school-reform group.

But, as of this month, she could get the e-mail address joanne@langberg.name and the Web address www.joanne.langberg.name. The first batch of .name addresses became active Jan. 15, and the domain is slowly gearing up for a full launch on May 15.

E-mail sent to joanne@langberg.name would be forwarded to her Stanford e-mail inbox, and visitors to www.joanne.langberg.name would be automatically redirected to the snowboarding site Joanne has built through the free Geocities service (http://geocities.yahoo.com).

When Joanne graduates, she might get a job at Intel in Santa Clara. She would then have her .name messages forwarded to her new Intel e-mail address -- without having to tell her recipients that she's shifted from student to working stiff. If Joanne becomes enamored with classic kitchen blenders from the 1940s and abandons snowboarding, she could set up an online store selling her blender collection at eBay and redirect www.joanne.langberg.name visitors to that site.

In other words, Joanne will always be free to change jobs or ISPs without worrying that people won't be able to find her e-mail address or Web site. To me, that's easily worth $20 to $30 a year.

The roster of available .name domains will be significantly larger than other TLDs because the company behind .name, Global Name Registry of London, England, is only selling first name-last name combinations. I've signed up for mike@langberg.name, just to cover my bases, but the fictitious Joanne could still get joanne@langberg.name. If there are two Joanne Langbergs in the world, the second could use a variation, perhaps involving an abbreviation or a middle name, such as jo@langberg.name or joannecarol@langberg.name.

In the realms of .com., .net and .org, you can register any string of letters and numbers. So if your name isn't taken and you adore convertible cars, you could register ragtoplover.com. The domain .us (www.nic.us), for United States, is also getting revamped, after many years of being almost impossible to work with, and should be available by summer.

To begin the process of acquiring your own domain, visit the Web site of a registrar and enter the name of your choice. If the name isn't taken, you place an order -- typically requiring you to have a credit card.

Finding a registrar can be somewhat daunting however. There are many choices, and some unauthorized resellers of domain names are less than honest. To protect yourself, follow these three rules:

First, only do business with registrars accredited by ICANN. You can find a list of accredited registrars on ICANN's Web site, as well as on the Web sites of the various domain administrators. The two biggest accredited registrars -- VeriSign (www.verisign.com) and Register.com (www.register.com) -- are public companies, so you can examine their financial statements. Both are relatively healthy, making it unlikely they'll go out of business anytime soon. Smaller accredited registrars may offer superior and more personal service, although you'll have to do a little more digging to check their reputations.

Second, don't pay too much or too little. I surveyed a half-dozen accredited resellers for .name and found there were charging in a fairly narrow range from $22 to $30 a year to register a domain along with e-mail and Web forwarding. Don't get ripped off by paying more, or burden yourself with a fly-by- night registrar pulling in customers by charging less. And don't pay more than two years in advance, just in case the registrar goes out of business somewhere down the road.

Third, make a phone call to the registrar's tech support line. Ask a few questions to which you already know the answer, perhaps from studying the registrar's Web site, to see if the support staff is prompt, knowlegable and courteous.

It's also important to know that domain registration information -- your name, e-mail address, street address and phone number -- is public information. If you want to maintain privacy, don't use your home address or phone. I used my work address and phone number to register langberg.com for exactly that reason.

One final reminder: Once you sign up a for a domain, make sure to set your e-mail program to give your new address as the ``reply to'' address. I sometimes use a free Yahoo e-mail account when I'm away from home, but the reply-to address is mike@langberg.com. That way, anyone who receives an e-mail from the Yahoo account and clicks the ``add this person to my address book'' button will store my permanent e-mail address rather than the Yahoo account that I rarely check for new messages.

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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.

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