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October 18, 2001
Headlines---
Fitch Review: US Commercial Finance/Leasing Company Sector “Stinks” Equipment Leasing Association Propensity to Lease Study RW Professional---Leasing News Has Some Friends Hotels in a Real Big Mess Dana Reports $8 million Third Quarter Loss Bay View Capital 3rd Quarter Loss . $.6 Million Allegiant Partners Adds Richard J. Gallivan to its board ID card idea attracts high-level support Special: Traditional system of paperless money transfers could benefit bin Laden network # denotes press release ___________________________________________________________________ Leasing News e-mail was down late afternoon. We have had a virus worm in our file server the prior week, now eliminated. We are again up-grading our firewall to a solid state one, making e-mail changes, and trying to make our site more secure. We apologize for any inconvenience. editor ) ____________________________________________________ ### ######################### ############## Fitch Review: US Commercial Finance/Leasing Company Sector Reports are “Negative” ( surprise! surprise! surprise! )
NEW
YORK--The Rating Outlook for the U.S. commercial and leasing According
to the mid-year review, rating actions during the first half of
2001 were principally The
events of Sept. 11 will accelerate and intensify the “recessionary”
pressures already present in While
the equipment finance sector struggled during the first half of
2001, finance companies that A
full copy of the report, `U.S. Commercial Finance and Leasing
Company 2001 Mid-Year Review', is CONTACT: Fitch, New York Philip S. Walker, Jr., 212/908-0624 John S. Olert, 212/908-0663 ### ##################### ###################### Propensity to Lease (PTL) Study by Equipment Leasing Association
The
Propensity to Lease (PTL) Study has recently been updated.
Some interesting findings from the newly The Pacific region represents over one third of total lessees and total UCC filings. The top 10 states make up 83% of total UCC filings. South Atlantic and Mid Atlantic regions have the highest propensity to lease. Companies older than 10 years represent nearly 70% of lessees and UCC filings. Additionally, selected comparisons to the previously conducted 1995 study show: Public Administration goes from the least likely industry to lease in 1995 to the most likely to lease in 2000. Firms
in the South Atlantic, Mid Atlantic and East South Central regions
increased their propensity to In 2000, propensity to lease increases with the age of the company. The trend remains the same - larger firms are more likely to lease. The
PTL Study is available online in both the ELA Library (PDF for
immediate download, search www.elaonline.com ___________________________________________________________________ RW Professional Leasing –Leasing News Has Some Friends As an avid reader of your column, I would like to lend a hand if at all needed, to assist you in defending what sounds like a spurious allegation being made against you. Please let me know if our firm can be of any assistance to you. Peter S. Hemar Hemar & Associates Attorneys at Law 2001 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 300 Santa Monica, CA 90403 (310) 829-1948 Fax: (310) 829-1352 Email: phemar@hemar.com ( Thank you. Leasing News will take you up on your generous offer. editor ) ~~ The bankruptcy court system has an on-line
data retrieval system named PACER.
I have a PACER account and if you need to check something on-line
you may
use my account. The cost is very cheap - like 7 cents a page.
If you need
it, let me know. I think the first $x dollars are no charge. I
could fax
you the brochure if you are interested. David "David I. Rabinovitz" david-rab@mediaone.net ( I will take you up on this. I use www.bankrutpcy.com and also go to the state or county websites. In this case, I think the September 11 has affected many departments as they are not current in New York, the
last time I checked. It
would have been easier if RW Professional Leasing responded, ~~~ RE: RWProfessional dispute Atty. Sal Ferlazzo's office in Albany NY is physically about 3 miles from mine. I have known Sal personally for several years. Anything I can to do help with that dispute?? Just let me know Kit and I'll hop right on it. Gerry Oestreich 800-678-7342 ( Thank you. I think Mr. Ferlazzo is representing his client to the best of his ability, but we may take you up on it to make a friendly call on our behalf, maybe present him with a bouquet of flowers. We have asked him twice for a statement, but have not seen one forthcoming. editor ) ____________________________________________________________ Low occupancy levels in county may persist into 2002, analysts say By Tony Fong SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER ( Last weekend we stayed at the Downtown Los Angeles Hyatt, from reservations made last August for USC Parent’s weekend. Normally, if you don’t call in advance, you can’t find a room. Not this time. A 19% occupancy rate. We saw no one in the hallway, not even cleaning people, and had to park our car at night as they did not even have a door man. The coffee shop had one couple among 150 tables in the morning. scary. editor ) Plummeting
occupancy rates could leave the local lodging industry struggling
through most In
September, the drop in revenue totaled $100 million, he said,
adding that 5,000 hotel employees, Rauch
said that hotel occupancy levels, which dipped below 60 percent
for September, will hover The
industry was setting records just a year ago, and even as a slowdown
in corporate travel was These
days, "the mantra for 2001 is to stay alive for 2002,"
said Rick Mansur, senior vice president Hotels
and motels nationwide have seen their occupancy rates nosedive
as a result of the Sept. 11 According
to a preliminary report by Smith Travel Research, occupancy rates
fell by 15 percent to 17 For
the rest of the year, demand for hotel rooms will decline an average
of 6 percent, Smith Travel In
total, lodging companies could lose as much as $2 billion
in room revenue, phone calls and food Thomas
Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has warned
that more than 1 million In
San Diego, largely a drive-in market, analysts said the effects
have not been as pronounced as in such 'A death stroke' Yet,
the effects of the Sept. 11 events have reached across all parts
of the tourism industry here. At a Virtually
all tourism businesses have been touched by the slowdown. Travel
agencies are cutting back Lois
Hegner closed Cottonwood Travel in Rancho San Diego and laid off
two agents after 12 years "(Sept.
11) essentially has been the death stroke," she said. "All
the business I've done have been Convention
and corporate-meeting businesses have also been hit. In some cases,
conferences have In
other instances, meetings have been canceled entirely, including
a convention of financial planners Some
restaurants are still running 25 percent below normal September
and October revenue numbers, As
a result of the attacks, the percentage of restaurants that are
projected to close by the end of In terms of revenue, however, the hotel industry may be hit hardest locally. "All
traveling, all business for the 19 days following the event was
wiped off the books," Hotels
have also increased their advertising in Los Angeles and other
nearby markets to attract At
a news conference last week, tourism officials and city officials
pleaded for San Diegans to help the "Now's
the time for San Diegans to stand up and to help some of our local
people Projects delayed At
the same time, hotels have delayed capital projects, said Rauch
of InterBank Brener. Nadeen
Ayala, a spokeswoman for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide,
the parent company of such hotels Lucy
Bossert, a spokeswoman for Marriott International, said it also
has put a systemwide hold on any construction A
PricewaterhouseCoopers report said 6 percent of hotel projects
scheduled for completion in 2002 and 2003 Tony Fong's e-mail address is tony.fong@uniontrib.com. His phone number is (619) 293-1515. ( Can the hotels last at this occupancy rate for another year? Instead of asking if we are in a recession, is it more serious and we just don’t want to accept it, as Bob Bell said earlier, he is not willing to participate---but can he really do it? editor ) ___________________________________________________________________ Dana Reports $8 million Third Quarter Loss/ Still Trying to Sell Leasing Division Since February as Reported Earlier #### #################### ########################## ############### Dana
Corporation announced its third-quarter results, including sales
of $2.4 billion and a net loss, excluding "While
global economic conditions had already shown signs of weakening,
given the events following September 11, Specifically,
the company announced the following actions to strengthen the
company's financial position Dana's Board of Directors reduced the fourth-quarter dividend to one cent per share; The
company will pursue the sale of the businesses of Dana Commercial
Credit Corporation (DCC), its The
company will accelerate the restructuring of its operations, including
a reduction of its global workforce Sales
for the third quarter of 2001 were $2.4 billion, down from $2.9
billion for the same period last year. Dana's
nine-month consolidated sales were $7.9 billion, down from $9.6
billion over the same period last Dana's
Board of Directors has declared a dividend of one cent per share
payable on Dec. 14 to shareholders "While
this was an extremely difficult decision, it was clearly a prudent
response to these unprecedented The
company announced that it will pursue the sale of the businesses
of Dana Commercial Credit "We
have often said that Dana does not believe in taking long-term
actions in response to short-term Dana
announced that it expects to incur restructuring charges of $400
to $450 million after tax, Dana
will also initiate a series of plant closures and consolidations.
These moves are in addition to the The
company will also accelerate the outsourcing of non-core manufacturing
and processes as part "Since
our markets began to soften in mid-2000, we have devoted significant
effort to scaling our "While
we entered the third-quarter believing we were at or near the
bottom of the current cycle, "Dana
and its people have weathered severe market conditions in the
past," he added. " Dana's
Internet address is www.dana.com. #### ######################## ##################### Bay
View Capital Corporation Announces Third Quarter Results; Reduces
Cost Of Deposits to
SAN
MATEO, Calif / -- Bay View Capital Corporation (NYSE: BVC) (the
"Company") today The
highlights of Bay View's third quarter included an increase in
transaction accounts, a
as opposed to retail certificates of deposits, grew by $118.9
million, or 6.5% and increased quarter
of 2001, wholesale borrowings were reduced by $174.6 million as
advances from "The
continued growth of our transaction accounts is very encouraging
and demonstrates As
previously announced, Bay View completed the sale of $278 million
of franchise loans "We
will continue our efforts to reduce our remaining franchise loan
exposure in the fourth Loan
originations totaled $232.3 million for the quarter compared to
$224.4 million for The
Company's net interest income and net interest margin for the
third quarter of 2001 Nonperforming
assets, net of mark-to-market valuation adjustments, improved
at June 30, 2001, while non-franchise delinquencies were $20.6 million at September 30, 2001 as compared to $27.0 million at prior quarter end. The
allowance for loan and lease losses was $49.7 million or 2.06%
of total to absorb losses on these loans. General
and administrative expenses were $37.0 million for the third quarter
Excluding
net gains or losses on sales of assets, noninterest income was
or losses on sales of assets from the prior quarter was primarily
due to a The
Company recorded a tax benefit of $0.4 million for quarter-to-date
As
previously announced, the Company will host a conference call
at Bay
View Capital Corporation is a commercial bank holding company #### ######################### ############################## Allegiant Partners Inc Adds Board Member
Allegiant
Partners Incorporated announced today that it has added “Rich
brings to Allegiant Partners experience with previous boards and
an Allegiant
Partners has raised over $5 million over the past twelve months
executing a well defined business plan for the past two years
in building its For
more information on Allegiant Partners Incorporated please visit
at the ELA convention in Boca Raton.
Sites of Reference: http://allegiant-partners.com CONTACT: Chris A. Enbom Allegiant Partners Incorporated Phone Number: 415-455-0801 Fax Number: 415-455-0772 E-mail:
cenbom@allegiant-partners.com ( courtesy of ELAonline.com ) ### ########################### ###################### ID card idea attracts high-level support Top executives, lawmakers back national identification card proposal BY ELISE ACKERMAN AND PAUL ROGERS San Jose Mercury News Silicon
Valley software mogul Larry Ellison's proposal to create a national
ID card has gained In
an interview with the Mercury News on Tuesday night, Ellison,
the chairman and CEO of ``We are in the process of putting a proposal together and analyzing what it would take to get
to get something running in a matter of a small number of months,
like three months, 90 The
idea of a national ID card has been debated since the 1930s. But
Ellison's proposal in the Under Ellison's plan, the government would create a national identification card. The card would
contain basic information about the holder, including Social Security
number, and would be person's thumbprint, palm print, face or eyes. Passengers
would show the card at airports, Ellison said, and would have
their thumbs scanned The
cards also would be instantly checked against a new national database.
That database Oracle software Ellison
unveiled the idea three weeks ago in an interview with a Bay Area
TV station. In it, he Since then, Ellison has offered more details. The
cards would be voluntary for all U.S. citizens, he said Tuesday.
Any American without a ``I
think 99.99 percent of Americans will want these ID cards,'' Ellison
said. ``Wouldn't you The
cards would be mandatory, however, for foreign visitors, including
students on visas and The
national ID card idea has won the approval of retired Gen. Norman
Schwarzkopf, Harvard e
Senate subcommittee on terrorism, who met with Ellison on Thursday.
Feinstein said she will ``There
has to be some ID,'' Feinstein said. ``We have had a major catastrophe.
This is a Mindi
Tucker, a spokeswoman for Ashcroft, said the attorney general
would have no comment Concern for liberty Critics say such a card would give government too much power to track citizens. ``ID
cards were used by the South African government to keep apartheid
in place and by Rotenberg
and other opponents, including the American Civil Liberties Union,
worry it could be But supporters say those concerns are overblown. At
a speech in Salt Lake City last week, former Desert Storm commander
Schwarzkopf said he Taking
another approach, Harvard lawyer Dershowitz said he believes having
an ID card would ``Four
Arab-looking guys reading the Koran are much less suspicious if
they have the cards Dershowitz
said the database would have to be carefully guarded and that
police should not ``You don't give up much,'' Dershowitz said. ``Civil libertarians will come around.'' Any
move by the federal government to institute a national ID card
system could mean millions Shalini
Chowdhary, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said the U.S. government
could end up Ellison said that if he does donate the software, maintenance and upgrades won't be free. ``I
don't think the government has any trouble paying for the labor
associated with the ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Traditional system of paperless money transfers could benefit bin Laden network By Laura King, Associated Press, PESHAWAR,
Pakistan (AP) In the
twisting alleyways of this ancient trading post on the But one of the most secretive enterprises is carried out in plain
view, in the guise of routine transactions that take place dozens
of times a day storefronts an import-export office, or a trading mart. It's
called ''hawala,'' and investigators believe Osama bin Laden's
terrorist network may system to move mountains of cash around the world without leaving an electronic fingerprint or paper trail. Taking
its name from the Urdu-language word for ''reference,'' this low-tech
method of Asia, the Middle East and beyond. It works like this: a customer walks into an office with a wad of cash and tells the broker where to send it. A
day or two later or as
quickly as an hour, in a pinch
the faraway recipient, to an affiliated broker and walks away with that same amount of money, minus currency-conversion costs and perhaps a nominal fee. Sometimes the money is even home-delivered. The actual cash, of course, hasn't gone anywhere. Reimbursement is based on a system of trust among the network of hawala brokers, who are often blood relatives. They generally use a running tally of debt and repayment to settle up, rather than any money actually changing hands. Hawala
is almost universally outlawed, but financial experts believe
many or even most want to avoid long waits and cumbersome paperwork. The system blossomed in the 1970s, when huge numbers of laborers from the Indian subcontinent began working in wealthy Persian Gulf states and needed a way to get their wages home. Ordinary
people including several
middle-class Pakistanis interviewed in Peshawar said t college-age children studying in the West, or cash gifts to relatives either living abroad or in the countryside. But
financial experts say the system's relative anonymity and lack
of any legal record traffickers, weapons brokers, tax evaders, corrupt officials or operatives of a shadowy network like that of bin Laden. The amounts of money floating through the hawala system at any given time are huge. Analyst Shah Sahib of the Pakistan Allied Bank, the country's fourth-largest, estimates transactions in Pakistan alone could total $1 billion per day. ''It's
very deeply entrenched in the culture, and because of that, it
would be very, very True to its name, the system requires most customers to come armed with a reference an introduction from someone who is already a client. ''I
would never deal with a stranger,'' said a Peshawar hawala broker
who would only allow described his company's structure: a head office in Dubai, branch offices in half a dozen Pakistani cities and a dozen foreign capitals. The branch offices often engage in legitimate financial business as a cover: money changing, money lending, an import-export business, or currency trading. In small Pakistani towns, the local hawala broker might run a general store, or be a rug merchant. Talking about the business, Khan sounds like any enthusiastic sales representative. ''What
we offer our customers is good service,'' he says. ''We're fast,
we're reliable, and In Peshawar alone, he estimated there are 200 hawala brokers, some large and some small. His own company handles daily transactions ranging from a few hundred dollars to several hundred thousand. Bigger brokers, he said, are concentrated in the country's financial centers of Karachi and Lahore. Khan's
own associates have been in business for decades together, and
come from the same trust in his partners the linchpin of the business he laughed. ''We all know each other, each other's families,'' he said. ''The world is a small place.'' In
the five weeks since the terror attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, feel the heat. One of the biggest brokers in the southwestern city of Quetta had his assets frozen as part of the U.S.-inspired drive to halt the flow of funds to groups suspected of having links to terror. Quetta,
like Peshawar, is close to the Afghan border. And like Peshawar,
it is a stronghold of are sympathetic to bin Laden and the Taliban. Khan thought his own business would easily survive any crackdown. ''We have seen this happen before, and it doesn't last long,'' he said. ''Besides, they will be going after the big fish. Fortunately for us, we are medium-sized fish.'' One Peshawar professional man, who did not want his name used, said he used hawala half a dozen times or so a year, mainly out of impatience over the monthlong lag of a bank transfer. His
only unsuccessful transaction came not long ago, he said, when
he had arranged Manila with school fees. The
next evening, the broker returned the cash, telling him: ''This
isn't a good day for |
