Leasing News

He developed the company’s geographic expansion in the Western U.S. He has served as President of Associated Credit Bureaus of California and Chairman of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Los Angeles. He represented the credit reporting industry on numerous radio and television broadcasts. He is a

graduate of California State University, Long Beat.

Job Wanted—Would Like to Buy a Christmas Tree

Contract Administrator: Schaumburg, IL

10 yrs. small/mid-ticket leasing. Proficient in documentation, funding and legal. Worked with brokers, portfolio purchases, vendor programs, municipal transactions. prefer to stay in Suburban Illinois. Email:sophie1900@msn.com

Contract Administrator: Chicago/Naperville

18+ years experience in leasing US/Europe, as both lessee and lessor. Am versatile and adaptable to lessee, lessor, or lender career opportunity. Chicago relocation desired. Email:kris_k11@yahoo.com

Contract Administrator: Los Angeles, CA

6 years small ticket leasing - Credit Analysis up to $75,000, Documentation & Funding. Highly organized team player trained sales/operations in credit, pricing, docs. Email:miri7ca@yahoo.com

Controller: Seattle, WA

CPA w/ 15 years management exp. as CFO/ Controller/5 yrs w/ PriceWaterhouse Coopers. Extensive exp.providing accounting/ tax guidance for the equipment lease industry. Willing to relocate. Email:bltushin@hotmail.com

Credit: Vista, CA

+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

Credit: Mill Valley, CA

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

To view the “Job Wanted” list, please go to:

http://65.209.205.32/LeasingNews/JobPostings.htm

Two more days for “free ads” in “Help Wanted.” No more free

ads in “Help Wanted” after October 31. Go to:

http://65.209.205.32/LeasingNews/JobPostingsWanted.htm

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On No! Mr. Bill---Interest rates fall on T-bills

(This is perhaps one of the most important indicators, overlooked by novice

financial reporters. The cost of money is the key to supply and demand and

the needs of our industry. Less demands, means lower rates, which is not

good for the economy as the government makes less, the rate of return based

on T-bills goes down, and margins are squeezed. This is not good news under

present circumstances..

Talk is the Feds will lower interest rates one more time next week, right

before the election, to spur the economy. Perhaps the construction, mortgage

market, and a few others will benefit, but will it take zero percent from

the government, just like automakers, to sell business to extend credit?

Rate isn’t everything. If you don’t have confidence in more income,

why increase your monthly cash out go?

The average leasing broker business is down 35% to 50% as they are being

squeezed out of the market place. Due to the competition of rate, alternate

forms of finance are being left the “sub-prime” credits and lessors with

securitization lines are taking deals for cash flow that will come back to

haunt them as evidenced by Unicapital, United Capital, to name just

a few. A drop to the lowest level in four weeks is bad news, especially

before election day. Hide your chestnuts as it looks like it going to be

a cold winter. Editor )

By Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills fell in Monday's auction to the lowest levels in four weeks.

The Treasury Department auctioned $18 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 1.56 percent. Another $17 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 1.52 percent.

The three-month rate was down from 1.67 percent last week and was the lowest since three-month bills averaged 1.54 percent on Sept. 30. The six-month rate was down from 1.67 percent last week and was the lowest since 1.48 percent on Sept. 30.

The new discount rates understate the actual return to investors - 1.58 percent for three-month bills with a $10,000 bill selling for $9,960.80 and 1.55 percent for a six-month bill selling for $9,923.40.

Separately, the Federal Reserve said the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, rose to 1.79 percent last week from 1.77 percent the previous week.

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Loans are strong, but market needs discipline

“Act Like You are Regulated”

ABSnet Report

New York - Participants and panelists at the seventh annual conference of the Loan Syndications and Trading Association (LSTA) in New York last week were proud to say that their asset class has survived prolonged market volatility far better than any other.

The floating rate nature and senior secured status of bank loans has served them well in these troubled times. Still, with more volatility and market uncertainty on the horizon for the foreseeable future, those attributes alone won't be sufficient to keep risk at bay and protect the loan market from the dramatic downturns experienced by its peer markets, namely equities and high yield bonds.

To ensure the continued positive performance of loans, market participants are going to have to do a number of things. Most importantly, they will need to "act like they're regulated," said Laura Unger, former acting chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission. The hawk eyes of regulators are boring down on the financial landscape - indeed, the SEC is currently doing an inspection sweep of loan participation funds out of New York and Chicago, Unger said - and they are ready to descend upon suspect areas. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and credit rating agencies have already issued new standards that players like CDOs need to abide by.

Regulation aside, though, the character of today's marketplace - one that has been whipped around by extreme volatility and corporate scandals - calls for participants to hunker down and follow some core principles. If buyside players and sellside firms abide by these, they will help to create a strong and healthy market, a market which, like Caesar's wife, is "above reproach," Unger said.

Value in valuation

At this time, transparency and valuation are key, and the driver of transparency is mark-to-market pricing, said Bank One's Marcia Banks.

"Mark-to-market is fundamental to the liquidity and development of the [loan] market," Banks said. The mark-to-market initiative has been a priority for the LSTA and over the past year, there have been many improvements in this area, in terms of available pricing information and lists of movers and shakers in the secondary market.

But at a time when valuation is key and mark-to-market pricing is crucial, there are still many challenges for the loan market and its participants. Indeed, there is still a lot of progress to be made in bringing together the two facets of valuation, the concepts of fair value and market value, said Ruth Yang, director of market data at the LSTA.

"You need to bridge the gap between internal fair value models and market value models by a third party," Yang said. "And for this effort, there's a continued need for dealer quotes, relative value models and trade data."

At this stage, dealer quotes are available and the market is starting to see some relative value models, Yang said. However, while the LSTA has been collecting trade data over the past few years, this information is not readily available. The value of trade data is primordial, though, Yang said, for the continued development of models as the next step in the loan market's maturation. The LSTA needs a reliable source of trade data for benchmarking in order to construct these models, Yang said, and continues to gather it from buyside and sellside firms.

Despite the obstacles to bringing about a uniform mark-to-market system, it is undeniably becoming the norm for the loan market.

"It's the tail that's wagging

the dog these days, it's what you've got to do," said Mike McAdams, chief investment officer at the Los Angeles-based buyside firm Four Corners Capital Management, which is in the process of launching its first CLO.

In addition to mark-to-market, proper corporate governance is essential, and regulators will be looking for this, the SEC's Unger said.

Because investors have become so gun-shy, corporate integrity is becoming more significant.

"Integrity is key to investor confidence and investor confidence drives a healthy market," Unger said. "It is very tough to regulate integrity, but the best way is to make information providers more accountable."

There is also an ongoing need to educate investors on the way of the market, to show them that the act of investing does not always guarantee a return, Unger said. That said, acts of greed on the part of those who manage funds are wrong. Not only can they mislead people, but it has been proven that acts of greed have a far larger impact on the market than acts of terror, Unger said, and market recovery can only be delayed by the selfishness of a few. - Savita Iyer

NEW YORK add: at 71.9 Conference Board

By Associated Press

''A weak labor market, the threat of military action in Iraq, and a prolonged decline in the financial markets have clearly dampened both consumers' confidence and their expectations for the near future,'' said Lynn Franco, who heads the Conference Board's Consumer Research Center.

The Conference Board's index is based on a monthly survey of about 5,000 U.S. households. It stood at 100 in its base year, 1985.

Respondents rating current business conditions as ''bad'' increased to 27.6 percent from 23.8 percent last month, while those saying conditions were ''good'' decreased to 15.6 percent from 18.5 percent.

The percentage saying jobs were hard to get rose to 27.3 percent from 25.4 percent.

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Consumer Confidence at 9-Year Low, a Warning on Economy

Lowest since 1993

By KENNETH N. GILPIN New York Times

In a report that was seen as a warning signal for the economy, the Conference Board said yesterday that consumer confidence in October plunged to a nine-year low.

The board's index of consumer confidence, which measures current and future expectations, fell to 79.4 from 93.7 in September. It was the biggest one- month drop since October 1990. And it was the lowest reading on consumer confidence since November 1993, when the index stood at 71.9 and was rising as the effects of a recession tapered off.

The data also showed expectations on conditions six months from now to be sharply lower.

The report startled Wall Street and initially prompted sharp selling of stocks, though later in the session they recouped much of their losses.

In advance of yesterday's data, most economists expected the confidence reading to be around 90.

"This is bad, but it is just one month," said Ken Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board, which is based in New York. "It has the potential to bounce back."

Nonetheless, Mr. Goldstein acknowledged that the October reading put the index "very close" to recession levels. "This is not good news for the White House," he said.

The confidence figure is the first of several important economic reports this week. Analysts said coming data on third-quarter economic growth and unemployment in October were likely to reinforce the notion that the recovery was losing steam. With less than a week left before tightly contested midterm elections, these economic reports could influence the choices of some voters.

Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said: "If we had gotten the consumer confidence number three months ago or even a month ago, it would not have mattered because people weren't paying attention. Now they are."

He continued: `We have an election that will be decided at the margin of the margin. You don't need a major tide to turn Senate races from one side to another. And if a sour mood is what is prevailing, the odds are that at the margin it will hurt the `in' party."

Referring to President Bush's political strategist, Mr. Ornstein said, "If I were Karl Rove, this is the last thing I would want to see happen."

According to the Conference Board survey, consumer sentiment about current conditions fell for the fifth consecutive month. What made the overall decline so significant, Mr. Goldstein said, was that expectations for conditions six months from now fell for the first time, to 80.7 in October from 97 in September.

"All of this is happening three to four weeks before the start of the holiday shopping season," he said. "Absent some sort of big change, this will likely have an impact on Christmas sales."

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Venture investments fall to 4 1/2-year low

By Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - With losses from their high-rolling days still piling up, shell-shocked venture capitalists continued to shun new risks in this year's third quarter, dropping the industry's investment activity to a 41/2-year low, according to a report to be released today.

Venture capitalists invested $4.48 billion in start-ups during the period ended Sept. 30, the weakest quarter since the first three months of 1998, according to a survey compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association.

This year's third quarter represented a 48 percent decrease from the same time last year, when venture capitalists poured $8.68 billion into start-ups, the report said.

It also marked the ninth consecutive quarter in which venture capitalists curtailed their investments from the preceding three-month period.

The reasons for the downturn have remained largely unchanged since the Internet gold rush turned into a financial bloodbath during the spring of 2000.

As the stock market began to turn a cold shoulder to dot-coms and other high-tech businesses, venture capitalists found themselves stuck with unprofitable start-ups that no one else wanted.

Meanwhile, even promising start-ups are finding it increasingly difficult to find customers interested in spending heavily on technology, further reducing their chances of survival and saddling venture capitalists with the worst losses in the industry's history.

''We all have had a very cold shower,'' said Bob Grady, a venture capitalist with the Carlyle Group.

Most venture capitalists and analysts believe the industry's investments will dwindle even more in the next few quarters.

''We haven't seen the end of the decline,'' said Robert Bellas, a general partner with Morganthaler Ventures. ''My gut feeling is that this won't stop until we get down to $2.5 billion to $3 billion per quarter.''

Venture capitalists have responded to the adversity by shoveling more money into the best start-ups in their existing portfolios and investing less in new opportunities.

The number of start-ups that received their first infusion of venture capital during the third quarter totaled 159, the lowest number in nearly eight years, according to the report.

Back in the heyday of dot-coms in late 1999 and early 2000, nearly 1,000 start- ups per quarter were getting their first dose of venture capital.

''Caution certainly seems to be the word of the day,'' said John Taylor, research director for the National Venture Capital Association.

The wariness is causing venture capitalists to shy away from the industry's traditional high-tech stronghold.

Information technology start-ups attracted 59 percent of the venture capital during the third quarter, down from the industry's historical average of 70 percent, Taylor said.

In the high-tech sector, venture capitalists are focusing more on software start-ups, which typically burn through less money than hardware companies. Software accounted for 22.2 percent of venture capital investment in this year's third quarter, up from 17.6 percent last year.

While touching upon familiar themes, today's report provides another reminder of how dramatically the venture capital industry has changed in two years.

Even as dot-com mania began to fade, venture capitalists still invested $26.7 billion during the summer of 2000. At their current pace, venture capitalists will invest less than $23 billion for all of 2002.

Venture capital's about-face has been accompanied by sobering losses in the stock market. Since the end of 2000's third quarter, the tech-driven Nasdaq Composite index has plunged by 64 percent while the Dow Jones industrial average has shed 21 percent.

Most venture capitalists believe the shakeout will help the industry by chasing away investors who only were interested in striking it rich quick.

''We see this as the `right-sizing' of the industry,'' said Allan Ferguson, a general partner with the venture capital firm of 3i. ''We are moving back to a point where we will be able to build better-quality companies.''

please send to a colleague as we are trying to built our readership

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Surprise-Surprise-Surprise ---CIT Group's Earnings Fall 26%

By BLOOMBERG NEWS

he CIT Group, the finance company that was spun off from Tyco International in July, said yesterday that earnings in its fiscal fourth quarter fell 26 percent as leasing revenue declined, and it lost money on venture investments.

Net income dropped to $134.7 million, or 64 cents a share, from $181.3 million in the period a year earlier. Per-share figures were not available for the 2001 quarter.

CIT, which leases airplanes, trains and computers, has lost about $1 billion in market value since the initial offering raised $4.6 billion. Profit is falling as a weak economy curtails demand for large equipment and as airlines and construction companies hold off borrowing, analysts said.

Finance income fell 19 percent, to $1.01 billion, in the three months ended Sept. 30. Total financing and leasing assets at the end of last month were $36.4 billion, 11 percent lower than a year earlier.

CIT also lost $22.4 million, after taxes, on venture capital investments in the third quarter, largely because of declines among technology and telecommunications stocks, the company's chief executive, Albert Gamper, said in an interview.

Analysts had expected the company to earn 73 cents a share, according to Thomson First Call. Mr. Gamper said CIT would have earned about 75 cents a share excluding the losses from venture capital, a business the company has been exiting for the past 18 months.

In the initial offering, CIT brought less than half the $9.5 billion Tyco paid for it a year earlier. In the year under Tyco ownership, CIT posted its first-ever loss and its credit rating was lowered, which increased borrowing costs.

That rise narrowed the company's interest margins, which fell to 4.37 percent in the quarter from 5.01 percent in the period a year earlier. CIT also wrote off $141 million of uncollectible debt in the quarter, up from $126 million in its third quarter, because telecommunications borrowers failed to make payments.

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Union Blames Co.'s for Dock Trouble---The Grinch Who Stole Xmas

By Justin Pritchard

Associated Press Writer

(Business and Consumers are the losers)

SAN FRANCISCO –– Shipping companies are mismanaging cargo at major Pacific ports so federal prosecutors can blame longshoremen for a work slowdown, the dockworker's union contends.

The union made the allegation in documents filed Tuesday with the Justice Department.

The 10,500-member union and the association of shipping companies have blamed each other for the trouble in clearing the docks. Under the Taft- Hartley injunction earlier this month that ended a 10-day lockout at the ports, a federal judge may decide whether either side is violating a directive to work "at a normal pace" and mete out penalties.

The labor impasse was costing the U.S. economy an estimated $1 billion a day by the time President Bush asked a federal judge in San Francisco to reopen the ports.

Last week, the Pacific Maritime Association – which represents shipping companies and port terminal operators – filed documents with federal prosecutors asserting some crane operators were moving up to 30 percent fewer cargo containers than normal.

A spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union said Tuesday those statistics didn't prove a slowdown – instead, they proved that the waterfront is in disarray because of "gross mismanagement" by maritime association members.

"If a particular container is needed to be put on a ship and that one is stuck somewhere in a pile, it will hold up everything," spokesman Steve Stallone said. "That leaves the crane sitting idle for a while."

Shipping association officials said it was ridiculous to suggest they were sabotaging operations.

"You can't have more motivation than we do to get things working properly. Our members are losing millions of dollars," association spokesman Steve Sugerman said.

In a statement Tuesday, the Justice Department said its lawyers are studying the documents filed by both sides to determine if any legal action is needed to ensure compliance with court orders.

If the department sides with shipping companies, it could ask a federal judge to penalize the union before a "cooling-off" period ends Dec. 26. Possible penalties include fines.

Also Tuesday, both sides met with a federal mediator in contract negotiations. Mediator Peter Hurtgen has asked both sides not to discuss the sessions publicly.

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On the Net:

International Longshore and Warehouse Union: http://www.ilwu.org/

Pacific Maritime Association: http://www.pmanet.com/