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Leasing
News reported on COO Randy Schiell leaving, then interviewed John Otto,
who said he was not pulling the plug. Rumors that Chuck Brazier, CLP,
director of Customer Relations was leaving, then Leasing News began
receiving complaints of deals not being funded by Centerpoint. Tuesday
morning this fax was sent to Centerpoint brokers: From:
Chuck Brazier
To: ****** Effectively
immediately, Centerpoint Financial Services, LLC will no longer be accepting
new credit applications. We would like to thank you for your valued
relationship and appreciate your patience and understanding in this
matter. No
funding will take place until Wednesday, June 5, 2002 at which time,
we will be notifying you of the steps Centerpoint will be able to take
to assist you in funding your current backlog. Shortly, we will be
sending you a copy of your backlog report and would appreciate if you
would indicate which deals are still active and when you anticipate
they will be ready to fund. Again,
we would like to thank you for your past business and appreciate your
patience as we try to work through this difficult time. If you have
any questions, please contact Chuck Brazier at (888) 615-5099 ext. 6115. 1675
Larimer St., Suite 880 – Denver, CO 80202 / Tel 303/615-5099 /
888/615-5099 Fax # 303/615-9790 Centerpoint
was financed by John Otto of Heritage Leasing fame. It started in 1997,
working exclusively with leasing brokers, and in its hay day had up
to 25 employees. Sandi Gibson was listed as director of Leasing Broker
Relations, and Mark Speros was director of sales. Chuck Brazier took
over these responsibilities. Chuck
Brazier, reached by telephone, said he could make no comment; it would have
to come from Gordon Robert, president. . Chuck
is past president of United Association of Equipment Leasing, sitting
on the executive
committee, formerly with Sierra Cities, Heritage Leasing, Oakmont Financial,
and Denrich Financial. Gordon Roberts is also a past president of the
United Association of Equipment Leasing, active with the Eastern Association
of Equipment Leasing, formerly with First Concord Acceptance, First
Centennial Leasing, Colonial Pacific Leasing. Leasing
News called many times, each time told Gordon Roberts was in a meeting
with auditors. There were rumors about a one and a half million dollar
“write-off” carried forward, and not until “recently,”
was the bank informed of this, it is reported. There
were also rumors simply, as being experienced elsewhere in the leasing
industry, lack of sales and continuing overhead. “I
suspect John Otto had enough check writing on their bad credit decisions.
When your credit and pricing is targeted at challenged credits without
adequate holdbacks or constant review by management, the train will
eventually fly off the tracks.
“ (
Name With held ) “The
money issue is the same as for any firm, more capital needed to go into
the
company to keep it going. I expect that Otto got in too deep, everyone
has
a limit, and decided that he wasn't willing to support it any more. “I
expect that he will be honorable about funding deals, and either do
them or get
them placed somewhere else. There is a bunch of good people in that
operation.
I don't think many of them would relocate. There is nothing except
maybe San Diego to compare with Denver.” Reached
at his Southern California office, John Otto said he had no comment
to make today. |
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