Holiday Editions Merry Christmas

www.leasingnews.org, Monday, December 29,2003

Accurate, fair and unbiased news for the equipment Leasing Industry

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 Headlines---

Message from the Publisher

    Cartoons---Part of our Survey

        First with The News---Centerpoint

            How It Began-"Day in American History"

Message from the Publisher

Kit Menkin

The weather here in Skyland, Nevada has been cold, but once you get active,

it becomes warm, as long as you keep your hat and gloves on. The air is

very clean, and the view of Lake Tahoe from the house we rented is spectacular.

It is night and I just took the dog out, as she let me knew it was time. It was snowing outside. To those of us who live in California, especially Silicon Valley, this

is really a thrill, and perhaps even romantic. But then, we are on vacation. To those

of you who live and work in this weather, I am sorry to report I am really enjoying

walking, playing, and even driving in the snow.

Last Monday I asked readers to send me what they wanted this electronic news

to write about. I am taking time to consider what readers have sent. I am not as discouraged as before due to all the constructive comments, and encouragement to continue to tell the readers the truth.

I am continuing to think about what the purpose of Leasing News is, and how much I am willing to continue to invest in money, and more importantly, my time.

This week I will continue to give readers some of the successes of what I believe Leasing News is all about.  To my early readers, I hope you enjoy it.  To my new subscribers, I hope you will learn from it.

Again, I need to hear from you.  I didn’t originally , but I may to those who sign

their name. I prefer that you sign your name, those that don't sign their name, their comments will not be taken as significant as those who sign their names. I won’t

print what you send without your specific permission.

Happy Holidays

Christopher "Kit" Menkin
editor/publisher
Leasing News

[Headlines]

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Cartoons---Part of our Survey

http://two.leasingnews.org/cartoons/STREET.gif

CIT Senior Staff Meeting

Cartoons first appeared in American newspapers, and have become part

of our history. They are to provoke fun, thought, make us laugh. Most

of the ones we pass on we created. We have software images and

sketches without captions. Some we have made from scratch.

Next year, if we have the money, I would like to introduce New Yorker

cartoons. They are copyrighted, plus we have to pay to produce them in

our edition. I love their business cartoons. The idea is to make you laugh,

and hopefully look forward to our edition.

Often we do pass on what readers send us, but try to obtain permission

to reproduce them.

CIT was chosen in the above as they are a successful company and can

take the bite of humor. As I remember, many of their people came up

the hard way, from the street, from experience, and worked their way up

to the top. So it was appropriate to make fun of them in this cartoon.

My family trust owns stock in this company. Leasing News went on

record as one of the first to say buy this stock when they went independent, made the appropriate declarations, and still think it is a top company. However, that does not

mean we can’t make fun of them with a cartoon.

We are the only leasing newspaper who regularly prints cartoons aimed

at our industry.

 editor

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First with The News---Centerpoint

No electronic media tops us with being the first with news about the leasing

industry. Some times we are more than a few days a head, meaning a month

or more, and sometimes the companies never admit we are correct—until

history proves us to be “fair and accurate.”

The news comes from our readers, who trust us to tell what they know

without divulging their name.

We do verify the information, and have a policy regarding this. In addition,

after receiving hints and bits of information, the actual reality of what

is happening appears, such as with Centerpoint:

Bleeding Continues---Centerpoint Financial Services Calls It “Quits”

  June 5, 2002

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, and 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

http://www.leasingnews.org/Conscious-Top%20Stories/CENTERPOINT_stories.htm

How It Began—“Day in American History”

 This started as a “signature” for my e-mail at American Leasing. I started this

company in 1971, grew from a broker to a lessor to a discounter to a broker/discounter/lessor through eight partnerships now. When business

was very good, I hired web interns, employing two in the better days. One of them was a senior from Stanford University, who after graduation went

to work for Disney in Burbank, I believe. In her e-mail, she had a signature,

which I had never seen before. This was a part of her e-mail and she included

a poem, that she changed often.

Wow, I thought. I’ll do something about American History. Well, that was

thirteen years ago. I used my memory, books, and it was one or two events.

Each year, I would up-date the day. Some days were blank, as I only did

it for “business days,” not week ends.

It was popular with my friends, so I thought I would include it in Leasing News.

It was one of the reasons why I changed the time each edition came out. In

the early days, it was from noon to 2pm, California time. Sometimes later.

A vice-president of GE wrote me an e-mail that he was reading “Day in American History” at home at 8pm, I think he said, and he wanted the next day, as it

was “old.”

I continued for a few days, and then tried to send out at 11pm at night. I soon

learned that the East Coast, and West Coast newspaper, went to bed, published

at that time, and I could access the newspapers for the next day, meaning the

stories that would be printing in the morning edition.

This opened a new world to being the first with a story to those who did not

subscribe to these newspapers, particularly when I learned Boston, Seattle,

Atlanta, St. Louis, San Francisco, San Diego, had different business stories.

I could scoop the competition. Little did I realize this would change my

schedule, meaning I finish from two to three am, sending the edition out

myself in five waves (AOL has a limit on how many it will send as

a group.)

Some readers look forward to “Day in American History,” and some never open

it up. It has gotten longer. One of the reasons is the internet has wrong dates

and wrong information, so now when I find information, I verify it, thus the

url’s at the end of each item. The original intention was not to provide more

information, but to demonstrate it was “accurate.”

If there is any feed back on this feature, please let me know.

Here is one of the earlier ones, that has not been up-dated. It has somehow made

it through the many years of not coming up on a “business day” to be up-dated:

December 29, 1808 Andrew Johnson

17th president of the US, assumed office after Pres. Lincoln was shot; prior to public office owned a tailor shop where he did tailoring in Laurens, South Carolina. He was the first president to be impeached by the House, but was acquitted by the US Senate. After his term, he made several unsuccessful attempts to win public office. He was elected to the US Senate from Tennessee, but served a very short term from March 4, 1875 until July 31,1875.

  A movie was made about this event in 1890 when more than 200 Native American men, women, and children were slain by the US 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. Federal efforts to suppress a ceremonial religious practice " The Ghost Dance (which called for a messiah who would restore the bison to the plains, make the white men disappear and bring back the old Native American Way of life) had resulted in the death of Sitting Bull, December 15, 1890, which further inflamed the disgruntled Native Americans and culminated in the slaughter at Wounded Knee, December 29. Accordingly, the government and populace believed "The Ghost Dance" had magic and were superstitious enough that it would come true if allowed to occur.

  1950 "You Asked for It" premiered on television; "Young Dr. Malone" in 1958.

[Headlines] 

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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.

It is the editor's sole discretion as to what is printed and not printed. If an opinion or viewpoint is expressed, the writer or writers will be named in the by-line of the article.

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.

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.

 American Leasing is a separate company than Leasing News and

does not receive any remuneration or "leads" or "business" in any manner

from Leasing News. If we receive a request for a lease transaction,

we most likely will refer to the National Association of Equipment Leasing

Broker "Find a Broker:" http://216.185.153.30/naelb-public/index.cfm

We may refer to a specific company, for instance, if they are looking

for a captive vendor program, or niche equipment. If a broker looking

for a funding source, we may make a referral, but never with any

"strings" or "benefit" to American Leasing. American Leasing is

a small lessor/broker doing business primarily in Silicon Valley.

The company does not have a "broker program" or pay fees

or referrals to a "broker." We "bend over backwards" to keep both

companies two distinct entities to avoid any journalist conflicts.

Mr. Menkin sits on several board of directors and advisory boards.

Should there be any conflict, it is so noted in the story. If there

is a financial interest in the company, it is also so noted in the story

as a "disclaimer."

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