Bruce Horton still president of Popular Leasing by Christopher Menkin Jourdan Saegusa, is now “Manager Acquisitions and Syndications,” and according to a February, 2006, press release, is “... reporting to Fred Van Etten, head of commercial sales." Popular Leasing is actively looking to buy leasing portfolio's, they report, plus stepping up other direct marketing sales. Van Etten left Silvermark Capital, a division of Sterling Bank in Houston, Texas, now reportedly out of the equipment leasing field, to turn things around at Popular Leasing.
Van Etten was the top man at First Sierra/Sierra Cities:” co-founder, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for First Sierra Financial,” his on line biography states. He was fired by Tom Depping (who fired many directors, perhaps all, except for his personal accountant, so that is no big onus.) In fact, Van Etten got a pretty generous settlement from American Express, who purchased the company in 2001, and the lawsuit closed all files to the public (there were several such lawsuits, as previous board of directors signed covenants not to talk about.) “Freddy,” as he is affectionately called, is considered one of the best marketing men in the business, in fact, when he was told to fire Mark McQuitty as sales manager of First Sierra, McQuitty wrote a letter back saying that Tom Depping should step down and Van Etten become president. One of the first things that happened was new hires, new directions, including a move into the small ticket medical industry. He would not return Leasing News calls or e-mails, letting him know we were writing a story about his company and the NorVergence leases. Juan Carlos Cruz, Vice President, Public Relations and Media, Banco Popular North America, said he was aware from Van Etten that Leasing News was writing an article about Popular Leasing purchase of NorVergence “Equipment Rental Contracts (ERA.), but he would have no comment on that subject for us. When asked if a photograph of President Bruce Horton was not available, he said they did not have one. Horton is the man who agreed to the $30 million figure in a "master plan" for NorVergence Leasing. He did it with the real brains behind the group, chief operation manager Alexander Wolf, and of course, Bob Fine, the bank PR man, former president of the Eastern Association of Equipment Lessors. Horton most likely paid for the dinner, in many ways, too.
The letter comes from the Jefferson County, Texas case of Party Props, Inc., plaintiff vs. Popular Leasing USA, Inc. Defendant. There will be many more of such suits being filed, including old issues of "floating forum," usury, and new issues of "hold backs," “agency,” and perhaps “fraud” coming home to roost. One of the aspects here is how much a “partner” NorVergence was with Popular Leasing. In the January 19, 2005 deposition of Dan Kinealy, the vice-president of risk management, mentioned in the above letter as having dinner with Mr. Horton, Mr. Wolf and Mr. Fine, dances around in the deposition on how much the NorVergence portfolio is worth and the actual amount of leases. He appears to respond to the “best of his ability,” but those in the leasing industry know the questions that were not asked, but should have been: 11 Q. What is the current value of the 1. actually paid by Popular Leasing to NorVergence? The actual question of holdbacks or "repayments" as in the "mast plan" agreed in the funding of lease contracts submitted was not asked. How many leases were purchased back, or pending, or what reserves or "hold backs" were kept, was not asked. The aspect of commission for NorVergence was covered: 1 Q. Is this a template? You fill in some April 27,2006 Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard issued a press release, announcing “a settlement with Popular Leaisng USA, Inc. that could result in more than $200,000 in debt forgiveness to nine Arizona customers still being required to make payments on a telecommunication device that is worthless.” The case in point shows prices on “eBay” show a $500 offer, while in many NorVergence lease court cases, it appears NorVergence paid $1500 for the Matrix or Adtran box, according to many of the invoices found in lease folders. While the contracts showed one or two cards, the Party Prop. “Equipment Rental Agreement” has below “Equipment Model & Description: “Matrix (2 cards.) The Popular Leasing contracts show had varying degrees of “cost to lessor,” but only one or two Matrix cards. Kinealy in this deposition states he was aware “software” was part of the package, thus the reason for the various prices of the lease contract. The fact not brought up was why it was not included in the description of the Equipment Rental Agreement” of “Party Prop” (nor has Leasing News seen it in any ERA contract, and I can testify we have seen hundreds via the attorney general suits, many depositions and other material, which is public information. editor) It was noted in the Arizona press release that Assistant Attorney General Vincent Rabago handled the case, and that “ Popular Leasing denies any wrongdoing. Affected customers will be contacted directly by Popular Leasing with 30 days with details about their individual settlement amounts and given information about how to particpate in the settlement. Affected customers will then have 35 days to decide whether to participate.” There is talk about a multi-state settlement and the adverse publicity, plus many local attorneys now asking “better questions.” While the leasing company attorneys appear to laugh off Randy Brook of the Federal Trade Commission and point to “hell or high water” provisions, the officers of the corporation who authorize the bills, they are not laughing at the growing costs from becoming defendants. Ronald J. Eisenberg, Esq.,Schultz & Little L.L.P.,Chesterfield, Missouri, in the news regarding several motions that made leasing news media publications originally had approximately 45 NorVergence lease "defendants." He is now down to two. Half of his clients, he says the cases were dismissed, and the other half, he said, "settled...You take a suit for perhaps $20,000, and the cost is going to be $10,000 to $15,000 to go to court, with perhaps the victor getting the other attorney fees...and it could even be more expensive, time consuming, on your nerves, and when you get down to a settlement offer of $5,000, for instance, often it is a good business decision to take it, and get this all behind you." Eisenberg was one of the first "defense" attorneys to notice the phenomena of the description on the "ERA", while the leasing company operations department processed hundreds, it appears no one brought it up during the funding of the contracts. If they did, it was not disclosed by the officers in any of the depositions. “I'm attaching a MATRIX product description sheet you might find of interest, “he told Leasing News." Upon review of 17 boxes of documents Popular Leasing made available to me, I observed several documents similar to the one attached and compared like documents. As expected, I found vastly differing monthly payment terms for similar equipment." MATRIX product description sheet http://leasingnews.org/PDF/Popular_Leasing_Matrix_sheet.pdf "Your readers might be interested in knowing that upon my comparison of the Equipment Rental Agreements attached to Popular Leasing's petitions with the copies of the 'ERAs' provided by me to my clients, I consistently noticed that someone (not my clients) had tinkered with the 'ERAs' by adding language to the 'ERAs' without my clients' permission. In some cases, the company name, which was blank when my client signed the ERA, magically appeared on the ERA proffered by Popular as ‘a true and accurate copy of the Equipment Rental Agreement. ‘ “In many cases, handwritten descriptions, such as “2001 3 Cards” emerged in the middle of the first page of the 'ERAs.' Popular Leasing, in response to our discovery requests that probed the issue, indicated it had insufficient information or knowledge regarding my requests to respond on the merits. “I also filed affirmative defenses and counterclaims for spoliation of evidence based on the unauthorized changes made to the 'ERAs' and had intended to move for summary judgment on that ground, but it appears all of my cases will soon be settled or dismissed and the court will not get to address this issue. “I hope another attorney will pick up where I left off, because I believe this would have made a compelling argument.” Several attorneys in Southern California, representing six companies that Popular Leasing had sued in Missouri, brought actions against Popular in various counties, seeking damages and declaratory relief to invalidate the ERAs. One of the attorneys, Gregg A. Rapoport of LEE & ROSENBERGER, a Prof. Corp., in Pasadena, California, turned the tables on Popular Leasing by orchestrating a consolidation of the six cases into one that is now set for trial in October in Orange County,. The case caption is Suh et al. v. Popular Leasing, Case No. 04CC10197. "Popular is fighting our request to depose their corporate representatives and says it is going to bring a motion for a protective order, but still has not done so," Mr. Rapoport told Leasing News. "Popular wants a stay of the litigation until the anticipated A.G. settlement comes and goes. “ Popular Bank has filed applications to open in Mexico, and is also coming to California, as noted on their web site: “ ---California Branch Opening! We are pleased to announce the opening of our newest in-store Wal-Mart branch in Beaumont on March 22nd, 2006! We are excited to have another new location to serve your financial needs. Thank you for choosing Banco Popular.” http://www.popularleasing.com/us/personal/us-per-home-en.jsp Copy of Party Prop. filings, partial deposition, other evidence presented: http://leasingnews.org/PDF/BeaumontMSJ.pdf Who is Alex Wolf? http://www.leasingnews.org/Conscious-Top%20Stories/Novergence_46.htm “Established in 1996, Popular Leasing is the 38th largest bank-owned leasing company in the U.S. and is recognized by the St. Louis RCGA as a “Top 50 Business”. The company offers small- to large-ticket equipment leasing services to medical and commercial markets throughout the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S.V.I. Headquartered in Ballwin, Missouri, Popular Leasing has a network of twelve sales offices in ten states. It is part of Popular, Inc.; a publicly owned diversified financial services company. Popular, Inc. is ranked among the 40 largest bank holding companies in the United States. With assets in excess of $45 billion in assets, is a complete financial services provider with operations in Puerto Rico, the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America. “ http://www.popularleasing.com/pr/about/whoweare/abu-who-corp-en.jsp |
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