Joining The Online Wave.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Brief Article

A growing wave of debt and credit products -- including corporate and municipal bonds, commercial loans, mortgages and tax credits -- has been moving onto the Internet. Why should leasing be left out?

It isn't. A number of Web-enabled leasing operations are working busily to link up creditors with companies interesting in leasing. Like their counterparts in the lending or bond business, e-leasing companies see the Internet as a means of widening the marketplace, paring transaction time and cost and improving transparency.

As it has been historically, the market's main focus is equipment leasing. Equipment leasing is a big enough business -- more than $233 billion in capital equipment was financed in 2000, according to the Department of Commerce -- to attract major financial services companies, but the online purveyors are cut from a more entrepreneurial cloth. Though their models and target audiences differ somewhat, most are, not surprisingly, facilitating leases for high-technology items -- not old-line equipment like trucks or tractors. A good example is LeasePoint.com of Minneapolis, which works with computers, servers, peripherals and software.

ELease of Sunnyvale, Calif., is even more focused. The company is targeting purchase managers, financial planners/analysts, CFOs and owners of high-tech companies. Other firms offer a more comprehensive product mix. Working through more than 100 lessors/lenders, Pure Markets of San Francisco has lessees in automotive products, packaged goods, shipping, trucking, printing, mining, construction and manufacturing.

Partnerships are a staple element of e-leasing. LENDX of San Francisco recently formed a partnership with The Leasing Exchange, an alliance of 30 of the largest equipment finance lessors, The partners in November announced the launch of a Web site, the Secondary Lease Exchange, to trade seasoned leases and loans. Sellers select the timeline for the sale and the list of potential bidders; buyers then use to manage related offers.

But this exchange is not LENDX's core business, says Ken Fosina, cofounder and executive vice president for business development. "Our primary focus is to deliver Web-based technology for large lessees and borrowers who generate hundreds of millions of dollars in financings a year. The average Fortune 100 company completes about $100 million a year in equipment financings, and doesn't always have a streamlined way of doing them. CFOs of major companies may have as...