PRESS RELEASES

Repo Trends Vary By Industry, Business Quarter

ROSLYN HEIGHTS, NY., Oct. 21, 2004—Nassau Asset Management’s NasTrac Quarterly Index (NQI) indicates that repossessions of tractor-trailer trucks declined 70 percent in the third quarter (Q3) compared with the same time frame in 2003--welcome news for lenders and truckers following an upswing in repos mid-year.

“This summer truck repossessions climbed 33 percent between first and second quarter, when truckers were battling rising fuel and insurance costs,” says Edward Castagna, senior executive vice president of Nassau. “What we saw in Q3 was in line with the overall decline in equipment repossessions that began in 2003.”

Repossessions of machine tools, a closely watched barometer of economic activity, dropped 72 percent in Q3. This finding correlates with other indicators within the manufacturing industry. In August, U.S. machine tool consumption to date in 2004 was up 38.4 percent compared with 2003, according to the Association for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors Association.

Repossessions of medical devices in Q3 declined by 15 percent, a nominal change, according to Castagna. However, other sectors experienced significant fluctuations over the summer:

Repossessions of printing presses were up 88 percent compared with Q3 2003, plus have risen consistently over all three quarters of 2004. Castagna says this trend may be partly due to consolidation taking place within the industry, as noted in the National Association for Printing Leadership’s November 2003 report, “Economic Recovery No Cure-All."

Repossessions of construction equipment increased by 57 percent compared with Q3 2003. Castagna says this is the first time in 2004 that construction repos have risen compared with 2003. When comparing each of the three quarters to date in 2004, in fact, construction repos have actually declined or flattened . Other economic indicators show that construction spending in 2004 as of August was up 9.4 percent over 2003, according to the U.S. Commerce Department’s Census Bureau. Nassau is watching the construction sector closely to determine if the Q3 increase was due to greater front-end volume or an early indication that construction businesses are responding to economic pressure.
The current NQI reports on the top five repossessed capital assets in Q3 2004, which include trucks/trailers, printing presses, medical devices, machine tools and construction equipment, according to Nassau’s internal records on liquidations. Readers should keep in mind that results must be viewed over several quarters to establish long-term trends since all industries experience cyclical changes.

Nassau also tracks many other equipment types as a function of its nationwide remarketing operation, which liquidates all types of assets. Finance companies and industry analysts can contract with Nassau to dig deeper into the numbers, determining the root causes for trends and researching specific equipment types. Companies can use their private reports to help mitigate risk in portfolios and/or provide useful economic indicators to their own clients.

About Nassau
Nassau Asset Management of Roslyn Heights, NY, has been providing full-service asset management, including large-scale end-of-term fleet liquidations, full plant liquidations, asset recovery, collections, remarketing, and appraisals for more than 25 years to the equipment leasing and finance industry. For more information, please visit www.nasset.com or call 1-800-4.NASSAU.

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MEDIA CONTACTS:

Edward Castagna
Senior Executive Vice President
Nassau Asset Management
1-800.4.NASSAU, ext. 301
ecast@nasset.com, cc:carla@crosslink.net

Carla Young Harrington
SCAPR (For Nassau Asset Management)
540-899-3913
carla@crosslink.net