Financing

Harbor Equipment Leasing and Fox-Valley Leasing, local companies that provide financing to help businesses lease equipment, have merged in the hope of nearly doubling their business, they said yesterday.The two privately owned companies have kept their names and become divisions of Madison Capital LLC, which began operating earlier this month.The merger creates one of the largest lease-financing firms in the mid-Atlantic region with assets under management of $35 million to $45 million.Mark Caplan, president of Madison Capital, said he once spent most of his time explaining and educating clients about leasing equipment.

DEARBORN, Mich. -- Ford Motor Co. said yesterday that it would sell its business-equipment financing unit to Mellon Bank Corp. for about $1.7 billion.Mellon is acquiring a portfolio of $1.5 billion of leases, and it is paying a $200 million premium, the bank said.It's the latest step in Ford's effort to sell its nonautomotive finance operations. In May, it sold a rail-car leasing business and 20 percent of its consumer-finance unit, and last month it sold a portfolio of leases to BankAmerica Corp.

FOR FIRST-TIME home buyers, the two biggest hurdles are assembling enough money for a down payment and having enough cash left to cover settlement costs. Pending before the Anne Arundel County Council is legislation that could help lower the price of a $137,000 home by about $15,000 and shave about $1,480 off the down payment. Unfortunately, the legislation has been misconstrued as violating the tax cap and being "undemocratic."Developers, not taxpayers, have always built and financed road, sewer and utility construction within new subdivisions.

The Swiss bank that financed much of the construction of a recycling and composting center in Curtis Bay has filed foreclosure action against its owner, F&E Resource Systems Technology Inc.In documents filed with the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Credit Suisse seeks to collect $35.6 million, including $968,920 in past due interest.The court action comes seven weeks after F&E announced plans for a $20 million private equity offering to gain full ownership of the facility.Ronald W. Pickett, chairman and chief executive officer of F&E, said at the time that the company's plan was to buy out the two partners, Credit Suisse and Chrysler Capital Corp.

The sale of Parks Sausage Co., which was scheduled to be made final this week, will be delayed at least a week because of unresolved details in the financing package, the prospective owner said yesterday.Franco Harris, the former football star and Pittsburgh businessman who is buying Parks, blamed the delay in closing the deal -- the second delay so far -- on negotiations between state economic development officials and Banc One, a Columbus, Ohio-based bank that is financing the deal.Harris said the state will guarantee a portion of the financing, about $1 million.

ALTHOUGH NO SCIENTIFIC polling has been conducted, samples of public sentiment seem to be running against the commissioners' proposal to finance farmland preservation through a 1 percent transfer tax on real estate sales. The proposal, which has considerable merit, may die a premature and unnecessary death.The county commissioners proposed this transfer tax as an essential tool in continuing Carroll's successful farmland preservation program. In recent years, the lack of a reliable source of revenue has hampered this program.

A development group headed by Otis Warren and Theo Rodgers has finally obtained the financing commitment it needed to move ahead with construction of Baltimore's next major office project, the $39 million City Crescent complex for federal agencies at the southwest corner of Baltimore and Howard streets.Baltimore's Board of Estimates approved yesterday a revised land sale agreement under which it has promised to lease the 11-story building for 15 years if the U.S. General Services Administration no longer wants to occupy it beyond the 10-year lease commitment it has made.

The developer of the proposed $165 million Ritz-Carlton has been given more time to bring the luxury hotel project to Baltimore's harbor front. The deal to buy land for the hotel and condominiums was scheduled to be completed yesterday. But an extension until the end of the month - one of several delays on the project - was granted by property owners, said Edward V. Giannasca II, president and chief executive officer of the developer, L.I. Square Corp. of New York. Giannasca also said lenders have agreed to pay for the project, although he did not identify them.

A partnership with a Boston-based real estate investment company is helping Baltimore-based Municipal Mortgage and Equity LLC to broaden its business.Municipal Mortgage, better-known as MuniMae, buys tax-free bonds that were used to finance apartment complexes. Typically, those apartment complexes have been built and are about 95 percent occupied.With the New England investment company Boston Financial, MuniMae is helping finance construction of two senior-citizen housing projects in San Jose, Calif.

Neighbors of a proposed Montessori School on Hughes Shop Road in Westminster used a public hearing yesterday on the project's financing to reiterate their opposition.Residents have signed petitions, attended development review hearings and organized the Hughes Shop Road Area Neighborhood Coalition against the $1.2 million private school, slated for 27 hilltop acres about a mile from Route 140.The school, with a planned eventual enrollment of 185, would cause the neighborhood problems with water supply and traffic, residents said.