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Show You Can Now Rent Almost Anything What started as a novel idea has become a national trend, and now it is possible to lease or rent almost anything from a clean shirt to a yacht. So says the December Reader's Digest, reporting on one of the fastest growing business ideas: the equipment leasing service. , About half of the nation's busi-I busi-I nesses take advantage of some leasing plan and Rent-All stores rent individual consumers an assortment as-sortment of items. In the San Francisco Bay area commuter car pools now rent small buses. Plants can be rented rent-ed from a sprig of ivy to a small jungle complete with big palms. A New York store rents animals. In some cities you can rent a mink coat, or subscribe to a clean white shirt service with no capital outlay. Corporations lease on long contracts. American Airlines will soon be flying commercial jets whose airframes belong to the company, but whose engines are owned by the makers, United Aircraft and General Motors. Tishman Leasing Equipment Co. of New York recently offered to build an entire industrial plant to order and lease ft to the user. The U. S. Leasing Corp. of San Francisco owns about 45 million dollars worth of equipment that its employes have never touched. It bought an electronic brain and leased it to Lockheed Aircraft Co.; a yacht for an advertising agency; furnishings for a Washington, Wash-ington, D.C.. motel: a babv in- cubator and other items for a hospital in Houston, Texas, and leased them all. One of the most popular leased items, aside from the telephone, is office equipment, especially postage meters. The lease usually" runs for ' three quarters of the item's useful use-ful life and calls for monthly payments totaling about 130 per cent of its value. It offers the businessman many advantages. It leaves his working capital free for other uses, and guarantees guar-antees he will not be stuck with idle equipment after a job is done. There: also are substantial tax savings. For these reasons and . .others equipment leasing seems to be here to stay. : The article, "Now You " Can Lease or Rent Almost Anything by Frank Cameron, of Kent-field, Kent-field, Calif., is condensed from American Business. |