Avco Sells Leasing Unit

Avco Financial Services Inc. said Thursday that it has agreed to sell its business leasing assets, a small part of its Orange County operation, to a Torrance company for an undisclosed price.

Terms of the deal with Imperial Credit Industries Inc. were not disclosed, but Avco is believed to have about $100 million in business leasing assets. The assets include computers and machinery bought by Avco and leased to companies. The operation employs only about 40 of the 850 workers at Avco, which earned $179.4 million last year on revenue of $1.7 billion.

Imperial Credit plans to fold the assets into its Imperial Business Credit Inc. subsidiary in San Diego and move accounting, servicing and collection employees there, said H. Wayne Snavely, chairman of the parent company. Sales and marketing employees will remain in Orange County. Snavely said he hopes to complete the transaction early next month.

About “10 to 15 people” won’t be joining Imperial, he said. Avco spokesman Jim Shaw said his company will try to place those people in other positions at Avco.

Avco, with more than 1,200 offices in seven countries, is a subsidiary of Textron Inc., a worldwide conglomerate with business operations in aircraft, automotive, finance, industrial and systems and components industries.