Answer: Sale and leaseback means that the actual owner sells the goods to the financial leasing company, then signs a sale and leaseback contract with the financial leasing company, and uses the goods by paying the rent on schedule according to the agreed conditions until the rent is paid and the ownership of the goods is regained. In fact, leaseback is a combination of purchase and lease.

Sale and leaseback has four remarkable characteristics:

(1) The leased object is an indispensable formal requirement. The leasing company must first examine the legitimacy of the existence of the leased property and the authenticity of the original ownership, and then sign a sale-leaseback contract to obtain the ownership of the leased property;

(2) The sale and leaseback contract is actually the result of the integration of the purchase contract and the financial lease contract (leaseback contract);

(3) The leaseback behavior does not affect the actual possession and use of the leased property;

(4) The purpose of leaseback is to solve the shortage of the lessee's own funds or liquidity.

Why is leaseback worth advocating? This should be analyzed from the essence of sale and leaseback. Sale and leaseback is a special property right transaction. The subject matter is fixed assets. After the lessor obtains the ownership (possession, use, income and disposal) of the subject matter from the lessee, it transfers the possession, use right and income right to the lessee through the sale and leaseback contract. The lessor only reserves the right of disposition, and it is only limited. First, any punishment imposed by the lessor shall not affect the lessee's right to possess, use and profit from the lease item; Second, according to the provisions of the sale and leaseback contract, the lessor shall transfer the ownership of the leased property to the lessee after the rent is fully recovered. In a sense, leaseback is similar to mortgage loan (legally speaking, leaseback and mortgage loan can't be confused, the ownership of leasehold in leaseback belongs to the creditor, and the ownership of mortgage loan belongs to the debtor), and the essence of leaseback after sale is just a kind of financing.

Direct financing lease and leaseback are both indirect financing behaviors. The difference is that the former is to add fixed assets, and the latter is to realize existing assets, that is, to revitalize existing assets. In the current deepening reform of state-owned enterprises, it is far more important to revitalize existing assets and realize asset reorganization than to expand the scale of assets. Therefore, we should vigorously advocate and recommend the way of sale and leaseback, make it more standardized, more clear in law, and have supporting measures in policy.