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International Card Establishment (I.C.E.) Acquires Gift & Loyalty Company Neos
Merchant Solutions for $7.5 Million
Acquisition to Accelerate I.C.E.’s Revenue Growth and Complement Existing Gift
and Loyalty Division
I.C.E. 2004 Pro forma Revenues Expected to Exceed $22 Million
Oxnard, California –September 8, 2004—International Card Establishment,
Inc. (I.C.E.) (OTCBB: ICRD) today announced that it has completed
its acquisition of Neos Merchant Solutions, Inc., an Irvine,
California Gift and Loyalty provider in exchange for a combination
of cash, debt and stock valued at $7,500,000.
Founded in May 2002, Neos is a national provider of Gift and Loyalty card
processing, electronic payment, and Point-Of-Sale (POS) equipment
integration, providing all forms of non-cash payment transactions,
including credit and debit card and Gift and Loyalty, and
check-from merchant point-of-sale terminals.
Neos offers a comprehensive array of Gift and Loyalty card services,
providing superior service by designing, encoding, printing and
fulfilling all of its customer orders. This degree of vertical
integration allows the company to service its customers in a
fraction of the time that its competitors – who typically
outsource some or all of these processes – take to fill orders.
Currently, Neos has 35 employees providing a host of support services to complement
its 65 external sales agents who operate through five direct
offices nationwide in Baltimore, Maryland, Charlotte, North
Carolina, Tampa, Florida, and Los Angeles and Irvine,
California. Additionally, Neos has established a relationship
with a major Midwest diversified financial services company that
markets Neos' Gift and Loyalty products to its customers.
Although Neos has concentrated its sales and marketing efforts to small and medium
sized merchants, the company’s strong reputation for superior
service has attracted a leading worldwide hospitality company and
a national restaurant chain as customers, among others.
Neos revenues are expected to be between $6 million and $9 million for 2004 and $9
and $12 million in 2005. The wide range of Neos' projected
revenues is due to potential variations associated with certain
large customers’ deployment of Gift and Loyalty products. The
company is expected to be profitable in 2004.
"The acquisition of Neos immediately vaults us into the ranks of leading Gift and
Loyalty companies, which is one of the fastest growing markets in
financial services, growing from just $20 billion in 2000 to an
estimated $100 billion in 2004," said Jonathan Severn, Chairman &
President, I.C.E. "Integrating Neos into I.C.E. will spawn
multiple cross-selling opportunities, which should increase
revenues in all three of our business units: bankcard, gift and
loyalty and leasing." Mr. Severn went on to add, "Neos' management
team, led by its president Wain Swapp will -- in addition to
continue to shepherding Neos' rapid growth – be instrumental in
helping I.C.E. meet its revenue projection of $22 million (pro
forma) in 2004, growing to $50 million (pro forma) in 2005 with
profitable operations."
"The entire Neos team is highly enthusiastic about joining I.C.E. and
helping to build a rapidly growing financial services company,"
said H. Wain Swapp, President & CEO, Neos Merchant Solutions. "We
not only believe that we will continue to succeed in expanding
Neos' business rapidly and profitably, but will also be able to
help I.C.E. achieve growth in all of its business units."
About Neos Merchant Solutions
www.neosmerchant.com
Neos Merchant Solutions is full service
payment processing company offering a turnkey solution to today's
retail merchants. Neos offers custom application development,
electronic payment processing, card personalization services,
terminal integration & deployment, and customer support. As an
application developer, Neos has developed a variety of scalable
smart card and mag stripe card applications utilizing all of the
elements of stored value and frequency/loyalty card programs and
services. Neos integrates its proprietary software to many of
today's POS terminal and cash register interfaces. In addition,
Neos offers one of the most robust internet-based transaction
collection and database reporting systems in the marketplace
today.
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