Sales representatives are pitching a name in document-management software that bank customers didn't see for two years.
Treev, the brand name for a line of document-imaging and data storage systems, disappeared in April 2001 after Treev Inc. of Herndon, Va., was bought by a German company and renamed Ceyoniq Inc.
CE Computer Equipment AG's ownership was a failure, however, and ended in June 2002, when the parent became insolvent and sold the American business. The Treev name resurfaced after eight months of further struggle, including a quick trip through U.S. Bankruptcy Court proceedings.
The upshot was that H.T. Ardinger & Sons Co., the Dallas venture capital firm that bought the company last June, effectively bought it again in February, and renamed it Treev LLC. David E. MacWhorter, who stepped down as Treev's president in 1998 amid differences with the largest shareholders, returned in 2001 and is now president and chief executive.
Mr. MacWhorter said Treev is concentrating on banking again: It has shut down units devoted to government and nonfinancial customers and has been working on developing banking products.
Relatively new to its lineup is a system to assist banks in complying with USA Patriot Act provisions governing the maintenance of customer identification documents. Treev has also come out with system that digitally archives signature cards and another that ties document-imaging capabilities to loan-customer service.
Treev has been in business since 1986. It mostly serves community banks but has some larger institutions on its client list, including Washington Mutual Inc., Mr. MacWhorter said.
CE Computer Equipment executives had talked of developing a new-generation computer data storage and retrieval system, as well as selling CE products in America through the U.S. subsidiary, Mr. MacWhorter said.
Little came of the talk except expenses, he said. Like the previous owners with whom he disagreed, CE Computer Equipment's management was more interested in developing technology than customer relationships. To make matters worse, two top German executives were arrested in April 2002 on suspicion of defrauding the company's lenders. The charges have not yet been resolved, according to Mr. MacWhorter.
H.T. Ardinger & Sons, which had been a Treev shareholder before it was sold, received ownership of Ceyoniq Inc. in exchange for setting up new lines of credit, Mr. MacWhorter said. But the software company made little headway in paying down about $12 million of debt, and last December it filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. Ardinger outbid four in an auction Feb. 24, paying $6.2 million and agreeing to lend the company $600,000.
"We're a little bit better than break-even right now," Mr. MacWhorter said. Treev will probably chalk up sales of $16 million this year, he said. Its 2002 sales were $23 million but included sales to markets Treev has exited - government and commercial - plus transfers between the German parent and the U.S. subsidiary.
Mr. MacWhorter described the past year as one of utter turmoil but said banking customers continued to pay maintenance fees, giving the company a steady source of revenue.
One customer, in fact, said service has not been affected by Ceyoniq's financial difficulties.
"I would not have known they were in any kind of trouble had they not called me about it," said Gregory T. Rowland, vice president of the $1.2 billion-asset Peoples First Community Bank in Panama City, Fla.
Neither Mr. MacWhorter nor Mr. Rowland would put a specific price on Treev's wares, but Mr. Rowland said Peoples spent $250,000 to $500,000 moving its computer data storage and retrieval system from another vendor in 2001. Systems conversion accounted for a big chunk of the cost, he said, and Treev was one of about 10 vendors considered.
