Making good on a promise made in February, e-Profile Inc., the Internet outsourcing subsidiary of Sanchez Computer Associates Inc., has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of its common stock.
The unit has attracted a number of high-profile customers since its inception in the first quarter of 1999. It targets nonbanks that may not have the expertise to run an Internet bank but want to get into the business quickly.
Among its customers are American Express Co., Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Lehman Brothers Bank, and GMAC Residential Holding Corp.'s GMAC Bank. It also has bank customers, including WingspanBank.com, Sovereign's firstwebbankdirect, Lloyds TSB Bank's evolvebank.com, and X.com. So far, four clients are live on e-Profile; they were processing 579,000 accounts at July 31.
Winning these customers helped e-Profile contribute $4.6 million to Sanchez's second-quarter revenues, compared with $1.1 million the year earlier. The unit also has equity investments from GMAC Residential and Financial Technology Ventures in San Francisco.
"E-Profile is targeting a unique niche, which is focused on the Internet-only channel, and to date it has won many marquee customers," said Glenn Green, a vice president and senior analyst at ABN Amro. "The one caveat is that the Internet-only channel has seen minimal growth," he said, "and the jury is still out on the Internet strategy."
Sanchez of Malvern, Pa., bought the outsourcer Artech Financial Technology Services Inc. to form e-Profile. The unit offers Sanchez's Profile Anyware Internet banking software, as well as related software from other providers in a service bureau format.
"E-Profile is a distribution mechanism for Sanchez's open banking platform," said Matt Fassnacht, a senior equity research analyst at J.P. Morgan & Co.. It is attractive to financial services companies, he said, because they can "pick and choose the technology partners that work best for them."
Because e-Profile operates under a different business model than Sanchez, a separate stock offering for e-Profile is logical, Mr. Fassnacht said.
Sanchez had a second-quarter net loss of $2 million, compared with a $1.8 million loss a year earlier. The results were slightly better than analysts had expected. Its revenue increased 17%, to $16 million.
"If e-Profile is successful, as we expect it will be, it will consolidate into Sanchez's revenue," Mr. Fassnacht said. E-Profile also drives the sales of Sanchez's stand-alone software because it pays Sanchez for licensing its Profile Anyware product, he said.
Merrill Lynch & Co., Robertson Stephens, First Union Securities Inc., and Pennsylvania Merchant Group are the IPO's managing underwriters.
Sanchez has established a subscription program under which owners of 100 or more Sanchez shares may participate in a portion of the initial public offering. The number of shares to be sold to Sanchez shareholders and the date of the offering have not been determined.
