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S1 Posts 2Q Profit, Raises Its Guidance New England Buy Gives Deluxe a Boost Albertson's, Coinstar In Phone, Debit Deal
S1 Posts 2Q Profit, Raises Its Guidance
S1 Corp.'s net income in the second quarter increased 40% from the previous quarter, to $620,000. Revenue rose 5%, to $60.9 million.
The results were a sharp improvement over the second quarter of last year, when the Atlanta company posted a net loss of $6.4 million.
"This is the third straight quarter of actual growth over the top end of our guidance," Jaime Ellertson, S1's chief executive, said in a phone interview Thursday. "It bodes well" for this quarter, "because we're raising guidance right now."
The full-year revenue guidance is now $236 million to $242 million, versus the $228 million to $234 million announced last quarter.
S1 said it signed 19 deals in the quarter for its flagship Enterprise product line, including 11 contracts, worth over $1 million each, with new customers. The other eight were add-on agreements with an average value of $800,000.
It signed long-term contracts with three large banking companies: Alliance & Leicester PLC in Leicester, England; Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd. in Tokyo; and a customer S1 would identify only as a top 50 U.S. bank with $35 billion of assets.
New England Buy Gives Deluxe a Boost
Deluxe Corp.'s second-quarter net income rose 15% from the same period last year, to $46 million, or 91 cents a share.
The Shoreview, Minn., check printer said last week that its revenue slipped less than 1%, to $309.4 million. That total included $7.7 million from New England Business Service Inc., a Groton, Mass., printer of business forms and related products for small businesses, which Deluxe acquired June 25 for $643 million in cash.
Deluxe, which also assumed $166 million of debt in the deal, has said it wants to expand into adjacent business sectors to diversify away from checks, whose volume is dropping.
Apart from the acquisition, Deluxe said its unit volume fell 6.1%, but per-unit revenue rose 3.8%.
Also last week, the Atlanta check printer John H. Harland Co. reported Wednesday that its net income fell 21% in the second quarter, to $8.9 million. Sales grew less than 1%, to $193 million.
Harland took charges of $6 million to cover a reorganization in its printed products business; and $1.3 million to cover severance payments in its software and services unit.
Harland projected third-quarter earnings of 47 cents to 52 cents a share, and it affirmed its full-year outlook of $1.94 to $1.99.
Albertson's, Coinstar In Phone, Debit Deal
Albertson's Inc. has agreed to offer Coinstar Inc.'s prepaid debit and wireless phone cards at more than 1,800 grocery and drugstores in the United States.
The cards should be available this year at Albertson's locations nationwide.
Coinstar, of Bellevue, Wash., which announced the deal Thursday, operates nearly 11,000 coin-counting kiosks. It said the Boise, Idaho, retail chain would be the first company to offer the prepaid products nationally.
People can apply for Coinstar's Green Dot Prepaid MasterCard debit card by putting $20 to $500 of change into the coin-counting machines. They receive the embossed card in the mail and can refill it by inserting more change into one of the machines.
Marcie G. Maule, a spokeswoman for Coinstar, said the card primarily targets the unbanked.
In addition to buying phone cards, consumers who have prepaid wireless accounts with most of the national carriers will be able to replenish their minutes at the kiosks. However, Ms. Maule said the machines will accept paper currency - but not yet coins - to fund phone cards or replenish phone accounts.
