Headlines:
Deluxe Profit Slips as Checks Slide
Deluxe Corp. of Shoreview, Minn., the nation's largest check printer, said Thursday that its earnings sagged 19% in the first quarter as demand for paper checks continued to decline.
Earnings fell to $39 million, or 78 cents per share, from a year earlier as revenue grew 41%, to $437 million. The acquisition last June of New England Business Service Inc. of Groton, Mass., a business-forms printer and catalogue company that serves small businesses, was largely responsible for the revenue increase.
On Wednesday, Deluxe announced a program, Deluxe Business Advantage, to enable its customer banks to cross-sell its small-business products, including Nebs'.
First-quarter earnings were hurt by Wells Fargo & Co.'s moving its check-printing account last year to John H. Harland Co. of Atlanta, Deluxe said.
It projected earnings of 77 to 81 cents per share for the current quarter and about $3.30 for the full year. The small-business operation will drive results higher at least through 2007, the company said. Deluxe has said it expects to sell fewer and fewer checks, though more of them will be customized and therefore more profitable.
Open Solutions' Income Flat, Guidance Up
Though first-quarter revenue surged at Open Solutions Inc., weak performance by its Canadian payment processing operations held net income nearly flat.
The Glastonbury, Conn., banking software company also increased its earnings guidance for the year and announced a stock repurchase plan Wednesday.
First-quarter net income dipped 1% from a year earlier, to $2.965 million. Revenue grew 80%, to $37.7 million.
Open Solutions said its Canadian payments business lost a client that had been acquired. In addition, some contracts it had expected to close in the first quarter were pushed back to this quarter, it said.
Some of those have now been signed, said chairman and chief executive Louis Hernandez Jr. in a press release. "While we did not meet all of our goals for the first quarter of 2005, we believe this is not indicative of an ongoing trend," he said.
The company now predicts full-year net income of $16.5 million to $18.4 million on revenue of $177 million to $185 million. That replaced a forecast of $16.2 million to $18.1 million net on $160 million to $166 million of revenue.
