U.S. Wireless Data To Acquire NXT Corporation
Purchase Will Bring Together Leaders in Transaction Processing Middleware
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 18, 2000--U.S. Wireless Data (USWD) (OTC BB:USWE), the leader in wireless transaction services, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire NXT Corporation, a leading provider of real-time payment data management and network services for the transaction processing industry. This purchase will add approximately 35 million transactions per month to USWD's operations, making USWD a sizeable player in the credit card transaction industry. The acquisition is subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, including obtaining certain third party consents.
NXT has been an industry middleware leader from its inception in 1995, when it teamed up with American Express Company (NYSE:AXP - news), currently an investor in NXT, to develop innovative transaction networking services that provide merchants with increased efficiencies and lower costs. Since then, NXT has developed interfaces with many merchant systems vendors, substantially increasing its ability to deliver and integrate new services for both merchants and application providers. NXT provides universal translation capabilities for message re-formatting and in-depth reporting which are complementary to USWD's Synapse(sm) wireless data platform. For the 10 months ended October 31, 2000, NXT had unaudited revenues of approximately $4.5 million. The acquisition will be made for 1,125,000 shares of USWD common stock, subject to adjustments based upon the performance of USWD's common stock over the twenty-four month period following the closing. In addition, USWD has agreed to retire approximately $1.7 million of NXT's debt shortly after the closing.
``The combination of U.S. Wireless Data, NXT Corporation, and our recently acquired CellGate Technologies creates a very powerful triumvirate in the transaction processing arena,'' said Dean M. Leavitt, chairman and CEO of U.S. Wireless Data. ``We expect this acquisition to greatly accelerate our move into both the fixed wireless point-of-sale and wireless ATM markets. NXT substantially strengthens our technical offerings in terms of connectivity to processors and scalability, as well as the addition of NXT's excellent technical team. Additionally, we will have the ability to add significant value to the services currently provided to NXT customers. This is clearly a win-win for both companies, and gives us a solid foundation for the acceleration of our business plan.''
Steve Squeri, president of Establishment Services for the United States and Canada at American Express, added, ``This unique combination of technology will allow American Express to truly tailor our services to the needs of each individual client. Whether the client needs mobility, customized reports, specialized application software, or a range of other wireless as well as wired capabilities, we will be able to work with U.S. Wireless Data to provide a solution.''
NXT president Jim Margolis provided some further background on the combined business. ``NXT has built a network that supports approximately 35 million payment transactions per month from tens of thousands of merchant locations ranging from small retailers to national restaurants, hotel chains and e-businesses. We have developed a variety of new services for both merchants and application providers, including an Internet transaction gateway, enhanced dial networking, proprietary loyalty and stored-value/gift cards programs, and AmexDirect. We believe that our products and technology will be extremely complementary to the services provided by U.S. Wireless Data and CellGate. The most exciting prospect is the end to end value that we will be able to add by combining these service offerings in a comprehensive package to the entire industry.'' |
