CheckFree Acquires HelioGraph To Become the Global Leader in Enterprise Financial Transaction Management
ATLANTA and LONDON, Nov 3, 2003 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- CheckFree
Corporation (Nasdaq: CKFR) today announced that it has completed the acquisition
of HelioGraph Ltd., the Straight Through Processing (STP) and Financial
Messaging leader. HelioGraph will be merged with CheckFree Financial and
Compliance Solutions (CFACS), a business unit within CheckFree's Software
Division.
The acquisition of HelioGraph, a company with trailing twelve months revenue of
approximately $8.0 million, reflects CheckFree's commitment to grow its software
business and strengthens its international presence. CFACS recently announced
the opening of a London office to directly market the CheckFree RECON-Plus
Frontier(TM) solution internationally, and senior STP and financial services
veterans have been recruited to support that strategy.
The combined product suite will position CFACS to deliver a comprehensive,
global enterprise Financial Transaction Management solution. HelioGraph provides
a suite of financial messaging, transaction management, corporate actions, and
trade status tracking solutions, all of which incorporate its SWIFTReady
Gold-accredited core integration technology. The addition of these components to
CheckFree's market-leading enterprise reconciliation and matching platform will
enable companies to realize more streamlined and efficient international
transaction settlements, centralized information and exception management as
well as greater risk management capabilities across global operations. The
technology leadership of CFACS and HelioGraph is confirmed by recent industry
analyst reports. Celent Communications ranked RECON-Plus Frontier as the top
reconciliation solution[1], and a series of CityCompass corporate actions
benchmark tests by an independent user panel gave HelioGraph's solution its
highest rating among vendors[2].
CFACS and HelioGraph boast a combined customer list of nearly 600 top-tier
global companies in the banking, securities, insurance and retail industries.
Several of these companies have implemented CheckFree and HelioGraph solutions
together, demonstrating both real-world business demand for the joint solution
and compatibility of the software platforms.
"With the addition of HelioGraph, CFACS brings to market a comprehensive
Financial Transaction Management solution that delivers new levels of global
processing efficiency and control," said Sean Feeney, executive vice president
and general manager of CheckFree's Software Division. "With a single provider,
companies can manage the end-to-end transaction lifecycle to track trade status,
confirm transaction settlement, reconcile transactions, manage exceptions and
risk and provide real-time reporting. The new solution not only addresses
straight through processing, but other crucial business issues, such as business
process optimization and risk management."
"In CheckFree we recognized an organization with which we share common business
ethics, goals and focus on quality," said Amery Thomas, CEO of HelioGraph.
"Together we can offer the financial services community a solution that is
greater than the sum of its parts - moving beyond reconciliation and financial
messaging to support full global financial operations control."
"The combination of CFACS and HelioGraph will extend our joint leadership
position by enabling us to deliver new levels of seamless processing unmatched
in the market today," said Mark Zill, senior vice president and general manager
of CFACS. "This equates to an unparalleled value proposition and the highest
caliber service for our customers."
Terms of the Agreement
CheckFree will purchase all of the outstanding shares of HelioGraph for $18.3
million in cash. For the quarter ended December 31, 2003, Heliograph is expected
to contribute revenue of about $1.0 million to CheckFree, be dilutive to GAAP
earnings of about $0.01 per share, and have a minimal impact on underlying
earnings per share. For the full year, Heliograph is expected to have a minimal
impact on GAAP and underlying earnings per share. HelioGraph's management team,
base of 50 employees, and offices in London will remain with the Company.
About HelioGraph
HelioGraph provides best-of-breed STP products and services to the global
financial community, allowing its clients to reduce risk and manage complex
information flows. HelioGraph's state-of-the-art solutions offer a single
platform for end-to-end STP, encompassing connectivity, messaging, workflow and
exception handling.
HelioGraph's products include Helio TradeFlow, an STP platform which automates
the entire post-trade process through to settlement and includes connectivity
options to VMUs like Omgeo CTM; and eVent, the first solution for end-to-end
global corporate actions automation.
All HelioGraph products incorporate its core integration technology; the
SWIFTReady Gold accredited Helio Message Broker(R), with its component-based,
data field dictionary architecture. With offices in London, HelioGraph has
global representation and an international client-base, including ABN AMRO, Bank
of America, Commerze, FXall, Deutsche Asset Management, Gartmore, Julius Baer,
Northern Trust, State Street, MFS Investment Management and WestLB Panmure. For
further information, visit www.heliograph-global.com.
About CheckFree (www.checkfreecorp.com)
CheckFree (Nasdaq: CKFR) is the leading provider of financial electronic
commerce services and products. Founded in 1981 and celebrating its 23rd year in
e-commerce, CheckFree is comprised of three divisions: Electronic Commerce,
Software, and Investment Services. CheckFree launched the first fully integrated
electronic billing and payment solution in 1997. In the quarter ended September
30, 2003, more than 11 million consumers initiated online payments through
services offered by CheckFree's Electronic Commerce division. Electronic billing
and payment is available through more than a thousand financial services
organizations, including banks, brokerage firms, Internet portals and personal
financial management (PFM) software. At these sites, consumers are able to
electronically receive and pay about 300 bills, representing the bills most
common to a U.S. household. CheckFree delivers nearly 15 million e-bills each
quarter. CheckFree Investment Services provides a broad range of investment
management services to thousands of financial institutions nationwide. The
division's clients manage more than 1.3 million portfolios totaling more than
$700 billion in assets.
CheckFree's Software division provides solutions through three operating units:
CheckFree ACH Solutions, CheckFree Financial and Compliance Solutions (CFACS),
and CheckFree i-Solutions. CheckFree ACH Solutions provides software and
services that are used to process more than two-thirds of the nation's nine
billion Automated Clearing House payments, while CFACS provides reconciliation
and compliance software and services to more than 500 organizations in the
banking, brokerage, utility, retail, insurance and credit card industries, among
others. CheckFree i-Solutions is the leading provider of e-billing and
e-statement software and services for both business-to- consumer and
business-to-business applications, with more billers as clients than all of its
competitors have combined.
Certain of the Company's statements in this press release are not purely
historical, and as such are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of
the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include statements
regarding management's intentions, plans, beliefs, expectations or projections
of the future. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties,
including without limitation, the various risks inherent in the Company's
business, and other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in the
Company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission,
including Company's Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2003 (filed September
15, 2003) and Form 8-K (filed October 21, 2003). There can be no assurance that
the forward-looking statements made in this document will prove to be accurate,
and issuance of such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a
representation by the Company, or any other person, that the objectives and
plans of the Company will be achieved. All forward-looking statements made in
this press release are based on information presently available to management,
and the Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
[1] "Ranking the Vendors of Reconciliation Systems," by Celent
Communications, a Boston-based research and advisory firm.
September 2003. This is an overview of the reconciliation process in
addition to analyzing and ranking thirteen major vendors' solutions.
For more information or a copy of the report contact Fleur Sohtz at
212-490-2229 or via e-mail fsohtz@celent.com
[2] "B.I.S.S. Benchmarking Corporate Actions 2003," by CityCompass.
June 2003. HelioGraph achieved the highest rating in several of a
series of corporate actions benchmark tests set by an independent user
panel, representing major global players. For more information visit
www.citycompass.org
SOURCE CheckFree Corporation
CONTACT: Media, Judy DeRango Wicks, +1-678-375-1595,
jdwicks@checkfree.com, or Investors, Tina Moore, +1-678-375-1278,
tmoore@checkfree.com, both of CheckFree
/Company News On-Call: prnewswire.com
URL: checkfreecorp.com
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