News, Yee Haw-- Not on Yahoo however...
News July 2, 13:04 Eastern Time
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (July 2) BUSINESS WIRE -July 2, 1998--Columbia Capital Corp. (NASDAQ OTC BB:CLCK) announced today that it has signed a Letter of Intent to acquire Berwyn Holdings, Inc., from the majority shareholders of CLCK, Glenn Gallant and Douglas Baetz. Gallant and Baetz will receive additional shares in CLCK in return for 100% of the stock in Berwyn. The final price for the acquisition will be determined by a fairness opinion and approval of the purchase will require the unanimous consent of the independent
Directors of the Columbia.
Ken Klotz, president of Columbia, said that Berwyn would be operated as a separate subsidiary of Columbia, upon completion of the acquisition. Berwyn, with offices in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Wilmington, DE, and Thornton, CO, provides a full complement of creditcard services, including credit processing, customer service, collections, accounting and settlement for over 560,000 accounts presently processed by First Independent Computers, Inc., (FICI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Columbia. Harold Hendrickson, president of Berwyn stated, "This union will expand the capabilities of both companies and provide a synergy which will give Columbia a distinct advantage over other card servicers and processors, by providing marketing, processing, and servicing to all potential clients.
Finally, financial institutions can go to one vendor for all of its needs, truly one-stop shopping. Not only can we market cardholder servicing to our client banks, we will now have the ability to offer a full banking solution with the Kirchman Dimension 3000, fully Year 2000-compliant, system."
The addition of Berwyn will add a significant new facet to the services available from Columbia, making it possible for Columbia to offer true turnkey solutions to any financial institution. Armed with the recent agreement with PaySys International, Inc. (PaySys), the
VisionPLUS(tm) management solution and processing system will allow Berwyn to process and service all types of accounts. "We will not be forced to make old software fit the new,non-traditional card products that the banks are now offering or considering," said Hendrickson. Klotz stated that, at present levels, the acquisition of Berwyn will produce an additional $20 million in revenues for CLCK, annually. For the first five months of the year, Berwyn had gross revenues of $6,876, 879 and net income, after tax, on an unaudited basis, of $1,055,525.
Columbia Capital Corp. operates through its wholly-owned subsidiary, First Independent Computers, Inc., which is a multi-faceted information and transaction processing service
organization. The services provided by the Company include credit and debit card processing, transaction processing for the health care industry, bank and financial services processing and document management and distribution services. The Companyconcentrates on a niche market, consisting of small to medium-sized financial institions, and health care providers that have not achieved the economies of scale to operate their own in-house programs and systems.
Forward-looking statements in this press release are necessarily subject to risks and
uncertainties, which may affect the accuracy of such statements. Such risks may include
any delays in the addition of business or loss of existing customers. For a full discussion of
such risks, please refer to the Company's Form 10-KSB for the fiscal year ended December
31, 1997 and subsequent filings. The company undertakes no obligation to update such
factors or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to the forward-looking
statements contained herein.
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