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Pastimes : Home on the range where the buffalo roam -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Boplicity who wrote (13195)	4/27/2001 12:29:12 PM
From: jhg_in_kc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13572

Greg, here is one at top of its category on IBD, TALX. wHAT DO YOU THINK? (take your time) TALX WALKS THE WALK Talx doesn't just talk the talk, it walks the walk. Not a pure-play telecom company per se, Talx is an application service provider (ASP) for human resources departments of large corporations like General Electric, Boeing, and Microsoft. The company made its name by providing interactive voice recognition technology, but reinvented its product offering in 1995. Talx now provides employment and income verification by phone and the Internet. For example, a mortgage company can call a number provided by Talx to determine an employee's credit history and income. An early mover in this market, Talx has achieved a near monopoly. Former rival Hewitt Associates, a human resources outsourcing firm, recently outsourced its income and employment verification services to Talx. And in this cost-cutting environment, companies can save a lot of money by farming out such services. "At AT&T, 14 people are on the phones, verifying the stats on people working there," says Charles Trafton, an analyst at Adams, Harkness & Hill. The company currently has 40 million employees in its database, 24 million of them are currently employed, adds Mr. Trafton. "One hundred and twenty million people in this country work, and about 80 million are appropriate for Talx," he says. "The company could double its [U.S.] database then before it hits a wall." And to leap over that wall when it appears, Talx is currently rolling out e-payroll and benefits management services. No doubt the variety of such offerings will help the company achieve its expected 2002 earnings growth of 50 percent. But the company's stock is pricey, trading at 39 times its estimated 2002 earnings. Still, with no debt and a good number of multi-year exclusive relationships that generate significant recurring revenue as well as high profit margins, Talx appears to be worth the premium.