TSYS® Reports 26.3% Increase in Net Income for First Quarter 1999
Columbus, Ga., April 8, 1999 -- Total System Services, Inc.® (TSYS®) (NYSE: "TSS") today announced record revenues and net income for the three months ended March 31, 1999.
Net income for the quarter increased 26.3%to $12.9 million, up from $10.3 million for the same period last year. Basic and diluted earnings per share for the first quarter of 1999 increased to $.07, up from $.05 for the first quarter of 1998. Revenues for the first quarter of 1999 were $115.3 million, an increase of 19.7%, compared with revenues of $96.3 million for the first quarter of 1998.
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Richard W. Ussery, said "We are extremely proud to announce our financial results for the first quarter of 1999. During the quarter, we successfully converted an additional 24 million Sears private-label card accounts to TS2. Combined with the 7 million accounts converted last year, these accounts represent approximately 50% of the Sears private-label card portfolio. We expect to convert the remainder of the portfolio during the second quarter."
Ussery continued, "We were very pleased to be selected as the winner of the 1998 Georgia Oglethorpe Award for Performance Excellence. This award, which uses the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria, is an affirmation of the hard work and dedication of TSYS team members. We will continue to live our corporate culture, which includes providing the highest level of customer service, being the employer of choice and creating value for our shareholders."
TSYS also announced in the first quarter of 1999 the signing of Principal Bank, a member of the Principal Financial Group, to a long-term contract to provide consumer card processing services. Additionally, TSYS expanded its international presence with the signing of Scotiabank of Canada to a multiyear agreement to provide credit card processing services to Scotiabank’s Caribbean accounts in 15 countries. During the quarter, TSYS converted Scotiabank’s accounts in Trinidad and the Bahamas.
At the end of the first quarter of 1999, TSYS was processing approximately 95.7 million of its 153.6 million accounts on TS2, the state-of-the-art, Year 2000-compliant processing system. By the end of the year, TSYS expects to increase its accounts on file to approximately 190 million.
TSYS is one of the world’s leading information technology processors of data, transactions and payments, for domestic and international issuers of credit, debit, commercial and private-label cards. TSYS’ sophisticated systems offer online accounting, data processing, electronic commerce services, portfolio management, account acquisition, credit evaluation, risk management and customer service. Through our family of companies, TSYS services the entire lifecycle of card accounts making it possible for more than 153 million cardholders to use their cards at the point of sale or over the Internet. Headquartered in Columbus, Ga., TSYS, (www.totalsystem.com) is an 80.8% owned subsidiary of Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE: "SNV") (www.synovus.com) named the Best Company to Work for in America by FORTUNE magazine.
Contacts:
James B. Lipham
Chief Financial Officer
ph. (706) 649-2262
Patrick A. Reynolds
Director of Investor Relations
ph. (706) 649-5220
snvir@synovus.com
The matters set forth in this news release contain forward-looking statements with respect to the number of accounts to be converted in the second quarter of 1999 and the number of new accounts to be added in 1999. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, adverse developments with respect to the successful conversion of clients and adverse developments with respect to signing new clients and retaining current clients.