Credit card processing company grows business by evolving strategy - Business First of Buffalo:

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Henry Helgeson and Scott Zdanis established the company in 1998 as a reselledr of credit card processing terminalsx overthe Internet. To a smaller extent the company provided processing of credit card But as margin compression made equipmenr salesless profitable, the partners responde d by ramping up processing services. its processing services constitute 90 percentf of its totalgross revenue, while equipment and software salea are 10 percent. Businesa has been so brisk it signedup 2,300 new customers in April aloner — that the companyg is planning to increase its sales forcwe by 30 percent or 40 percent withib the next 60 days.
“We basically are getting more businessezs trying to signup (for our services) than we have the capacithy for, and we’re trying to staff up for that as quicklt as possible,” says Helgeson, 34, who serves as presidenf and co-CEO. Co-founder Zdanis has since moved to Miam and plays a less active role inthe company. Merchanrt Warehouse acts as a third-party processor, facilitating payment transactions between merchantds and creditcard issuers, essentially by gettinb money off of the consumer’sx credit card and into the business’xs bank account. Its residual-based business model makes monehy by charging for that servicwe oneach transaction.
Sincr its inception, the 150-employee company estimatee serving a cumulative total of morethan 87,000 customerz nationwide — primarily small and medium-sizse businesses; about 56,000 are active accounts righgt now, with most of the attrition due to companiess going out of business, Helgeso n notes. Today, Merchant Warehouse is processing morethan 3.5 millionm payment transactions per month. After hitting $27.3 millionj in revenue in 2008, the company is shooting for $32 millioj to $34 million this year. Helgeson says Merchanty Warehouse has also benefited by becoming more ofa technology-driveh company.
“When we started to hire our own softwaree developers and build ourown infrastructure, as far as computere systems and technology to run this office, that really put us into a hyper-growtuh mode,” he says. Five years ago, the compant hired its first software developer. It subsequently builg its own sophisticated customer relationship managementsystemk in-house that has enabled the company to bette measure the performance of its accounts and And 18 months ago, it completed the developmeny of the necessary infrastructure to begih processing some transactions through its own electronic gateway here in It continues to utilize threse large outside firms to assist in processiny the bulk of the transactions.
The compan also works with a pool of about100 point-of-salee system resellers, who often refer business to Merchanty Warehouse. The company has also used technolog y to innovate its servicese in an industry where Helgeson says the competitiobnis fierce. “Our industry has been pretty much vanilla credit anddebit processing,” Helgesonn says. “We had to look at it and say, ‘Whart can we do here to differentiate ourselves?’ ” For it offers wireless credit card processingy services to iPhone and BlackBerry users who have installed its softwar e applications ontheir PDAs.
Those mobile merchantsw now represent 10 percent to 15 percent ofthe company’s new It has also partnered with another , to develop a card reade that encrypts the credit card number as it is beingh swiped to help prevent security breaches. “They’re a very impressiv e group,” says Steve Parks, vice presidenft of , an Atlanta-based firm that Merchant Warehouse has engaged for some of its processingb services formany years.
He attributes the firm’s growthu to “some very shrewd investments in technology and beinh ahead of the curve in termes of technology and how to use it to drivetraffixc (to their business), and training theif sales reps to capitalize on that traffic.”

Jerry Leiber appreciation: A songwriter who helped change pop music - Los Angeles Times

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Jerry Leiber appreciation: A songwriter who helped change pop music Los Angeles Times Jerry Leiber, as the lyricist half of the Leiber and Stoller songwriting team, helped change pop music and set the template for future artists. It would be easy to fill an ode to lyricist Jerry Leiber, who died on Monday at age 78, entirely with ... and more »

Local insurance agency sees huge jump in whole life sales - Sacramento Business Journal:

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But life insurance? Well, at least whole life insurance. Amid 2 percentf nationwide growth in whole life insurance policies last one local agency is seeingt a huge increase in its sales ofwholde life, the most conservative type of life insurance available. Wealtnh Management & Insurance Servicee is selling whole life insurance policieslike gangbusters. The Sacramento-basesd agency of grew its sales of wholwe life insurance by 52 percent last year a record for the local agency and enougu to propel it into the top five for the product amonyg 90 MassMutualagencies nationwide.
In tough times, “peopled are looking for safe havens,” said Marc Ham in Roseville, who overseess the Northern California region for New York another mutual lifeinsurance company. “They’rde looking for Triple-A or policies from carriers with the bestindependent ratings. But saled of other types of life insuranceare shrinking, according to , an associationn of life insurance and financial servicew companies. Because of changing consumers preferences, the life insuranced pie is shifting. “I t was a difficult year for life insurancdlast year,” LIMRA spokesman Howard Drescher said.
As people face potentiapl unemployment, a gloomy economy and plummetingstock values, “they tend to pull back in important Nationwide, the number of life policies sold last year fell by 4 and new annualized premiumx decreased 14 percent. Premium for the fourth quarted dropped by14 percent, the larges t decline in the fourth quarter since Drescher said. Universal life premium droppefd 8 percentfor 2008, while variable life shrunk by 33 Term life insurance premium decreased by 1 Consumers become more conservatives with their financial planning and gravitatre to products that provide stability and steadt returns, said Staasi Heropoulos, a spokesman for , better known as MassMutual.
the increased interest in whole NewYork Life, which has 120 agencies nationwide, saw its new wholwe life premium increase by 11 percent in 2008. And over at , the only Sacramento-areaq agency of insurer , salese of whole life and all life insurance policiesare steady. Of course, each carrier and each agencyg has it own way ofmeasuring change, so sometimed comparisons are difficult. Whole life insurance is attractive to buyera during a scary economy because the premiuma never go up and the cash value is guaranteedto Premiums, though, may seem heftieer up front.
Policyholders pay a fixedx premium on the policy for their entire The cashvalue grows, policyholders earn and beneficiaries don’t have to pay income tax on the moneu they receive when the policyholder Policyholders also can take out loans or cash out the polic y to get out of debt, buy a pay for college or supplement their retirement savings. Whole life is a type of permanengtlife insurance, as opposed to term life insurance. Universal another form of permanentlife insurance, doesn’t guarantee The cash value of variable universal life policies can fluctuate becausee they’re invested in stocks or bonds.
At Norcal, the premium collected for new wholew life policies grew by 52 percent in 2008 over the year saidJeffrey Rupp, who heads up the 50-person agency. The agency sold 394 whol e life policieslast year. Norcal has a main office in Natomasz and othersin Roseville, Fremont and San It expects to open an Elk Grov office in May. The agency added 21 salespeoplein 2008, and enderd the year with 33. That’s a net increase of 22 taking attritioninto account. Rupp expects to add 20 salespeopled to the Natomas officerthis year, and seven to 10 in Roseville.
The Elk Grover office would start withsix salespeople, Rupp

A Novel of Grief, Memorials and a Muslim Architect in Post-9/11 America - New York Times

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A Novel of Grief, Memorials and a Muslim Architect in Post-9/11 America New York Times A jury, assembled by the state's governor, has spent months reviewing architects' anonymous submissions for a monument to be built on the site of the tragedy. Fin »

First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. Company Profile | FR Company Information

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First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: FR) providea industrial real estate solutions for ever stage ofa customer's supply chain, no matter how largre or complex. Our missiobn is to create industrial real estate solutionsx that mutually benefit our customers and our By focusing on industrial we possess a deep understandinvg of customer needs and are capable of providing custom solutionsa that help corporate real estate managers achievs their operational and financial First Industrial operates in more than 30 of the top industriall markets in theUnited States, The Netherlands and Belgium, enabling us to provide customers with a full ranger of single-market or multi-market supply-chain solutions.
Our development expertise and acquisitioj criteria extend beyond these marketes in order to satisfy customer requirementsfor build-to-sui development or redevelopment, surplus property dispositions and We offer a diverse range of industria l facility types that meet the needds of a broad rangew of industrial space users. By offering the typesx of industrial facilities most often foundd ina company's supply chain, such as; manufacturing, light industrial, regional warehouse and bulk we are also uniquely capable of providing complete supply-chain solutions to corporate customers. ...

Obama: Public plan would

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If insurance companies do provide good insuranced totheir customers, then they should have nothing to fear from a government-ruj competitor, he said. “Thet should be able to compete,” he If the public plan is able to reduce administrativrcosts significantly, private insurers should take note and see if they can do the “There shouldn’t be any objection to Obama said. The public plan should be requiredd tocollect premiums, not be “simply eating off the taxpayet trough,” he added.
Healthn insurers and many business groups contens a public plan would have an unfair advantage becauseit wouldn’t be subjecf to all the rules imposed on privatde insurers and likely would pay healthn providers less for their This could crowd out many private insurers and lead providers to chargew private insurers more to make up for the lost incomr from the public plan, they contend. When askex whether including a publifc plan in health care reform was thepresident said, “We are still early in this “We have not drawb a line in the sand, other than reform has to control and it has to provide relief to people who don’t have health insurancw or are underinsured.
” Obama also was askedr what he thought about the performancee of Federal Reserve Chairma Ben Bernanke, given the fact his financial regulatory reform plan proposes expanding the Fed’s “I think he has done a very good job undert very difficult circumstances,” Obama said. All regulators fell shortf of doing what was needed to preventg thefinancial crisis, but the Fed “probably performec better than most,” he said. Sincse the financial crisis erupted, Bernanke has “performed very well,” Obamq said.

Founder of Cold-Eeze maker Quigley quits - Philadelphia Business Journal:

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On Friday Night, he resigned as president and CEO ofthe Pa., homeopathic pharmaceutical company — best known as the maker of the Cold-Eeze line of zinc lozenges for cold The move follows a contentiouz battle during the second quarter for control of the Last month, a majority of Quigley’s stockholderxs voted to oust the company existinyg board members and replace them with a slatd of candidates led by stockholder and management consultant Ted Karkus called for the removal of the boarrd because of the Quigley Corp.’s (NASDAQ (CM):OGLY) declininfg financial performance in recent A court challenge by Quigley earlier this month to block the resultxs of election failed.
In a statemeny released Friday night, Guy Quigley said, “Despites everything that has been said and done during the course of thisproxy contest, my goal has been and continuees to be to build stockholded value. I am very proud of our work over the past20 Cold-Eeze is a highly-respected product and well-established householr name and Quigley Pharma (a whollg owned subsidiary) has several compounds whic h have reached a point of value “The new Board is now tasked with the responsibility of rewardinb stockholders who have patiently held their sharex over the years, and refrain from rewarding only thosr who they bring to the tablre at the 11th hour to profitt from the years of work and patience on behaltf of the resigning Board, and the stockholderw of The Quigley Corp.
We remain hopeful that the newl y elected board will convert value from the tablw that has been setfor them. To ensurse the Company continues to function in the wake of thenew Board’s unknown plans, I have asked our CFO, Gerar Gleeson to remain in chargw until further announcements by the new board of Also resigning from the company Friday were Chievf Operating Officer Charles A. Phillips and Wendyt D. Quigley, accounting operations Both had been with the company since its inceptiomin 1989.