Strong Second Quarter Revenue Gain for driversshield.com Corp.; Modest Profit Excluding Non-Cash Charge
Strong Second Quarter Revenue Gain for driversshield.com Corp.; Modest Profit Excluding Non-Cash Charge
PLAINVIEW, N.Y., Aug. 14 driversshield.com. Corp. reported today that revenues continued their strong growth in the second quarter and that the Company was modestly profitable excluding a non-cash special charge of $246,000. Revenues for the quarter ended June 30, 2001, rose from $3,411,000 in the second quarter of last year to $4,043,000, a gain of 19% on continuing growth in driversshield.com's fleet service operations. For the first half of 2001, revenues were $8,469,000, up 27% from $6,652,000 in the year-earlier period. Absent certain non-cash charges, the Company would have had net income of $19,000 for the second quarter and $113,000 for the half. These special charges stemmed from the 1999 re-pricing of stock options granted by the Company, and, a non-cash charge involving the granting of a small number of common shares. Barry Siegel, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, noted that the Company had continued to operate in the black, absent the special non-cash charges, despite ongoing heavy investments in developing and marketing its new, Internet-based CRM (customer relationship management) business for auto insurance companies. "We have put enormous effort and a lot of money into creating and launching our CRM operation, including some $200,000 in extra sales and marketing in this year's first two quarters alone," Siegel said. "We would have reported a net profit of about $300,000 had we not had to take the special, non-cash charges for the first half and had we chosen not to make these expenditures for CRM marketing. "However we still believe that our investment strategy in our CRM value proposition is the right thing for us to be doing and we are totally committed to becoming the market leader in this space. "The solid growth and profitability of our fleet services and our ADS businesses have enabled us to launch our CRM business without taking on debt or depleting our cash reserves," Siegel said. "In fact, we continue to have no debt and our cash and liquid investments has increased just under 30%, to $2.3 million, compared with $1.8 million at the end of the first quarter." Siegel said the CRM product, which streamlines the handling of collision repairs, is an outgrowth of the auto collision management services the Company has been providing to corporate and municipal fleets for 18 years. Clients of the fleet business include some of America's largest and most prestigious corporations. The automotive discounts and services programs created by the driversshield.com ADS unit are marketed principally through financial institutions and membership organizations, but are also a component of the new CRM business, benefiting insured drivers whose autos are repaired using the CRM solution. Since its founding in 1983, driversshield.com has built a national reputation for efficient, cost-saving management of collision claims for self-insured corporate and municipal vehicle fleets through its subsidiary, driversshield.com FS (Fleet Services). Clients include AT&T, CVS, Time Warner, Lucent Technologies, Hershey Foods and other major national and international companies. Through its affinity auto club programs, the Company has established relationships with Assurant Group (part of the Fortis group), Aon, Protective Life and other leading credit card, financial organizations and Web sites. The Company decided early in 1999 to expand its long established auto claims experience and proprietary systems by building a unique e-commerce solution for insurance companies, the driversshield.com CRM business. This announcement contains "forward-looking statements." Words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect" and other similar expressions as they relate to the Company and its management are intended to identify such forward looking statements. Although the Company and its management believe that the statements contained in this announcement are reasonable, it can give no assurances that such statements will prove correct. Factors that could affect the occurrence of events or results discussed herein are included with those mentioned in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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