Aurum Technology Inc., an outsourcer that serves 650 community banks, thrifts, and credit unions, says it has formed a growth plan that involves boosting cross-sales, introducing more products and services, and possibly a public stock offering.
Aurum is evolving pretty rapidly toward what I would call second-stage growth mode, Paul Bourke, who became the Plano, Tex., companys chairman, president, and chief executive officer on April 1, said in an interview last week. He also said he plans to do the things that will make the company a better company, both from the customer point of view and the employee point of view.
The companys services include software development and licensing, core processing, ATM processing, image-based item processing, branch automation, data warehousing, Internet banking, network management, and third-party systems integration. It says it processed more than a billion items last year.
Mr. Bourke, 56, succeeded Ray Maturi, who is retiring as the companys chief exec but will stay on as the vice chairman.
Mr. Maturi had led Aurum since it was spun off from Electronic Data Systems Inc. of Dallas in December 1999, with equity backing from the Chicago venture capital firm Willis Stein & Partners. The company says that its customer base last year was 20% than it was when Aurum was spun off, and its revenues was 27% higher, because of a combination of acquisitions and new client signups.
Mr. Bourke most recently was the president and CEO of Altra Energy Technologies Inc., a software and services company working in the energy industry. Before that he had spent 26 years in banking related fields. He ran the banking and thrift services unit at Automatic Data Processing Inc. until it was bought out by a management group and their financial backers to form Bisys, where he became the chief operating officer.
In an interview last week, Mr. Maturi, 63, said he approached the partners at Willis Stein last summer to begin planning for his retirement, which he called a personal decision.
The last two-and-a-half years at Aurum have been the best time in my professional career, he said. I just had to ask myself did I want to do this for the next four or five years.
Were a better company now than we were two-and-a-half years ago coming out of EDS, but weve got some things weve got to do to improve the company.
He also said he would help Mr. Bourke get established at the company, and then work on special projects.
Mr. Bourke said he intended to emphasize secular growth, winning additional financial-institution clients for Aurums outsourced core processing services, as well as acquisitions to build market share.
Aurum could sell more products to its existing client base, for example, by helping smaller institutions build Internet banking services, he said. However, he also said he wants to get into some high-growth areas in the banking business.
Stored-value cards is one business niche that intrigues Mr. Bourke. However, he would not give many details about his plans. He said this was because he has been out of the banking industry for the last three years, developing systems for things like the Internet trading of natural-gas futures.
Emerging technologies may grow faster than some established niches, but I need some time to catch up and see which ones are the right ones, Mr. Bourke said.
A public stock offering may be in Aurums future, but other options are available to finance growth, he said.
