RE: RE: RE: New numbers out A few points from the MD&A posted to SEDAR:
1. It's far too early to determine how the new aquisitions are performing. There is only one quarter's worth of numbers and nothing to compare to.
2. Canada (or now shown as 'The Americas') seems to be taking a beating. ATM transactions have dropped 12% compared the the same quarter last year. Prepaid Card transactions have dropped 12.5% compared to the same quarter last year.
If everything had stayed status quo, with no International growth, alarm bells would be ringing. However, these major drops in revenue are camouflaged with the addition of the new Aussie, Kiwi and British units.
The Prepaid Card drop is understandable. The Cash Store, which accounted for 29% of DirectCash revenues (and over 50% of card revenue) prior to expansion, is under siege through lawsuits and government regulation. The story is still playing out, and DirectCash could still be further affected.
The drop in Canadian ATM transactions is perplexing. There has been no major market shake up that I am aware of. The report doesn't give any explanations other than the loss of one minor customer. Could this just be normal attrition? Is senior management too busy oversees to attend to domestic operations? Are there new competative pressures that resulted in the loss of over 3.5% of their Canadian ATMs year over year?
The final point is that dividend payout has risen from 54% to 62% of revenues, year over year. Certainly not the direction one would like to see if there is an expectation of increasing the dividend payout anytime soon.