STRATEGIC PARTNERS
December 10, 2001
HOUSTON - Tidel Technologies Inc. and NCR Corp. have completed an agreement with the Federal Bankruptcy Court to acquire inventory of more than 4,000 ATM machines held by the bankrupt Credit Card Center in about 20 locations throughout the United States.
In a news release, Tidel said it had completed a transaction on Sept. 24, approved by the Court, in which it and NCR paid $8 million for the inventory, consisting of the ATMs, along with parts and supplies, originally manufactured by Tidel, NCR and other companies. Tidel placed $1 million in escrow as part of the deal, and both Tidel and NCR will receive credit against accounts receivable owed by CCC to the companies. Philadelphia-based CCC, which filed for bankruptcy June 6, had been one of the country's largest ISOs.
Tidel, which previously reported that it is owed $27 million by Credit Card Center, wrote off $18 million of that loss in its third quarter financial report. The company has recently been negotiating with its creditors, and Tidel senior vice president Leonard Carr told ATMmarketplace in August that the Houston manufacturer was "committed to rebuilding this business."
In a separate agreement between Tidel and NCR, the Dayton, Ohio-based manufacturer paid Tidel $1,032,300 to purchase NCR ATMs included in the acquired inventory. This included 650 new NCR ATMs and about 1,000 NCR ATMs in need of parts or refurbishing, according to the Tidel release.
James Rash, Tidel chairman and CEO, said in the release that the company expects to recover between 1,500 and 2,000 of its own ATMs from CCC storage locations, a number that he said is approximately one-third the total number of units for which it wasn't paid by CCC. Rash said the transactions and recovered inventory "were important first steps" in the company's efforts to recoup its CCC losses, and that Tidel is seeking additional relief.
