Acies Combines with Atlantic Synergy, Maps Acquisition Strategy

Acies Inc., an independent sales organization based in New York, today announced it has entered into an agreement with Fort Pierce, Fla.-based Atlantic Synergy Inc., under which the ISO will become a subsidiary of Atlantic Synergy and hold a controlling interest in the company. As part the acquisition, Atlantic Synergy, whose shares are traded over the counter, will fold its former business of Web site design and hosting to concentrate wholly on merchant transaction processing. By controlling a publicly traded company, meanwhile, Acies (pronounced ay-see-us), until now a privately held company, hopes to fuel expansion and acquisition plans in part via access to public markets. Indeed, growth by acquisition of ISOs and merchant portfolios is part of a strategy the company is hammering out now and plans to unfold in greater detail in coming weeks. “We're in the midst of finalizing all the details,” says Oleg Firer, president and chief executive for Acies, which last month changed its name from GM Merchant Solutions. Acies, which is slightly over two years old, serves an undisclosed number of mostly small brick-and-mortar merchants concentrated in New York. Firer says the average monthly merchant volume is $12,500 and the average ticket is $45. With a strategy to grow by acquisition, Acies joins a rapidly growing list of large and small ISOs and merchant processors that have contributed to consolidation of the acquiring side of the electronic payments business in recent months through acquisitions of merchant portfolios and of ISOs. Much of the merger-and-acquisition activity has been fueled by outside capital drawn to the business by its base of recurring merchant revenue from credit card and debit card processing. Indeed, Firer says that in discussions with Atlantic Synergy it soon became clear to both companies that merchant processing offered so much more potential than Web design that the two companies should combine and concentrate on the former business. A registered ISO for JP Morgan Chase Bank, Acies recently moved into new headquarters on Wall Street. Although as GM Merchant Solutions it had no relationship with General Motors, it changed its name in part to avoid confusion with the automaker, Firer says.