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Ebix Announces Addition of Certain Large Distributors and Insurance Companies to EbixExchange

^{Published on 2011-07-18 05:40:35 - Market Wire}
 

ATLANTA--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Ebix, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBIX), a leading international supplier of On-Demand software and E-commerce services to the insurance industry, today announced the addition of large distributors and insurance companies to its Annuity Exchange in the second quarter of 2011.

In the recent quarter several new annuity carriers and distributors joined the AnnuityNet Exchange in order to extend their sales reach and to grow their electronic sales of annuities. This list of additions included large names like Mutual of Omaha, Great-West Life & Annuity Company, Western National Life, Commonwealth Annuity & Life Insurance Company (a subsidiary of the Goldman Sachs Group), Regions Bank and the large captive agency group of Prudential Insurance Company, who intend to automate their annuity transactions through the AnnuityNet Exchange.

Ebix also reported on the progress of its recently launched Annuity Maintenance Exchange, for servicing and maintenance of existing annuity policies. Approximately 1/3 of all existing annuities in the U.S. have maintenance transactions each year including, funds transfers, asset reallocation, cash withdrawals and demographic transactions. Ebixa™s Annuity Maintenance Exchange automates this transaction through its Annuity Maintenance Exchange Platform by applying business rules and sending electronic messages from annuity distributors to annuity manufacturers and back to the policyholders confirming that the transaction has taken place. Previously done by paper, the Annuity Maintenance Exchange eliminates all errors and eliminates the necessity of paper forms, wet signatures and redundant data entry into carrier policy administration systems. The Company reported that its Annuity Maintenance Exchange has been adopted by large broker-dealers and insurance companies, such as Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo Advisors, Edward Jones, Stifel Nicholas, Prudential, Hartford, Nationwide, Lincoln Financial, SunAmerica, Pacific Life and NY Life.

In response to certain investor queries, the Company also clarified the following a"

• The cash growth numbers reported in the recently issued Company release on Friday, July 15, 2011 did not include any cash from its bank debt line. As reported earlier in the same press release, the cash growth number of approximately $19.7 million is after the company paid $1.67 million towards reduction of its debt with the Bank of America, as compared to its debt with the bank as of March 31, 2011.
• The Companya™s regional revenues reported in Note 16 in the Notes to Our Consolidated Financial Statement in the Form 10-K for 2010 are entirely within the guidelines defined in FASB for GAAP reporting. Companya™s GAAP revenues reported in our consolidated books are based on revenues billed to end customers only whereas individual foreign subsidiary companies (who are manufacturers or owners of intellectual property) locally report both customer revenues and revenues invoiced to a sister company. The income of each of the manufacturer companies in foreign locations is a function of both these revenue sources and thus has no correlation with the reported revenues for these foreign location-manufacturing companies, in the consolidated books.
• The Company reported that as of July 8, 2011 it has purchased a total of 1,908,873 shares of Ebix common stock from the open markets, for a total sum of $37,902,606 in the year 2011. The Company confirmed that it continues to maintain its share buyback plan in accordance with Rule 10b-18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. While neither the Company nor any of its officers or directors has purchased any shares since July 8, 2011, the Company intends to continue repurchases going forward.
• The Company also reaffirmed it does not expect its cash flows to be largely impacted by the Companya™s guidance of an increased tax rate of 16-20% after the release of the valuation allowance and the increased development and intellectual property centralization in Singapore. Since the Company has net operating loss carry forwards of $ 65.8 million in the United States, a big proportion of the income tax expense in the United States is expected to be a non-cash expense for many years, until the net operating loss carry forwards are fully utilized.

Safe Harbor for Forward Looking Statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995a" This press release contains various forward looking statements and information that are based on management's beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to management, including statements regarding future economic performance and financial condition, liquidity and capital resources, acceptance of the Company's products by the market and management's plans and objectives. The Company has tried to identify such forward looking statements by use of words such as "expects," "intends," "anticipates," "plans," "believes," "will," "should," and similar expressions, but these words are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. Such statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results to vary materially from those expressed in, or implied by, the forward looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include the extent to which the Company's new products and services can be successfully developed and marketed, the integration and other risks associated with recent and future acquisitions, the willingness of independent insurance agencies to outsource their computer and other processing needs to third parties, the Company's ability to continue to develop new products to effectively address market needs in an industry characterized by rapid technological change, the Company's dependence on the insurance industry (and in particular independent agents), the highly competitive and rapidly changing automation systems market, the Company's ability to effectively protect its applications software and other proprietary information, the Company's ability to attract and retain quality management, and software, technical sales and other personnel, the potential negative impact on the Company's outsourcing business in India from adverse publicity and possible governmental regulation, the risks of disruption of the Company's Internet connections or internal service problems, the possibly adverse effects of a substantial increase in volume of traffic on the Company's website, mainframe and other servers, possible security breaches on the Company's website and the possible effects of insurance regulation on the Company's business. Certain of these, as well as other, risks, uncertainties and other factors, are described in more detail in Ebixa™s periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the companya™s annual report on form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, included under "Item 1. Businessa"Risk Factors." Except as expressly required by the federal securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update any such factors or to publicly update any of the forward looking statements contained herein to reflect future events or developments or changed circumstances or for any other reason. The cash growth numbers presented in the press release are preliminary and non-GAAP.

About Ebix

A leading international supplier of On-Demand software and E-commerce services to the insurance industry, Ebix, Inc., (NASDAQ:EBIX) provides end to end solutions ranging from infrastructure Exchanges, carrier systems, agency systems and BPO services to custom software development for all entities involved in the insurance industry.

With 30+ offices across Brazil, Singapore, Australia, the US, New Zealand, India, China, Japan and Canada, Ebix powers multiple exchanges across the world in the field of life, annuity, health and property & casualty insurance, while conducting in excess of $100 billion in insurance premiums on its platforms. Through its various SaaS based software platforms, Ebix employs hundreds of insurance and technology professionals that provide products, support and consultancy to thousands of customers on six continents. Ebixa™s focus on quality has enabled it to be awarded Level 5 status of the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institutea™s Capability Maturity Model (CMM). Ebix has also earned ISO 9001:2000 certification for both its development and BPO units in India. For more information, visit the Companya™s website at [ www.ebix.com ]