Tony’s back at helm
TONY Wiese was part of the management team that bought the Australian arm of the Bartercard trade exchange system in 2007.
Seven years later he was part of the executive team that successfully listed the company - as BPS Technology - on the ASX.
However, a stoush between shareholders and the executive team led to him, as well as co-founder Brian Hall and founding CEO Trevor Dietz, stepping down.
Southport-based Bartercard was launched in 1991 and became the world’s largest barter trade exchange with a network of tens of thousands of merchants.
Yesterday, Mr Wiese announced he had returned to “make Bartercard great again” by buying the Bartercard entities from listed owner IncentiaPay, and returning the company to private ownership for the first time in more than four years.
Mr Wiese’s company TCM Investments Australia has agreed to pay $5 million cash to acquire the shares in a number of Bartercard assets.
The deal, which requires shareholder approval, is expected to be completed in mid-November.
Mr Wiese said he agreed with Bartercard co-founder Andrew Federowsky that IncentiaPay’s management did not understand the Bartercard business.
“I think they have always said that, I don’t think that is a secret,” he said.
“They’ve never in the business, which is a complex one, and they preferred to focus... on their core business, which is payment platforms and marketing channels rather than a trade exchange.”
Mr Wiese said he had been approached in July, along with three or four other parties, by IncentiaPay chairman Murray d’Almeida about acquiring Bartercard.
He said Bartercard had suffered from the loss of experience when he, Mr Hall, and Mr Dietz left.
“It was a combination of losing a lot of experience, and also the market has changed, customers have a lot more choice than 20 years ago.”
Mr Wiese believes Bartercard can be turned around through instilling innovation into the business including launching a digital Bartercard currency that can be used by charities and consumers.
“There is a very exciting world out there with digital currencies,” he said.
“The biggest opportunity, if you think about the Bartercard trade dollar, we have underestimated the value and power it could bring.
“We want to expand the use of the trade dollar to invest in more products and commodities and also bring in more consumers that can utilise it. In the past it has always been limited by being a business-to-business trade exchange system.”
Mr Wiese said he does not foresee redundancies from the change of ownership.
“IncentiaPay operated under a shared services model, so some roles will go to IncentiaPay and others to Bartercard,” he said
The Bartercard business heavily weighed on IncentiaPay’s first full-year results.
Revenue plunged 25 per cent to $29.38 million and the company booked $47.2 million of non-cash impairments, much of which related to Bartercard.
IncentiaPay CEO Iain Dunstan said the transaction would enable the company to focus on its core business and goal to become the leading loyalty and payment solutions provider in the Asia Pacific region.
“There are substantial new market opportunities that have been developed utilising the Entertainment division’s existing corporate and partnership marketing channels,” he said.
“These include offering tailored … options to large corporates, the roll out of a suite of digital marketing services from the Gruden business (acquired as part of the change to IncentiaPay), as well as our recently announced partnership with (Chinese payment platform (Alipay).”