TRX Posts Earnings, Previews Booking Tool Upgrades

Entering its second year as a publicly traded company, TRX today released first-quarter fiscal results for 2006, showing an increase in total revenue of $31.8 million compared with $31.5 million in the first quarter of 2005. The company—which today also announced plans to debut new features of its online booking and agent desktop tools at the Association of Corporate Travel Executives conference in Atlanta next week—said to look for acquisition announcements from TRX in the next 12 to 18 months.

"One of the five elements of our growth strategy is pursuing very targeted M&A activity," TRX president and CEO Trip Davis said. "We do see some attractive opportunities in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Our appetite is right-sized, meaning that we understand what we're capable of doing from a capital resources standpoint and from a management standpoint."

Davis said 35 percent of the company's core revenue stems from corporate travel and strong growth is reflected in that area by transactions, which, along with data integration revenues, increased 77 percent, compared with 75 percent in the first quarter of 2005. Revenues from transaction processing services increased 6 percent to $20.1 million and net income for the quarter was $2.9 million compared with a net loss of about $900,000 in the first quarter of 2005.

Meanwhile, 2006 first-quarter revenues from data integration services decreased 1 percent to $3.9 million and customer care revenue declined to 23 percent of corporate revenue from 25 percent in the first quarter of 2005 as the company continues to reduce its call center volumes, a division that CFO Lindsey Sykes referred to as a less-profitable part of TRX's business. Davis said call center transitions are right on track and have reduced the company's headcount by 25 percent.

TRX's ResX online booking tool and Selex agent desktop tool enhancements, which are to debut at ACTE and be released this June, are focused on hotel and car rental. The tools' new capabilities allow travelers to search for a hotel by airport, city, specific address, hotel name or reference point, as well as by a rating system. ResX and Selex users in June also will be able to make airport-parking reservations through Park 'N Fly, a company owned by BCD Holdings, also the majority shareholder in TRX. At the ACTE conference, TRX also will preview the redesigned ResX user interface that is scheduled for release later this year.