Saul wrote: “Bob, if you have the time and interest I’d love to read what you can glean.”
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Saul, and for the extensive list of channels. Some date back to the time that I knew the company better, and some are of more-recent vintage.
For me right now, the big problem, as you alluded to, is the “if you have the time” factor. We are in earnings season, and I’ll be busy with that for a while. Once I emerge from that (mid-August?), I should have better bandwidth.
For now, though, let me make a couple of quick observations based on people’s comments. I think the health-related stuff is a sideline. a.d.a.m. was a division within a company Ebix acquired. I thought they were likely to divest it since it seemed so far from their core business. But they didn’t, and that is probably an early example of the channel proliferation we see today. The insurance exchanges are where Ebix started.
I think fhdfhfhfgh’s “glue” comment is very astute. It may be facile to look at Ebix and think that their core skill is insurance exchanges. That was a very paper-intensive and people-contacting-people-intensive business when Ebix entered the market, and their exchanges helped automate that. Of course, they had to develop deep domain expertise to build robust systems and to sell their product to decision-makers in that industry. But I don’t think they view insurance as more than an application. Instead, I think Ebix’s key skills are software development, identifying inefficient processes, and integrating acquisitions. Insurance exchanges were just the first applications that Ebix tackled.
Fool on!
Thanks, and best wishes,
TMFDatabaseBob (long: EBIX)
See my holdings here: http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDatabasebob/info.aspx
Peace on Earth
Please note: I am not a member of any newsletter team. My opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the TMF advisers. I want to share my research with you since we’re all part of the larger TMF Community.