Successful expansion of customer management as second area of business

On 1 October 2004, Loyalty Partner GmbH (Munich), the operator of PAYBACK, Germany’s leading bonus scheme, will acquire the software company Billing & Loyalty Systems (BLS), the former “Billit” division of Vodafone subsidiary Vodafone Information Systems. BLS employs around 40 IT experts at its site in Dusseldorf. BLS specialises in the development and marketing of software products for a wide range of billing applications in the field of telecommunications and utilities. Its customers include Ruhrgas, EWE Tel, NetCologne, Vodafone D2 and DB Systems.

“With PAYBACK, we’ve successfully demonstrated our expertise in the field of customer management. Our objective now is to further secure our market position by developing a second area of business alongside PAYBACK”, says Alexander Rittweger, founder and CEO of Loyalty Partner. “We will be acting as a service provider and offering our expertise and systems to companies wishing to shape their customer relations in a more effective and profitable manner. The acquisition of BLS is an important step towards this goal.”

This acquisition has allowed Loyalty Partner to make a link between the market for billing programs and the market for customer loyalty schemes. The experience of Loyalty Partner in customer management will in future complement the portfolio of BLS, which already boasts the well-known billing product “Billit”. Experts expect these two markets to become more closely interwoven over the next few years. In addition to PAYBACK, Loyalty Partner has been handling the complete technical operation of "bahn.comfort", the bonus scheme of Deutsche Bahn, for over two years.

Joachim Bellinghoven (45), minority shareholder in BLS, will be representing the company on the Management Board of Loyalty Partner. Mr. Bellinghoven has been Management Spokesman for Vodafone Information Systems and Manager of BLS until now. He will join the Board of Loyalty Partner on 1 October 2004.
A qualified mathematician, Mr. Bellinghoven became Head of Billing Systems at Mannesmann Datenverarbeitung in 1994, and before that held various positions in IT. He joined the management of Vodafone Telecommerce in December 2000. He will take on the position of CIO at Loyalty Partner, a role which places him in overall charge of IT operations.

Dr. Jörg Peter Heimel (38) will become Co-Director of BLS. He is currently Head of Business Development at Loyalty Partner, a position which he will retain. A business IT expert, he has worked for companies including the Tengelmann Group, Siemens AG and McKinsey.