A Fountain Valley-based maker of software for retailers quietly sold off a division last month and is moving what’s left of the company to Utah.
Cam Commerce Solutions Inc., which traces its roots here to the early 1980s, sold off its retail software business—and its name—to New Jersey’s Robertson Piper Software Group Inc.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Before the split, Cam Commerce saw an estimated $30 million in yearly sales.
What’s left of the company has been renamed Accelerated Payment Technologies Inc. and is in the process of moving from Fountain Valley to Pleasant Grove, Utah, near Salt Lake City.
Accelerated Payment is set to focus on payment processing software and computer products that are sold along with other software for retailers.
“We perform the heavy lifting,” said Roy Banks, chief executive of Accelerated and a former Cam Commerce executive.
The retail software and payment processing arms of Cam Commerce had been run separately for some time, according to Banks.
“We had been effectively running two separate companies,” he said. “They were two very different but complementary businesses. But when you have two different business lines under the same roof, you aren’t able to give proper focus to one or the other.”
Retail Software Business
The Cam Commerce name is staying with the retail software business and went to Robertson Piper Software, a holding company that buys software makers and is backed by New York-based private equity firm Kinderhook Industries LLC.
The retail software—called point-of-sale since it’s used at cash registers—records payments and does business tasks such as managing inventory, credit card processing, accounting, Internet sales and customer loyalty programs.
It’s unclear if Robertson Piper will keep Cam Commerce’s Fountain Valley operation. Robertson Piper declined to comment for this story.
Those familiar with the deal say Robertson Piper is unlikely to uproot the business.
“They will maintain a presence and continue to operate under the Cam Commerce brand,” Banks said. “There have been no job cuts to our knowledge. (Workers) were all offered employment.”
Robertson Piper cofounder and Chief Executive Doug Robertson is set to run Cam Commerce. It’s unclear if he’ll be based here.
In 2007, Robertson Piper acquired New Jersey’s Opus-ism LLC, a maker of software for pharmacies.
Former Cam Commerce managers are continuing to run the payment processing division as Accelerated Payment, which also includes former Cam Commerce offices near Las Vegas and in St. Louis.
Accelerated Payment is relocating jobs from a small call center in Fountain Valley to Nevada and is recruiting workers for a call center in Utah, according to Banks.
The Utah headquarters has about 10 workers, said Banks, who is relocating along with his chief financial officer.
“We are reconstituting the Salt Lake City office,” he said.
Sales, software development and other activities take place in Nevada, where Accelerated has vice presidents of marketing, development and sales.
St. Louis
The St. Louis office came about last year when Cam Commerce bought Transaction Transport Technologies LLC, a maker of network gateways that keep transaction data secure.
“Our processing business never really had a large presence in Fountain Valley from an operations standpoint,” Banks said. “The point-of-sale business had been the bulk of the operations.”
The recent deal marks the second change of ownership for Cam Commerce in the past few years.
The company, which started in 1983, was for many years a small, lightly traded public company.
Cam Commerce, which used to be called Cam Data Systems Inc., was at one point a consolidator in its industry. It rolled up half a dozen acquisitions in the 1990s.
The company, founded by former software salesman Geoff Knapp, struggled in the waning years of the 2000s.
Cam Commerce was taken private in 2008 in a private equity deal by Boston-based Grant Hill Partners for $180 million.
The deal was reached after directors at Cam Commerce reviewed “strategic alternatives” that didn’t drum up a lot of interest.
Grant Hill’s deal price was a premium on Cam’s shares, which had a market value of roughly $165 million at the time of the sale.
Grant Hill remains the biggest owner of Accelerated Payment.
