October 02, 1998

Acxiom Acquires Computer Graphics

Acxiom Corp., Conway, AR, has strengthened its appeal to financial services clients by announcing this week that it will acquire service bureau Computer Graphics of Arizona Inc., Phoenix, in a stock-for-stock merger. Computer Graphics has served financial services direct marketers since 1970, including such clients as MBNA and Providian Financial. The acquisition will be accretive, with CGA expected to add more than $25 million in annual revenue. "Our scarcest resource right now is talented people to be able to affect our [financial services] solutions,'' said Acxiom company leader Charles Morgan, "and probably Computer Graphics lacks the resources to do the kind of research and development that Acxiom can do." Privately-held CGA maintains a super file database of 120 million households that includes addresses, telephone numbers and more than 200 million Social Security numbers. It also maintains proprietary services for debt collection, bankruptcy and deceased suppression, telephone appending and verification/identification. Acxiom is the largest data warehouse and database marketing firm serving credit card issuers, according to the Nilson Report, and serves 17 of the nation's largest credit card issuers, including Citicorp, American Express and Wells Fargo. CGA general partner Sid Simon said the companies will work together to develop additional markets for their products, including the healthcare and pharmaceuticals markets for which Acxiom will debut Acxiom Health next week.