Funds Required and Their Use
ePower seeks a financial partner to provide $3.5 million
In financing to implement the company's strategy. Due to
the extremely high margins involved in ePower services,
the company will realize incrementally growing cash
inflow from existing clients. The primary need for
capital is for technological development and promotion.
Long-Range Financial Strategies
and Investor Harvest
ePower is committed to long term value creation,
expanding our customer base, technology, breadth of
service, and underlying value. As business grows, so
grows the attractiveness to a strategic buyer. There are
two scenarios, in particular, which could drive this
attractiveness:
EBPP Industry Consolidation - As
electronic transactions increase, the potential for this
market will become more evident, market share and
subscriber volume will become a critical success factor
for companies operating in this industry. As a result,
we expect consolidation as large institutions strive to
buy subscribers.
End to End Solution Provider -
Currently, the EBPP market is very fragmented with
companies competing in different industry sub-segments
(in house software, Front-end Providers or Back-end
Providers). As competition increases, a movement towards
complete proprietary solutions will likely emerge.
ePower will be positioned as an attractive target that
offers a complete solution in the utility market.
Financial Projections
Financial projections were created to model the effects
of certain assumptions of our business model. Through
our due diligence, we discovered broad estimates for the
cost of traditional preparing and presenting bills.
Estimates ranged from $1.60 to 2.00; however, we believe
that a conservative $1.75 cost is reasonable and
sustainable given the rising costs of paper, and postage
over the life of the projection.
ePower's revenue model includes two
parts, a $5,000 monthly subscription fee and a $0.40 per
transaction fee. The fees are charged for system space,
web presence, speeding receivable collection, targeted
marketing and other customer care benefits of the
system.
Total Clients
The company achieves positive cash
flow in Q2 2001, and the cumulative cash draw down peaks
at $3.5 million dollars.
Expenses
Bank Fee
The bank that executes the ACH transfer for ePower will
collect $0.06 per transaction. We anticipate this rate
will decline as banks compete for this space and volume
increases.
Technical Development
Line items referring to the technology, include the
technical staff which is the salary budget for the firm
on the income statement as well as the PPE expenditures
on the cash flow statement. These expenditures on PPE
will be used to purchase needed hardware and software to
develop ePower's CustomerDirect service. The funds
budgeted will be used to finance the growing technology
needs within the firm as it begins to service more
clients.
SGA -Marketing and Salaries
This includes a $800,000 annual marketing expense for
implementation of the program. In addition, minimal
salaries for management (who will be compensated
primarily through an equity participation program),
customer support and sales forces are included in this
number. We believe that marketing and strong sales leads
will be based primarily on relationships with key
decisions makers within targeted organizations.
Other Expenses - Rent & Contract
Advice
Rent is projected at $3,000 per month and will not grow
dramatically until years three and four where expanded
facilities will be required. The majority of the other
expenses will be used to contract system design
consulting and legal expertise at a $ 150 per hour rate.