TSYS restructuring cuts continue, but firm says it’s still in hiring mode

Credit-card and payment processing firm TSYS confirmed Monday that it is having another in a string of restructuring moves, with an undisclosed number of employees losing their jobs.

The company, headquartered in downtown Columbus but doing business around the world, said despite the current job losses by individuals, it remains in an overall hiring mode both globally and in Columbus in what it calls “areas of growth.”

“We continue to evolve to meet the needs of our business,” the firm said in a statement released by TSYS spokesman Cyle Mims. “This year alone, we’ve hired over 2,000 team members worldwide, with more than 350 of these hires based in Columbus. The additional employees are concentrated across areas of growth, including technology and customer service. We will continue to hire globally and locally to support areas of growth. All of these moves are part of an effort to continue to bring clarity and focus to our business needs, creating a more streamlined and efficient approach.”

(TSYS president getting nearly $2.3 million upon leaving company)

(TSYS talking as if it’s definitely a buyer rather than a seller)

At last count, TSYS employed about 11,500 workers around the globe, with roughly 4,800 of those on its payroll in Columbus, which includes the corporate headquarters downtown, a call center and data center at Corporate Ridge Business Park off Macon Road, and a data center and card and statement production operation off Moon Road on the city’s north side.

Mims said the company would not comment beyond the statement, other than to say that TSYS would be adding more than 200 additional jobs in Columbus at some point. No time frame for any hiring was given, however.

The company also declined to say if severance packages were given to impacted employees, if the layoffs included long-tenured staffers, and whether or not this would be the final round of restructuring by the company. The core business of TSYS is authorizing, processing and finalizing credit-card transactions — at rapid speed — for consumers doing business with retailers, restaurants and other brick-and-mortar and online entities.

TSYS is preparing to release its third-quarter earnings report on Oct. 24 after the New York Stock Exchange closes, with it typical for it and other companies to go into a so-called “quiet period” leading up to the financial data being made public. The firm posted a profit of $115 million on total revenues of $1.22 billion in the second quarter of this year.

The company has been in a restructuring mode for more than a year, with it ramping up preparations in the summer of 2016 toward altering its global operations to become more efficient and streamlined for growth, an effort that has included expense cuts and layoffs of some personnel. TSYS Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Troy Woods, in a conference call last year, mentioned the restructuring effort, which was dubbed “TSYS 20/20” by the firm.

“The TSYS 20/20 initiative is an enterprise-wide initiative to bring clarity and focus to our future business model,” Woods told analysts at the time. “One of the tenets of TSYS 20/20 was to provide us with an assessment of the ideal operating structure to maximize efficiencies and scale of our operations. As a result of this process, we do expect to have some one-time related expenses in the third quarter primarily related to severance. We are convinced that these moves will ensure we are operating at our full potential and will allow us to strengthen our already very successful business model.”

As the company was preparing for “TSYS 20/20,” it also hired a new president and chief operating officer, Pamela Joseph, whose card-processing background put her in a prime position to help develop strategy and carry out restructuring moves. That has included closing offices in Golden, Colo., and Boise, Idaho, while also preparing to set up a second card-production facility in Columbus, Ohio. Joseph, however, resigned her position in September, with no specific reason given, pocketing an exit payment of nearly $2.3 million.

The ongoing restructuring comes with TSYS having completed its largest-ever acquisition of another company just over 18 months ago, that being a $2.35 billion purchase of the New York-based merchant specialty firm TransFirst, which now has been integrated into the overall merchant business at TSYS. That deal was preceded by a $1.4 billion buyout of Austin, Texas-based prepaid card specialty firm NetSpend in 2013. TSYS continues to pay off debt related to the TransFirst purchase.

This story was originally published October 16, 2017 at 2:46 PM with the headline "TSYS restructuring cuts continue, but firm says it’s still in hiring mode."