Stolen vehicle retrieval (SVR) service provider Nexus Telocation Systems Ltd. (OTCBB: NXUS) will be renamed Pointer Telocation Ltd. Pointer Telocation's shares are listed on Nasdaq and will start trading under the new symbol PNTR as of the opening of the market on Tuesday February 21st, 2006.
Pointer Telocation has offices in Israel, Argentina and Mexico, and is a leading provider of road side assistance and towing services in Israel.
The company has also concluded the first stage of its strategic repositioning, namely the refocusing of its business from technology development to the provision of critical services typically provided by insurance companies to their customers, but which are not part of their core business. The company invested more than $40 million in order to successfully achieve the repositioning.
Currently, Pointer Telocation provides to insurance companies customer policyholders a broad range of services including mainly road-side assistance, vehicle towing, stolen vehicle retrieval and other value added services, through its subsidiaries.
In Israel, the local subsidiary Shagrir Vehicle Systems, which provides services under two brand names: "Shagrir" and "Pointer", is the largest player in the field of towing services and road side assistance and the second largest operator in the SVR market.
Pointer Telocation chairman Yossi Ben Shalom said, "Pointer Telocation is today a different company from what it was prior to 2004. In 2003 revenues were less then $2 million per quarter compared to approximately $10 million in quarterly revenues since the second quarter of 2005. Prior to 2004, Pointer Telocation was mainly selling equipment, whereas now it is providing a wide range of services to hundreds of thousands of subscribers. We have successfully concluded purchasing and investing in new activities, having successfully managed a strategic turnaround and operational re-organization"
"We are focused on leveraging our business platform an operational infrastructure for providing a wide range of services in order to increase the suite of services we are offering to our customers, mainly insurance companies, in each of the territories in which we operate, as well as looking to penetrate new markets. The company plans to dual list its shares on the TASE by the end of the year."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on Sunday, February 19, 2006