ood things come to those who wait. One year after filing an S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. stock debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Aug. 11, 2005 with an offering of 6,750,000 shares priced at $18 per share.

Of the total number of shares, 2,622,046 were being sold by Heartland and 4,127,954 were being sold by stockholders of Heartland. Heartland common stock is now traded under the ticker symbol HPY.

Heartland provides credit and debit card, payroll and related processing services to small and medium-size restaurant, hotel and retail merchants throughout the United States.

Since processing its first transaction in July 1997, it has grown to be a multibillion dollar company. In the "2004 Payments Grand Prix" GSQ (December 2004, Vol. 7 No.4) [5,765k pdf], we ranked Heartland in the top 10 billion dollar bankcard acquirers. According to filings with the SEC, Heartland provides processing services to 101,500 U.S. merchants. The company's processing volume in 2004 totaled $25 billion. Its volume for the six months ended June 30, 2005 was $15.4 billion, a 36.3% increase from the $11.3 billion processed during the same period in 2004.

Heartland is somewhat unique among fellow processors in that it employs a direct sales force of approximately 900-plus professionals. "We believe that we have the largest direct sales force in the payment processing industry," the company stated in an SEC filing.

Heartland compensates its salespeople solely with commissions based on adding and retaining processing volume. (Heartland does not work with 1099 independent contractor sales offices and agents.) The company also employs more than 400 employees in operations, information technology, marketing, administration and management positions.

Underwriters of the offering included Citigroup Global Markets Inc.; Credit Suisse First Boston LLC; Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc.; William Blair & Co. LLC; KeyBanc Capital Markets; and SunTrust Capital Markets, Inc. At press time, Heartland was still in a quiet period following the IPO and not able to comment for the story.