From its beginnings as a Gift Voucher Shop to its acquisition by Blackhawk, Jock Jordan has been a constant at One4all, writes Nick Mulcahy.
The period up to Christmas should be bountiful for One4all, the gift card business that commenced trading two decades ago. In his Budget 2023 announcement, finance minister Paschal Donohoe raised the Small Benefit Exemption from €500 to €1,000, and with two payments per year permitted instead of one.
The exemption allows an employer to provide non-cash benefits or rewards to their workers without the payment of income tax, PRSI and USC. Tax-free vouchers or benefits can be used only to purchase goods or services.
The minister is hoping that employers will use the tax-free payment to ease cost of living pressure for staff. AIB and Bank of Ireland have signalled that all their employees will receive a €1,000 voucher, and other large employers will be under pressure to follow suit.
At the banks, the staff union applied pressure, and trade union Siptu intends the one grand voucher will be on the table during current wage-agreement negotiations.
One4all isn’t the only gift card processor but it’s the longest running and the market leader. Two decades ago, it was a gutsy indigenous start-up, and now it’s owned by Blackhawk Network, an American global player in the gift cards sector.
In Association with
Jock Jordan (63), who leads the operation in Ireland, has been with One4all for the entire journey, and says he has never lost sight of his work/life balance.
“It’s something I’m passionate about for my own employees as well,” says Jordan. “I’m a busy man but I’m an organised man, let me put it that way. If you organise yourself it takes the stress out of life. Control the controllables and don’t worry about the things that you can’t control. That’s my philosophy in life.”
Christened Jonathan, Jordan couldn’t control school pals renaming him Jock, and the name stuck (“only my mother calls me Jonathan now”).
Gift Voucher Shop
Jordan was working with Aer Lingus when One4all founder Michael Dawson came calling with an idea for Gift Voucher Shop, the original name of One4all.
Dawson, a serial entrepreneur, had the idea of a gift voucher venture after having to drive miles out of his way to purchase a store voucher in the centre of Dublin. “Michael had this idea that if you could buy a retailer voucher in multiple locations it would be very popular,” Jordan recalls.
“He pitched me for an hour or so over coffee at the airport and I was convinced. I had always wanted to do something non-corporate, and it was such a fantastic idea and such a challenge that I couldn’t turn it down.”
Jordan’s profession is sales, and he was tasked with lining up the retail partners. Gift Voucher Shop (GVS) mulled possible distribution channels, ranging from Xtra-vision to supermarket chains, before wisely zeroing in on An Post.
At the start of the century, the post office network extended to over 1,000 outlets and Dawson convinced the semi-state of the commercial case for an extra revenue line for postmasters.
In the early days, GVS vouchers were printed dockets for individual retailers such as Brown Thomas and Arnotts, with various values attached. Department stores and other retailers had their own gift vouchers but with GVS anyone around the country could buy a gift voucher in their local post office. The business was quick off the mark, booking a net profit of €460,000 in 2015, the fourth year of trading.
Plastic gift card
The GVS multi-store voucher originated in 2004, and a rural postmaster suggested calling it One4all. Moving the gift card from paper to plastic extended the reach beyond post offices to Post Point retailers attached to the Visa network.
This required investment, and in 2009 the strains on cashflow were beginning to show, with investor Pa Nolan lending the firm €990,000, and Dawson and finance director Paul Larkin advancing €500,000 in 8% unsecured redeemable loan notes.
In December 2009, the directors got their money back when An Post steadied the ship by acquiring a 53.6% shareholding in the GVS parent, TVC Ventures Ltd, in a deal that involved substantial shareholders loans from An Post.
“That was when An Post took a real interest in the business,” says Jordan. “We were absolutely delighted because they had been a fantastic distribution partner. During their tenure as owners they continued to invest and develop the business.”
In 2018, the swansong year under Michael Dawson’s direction, GVSGift Voucher Shop DAC had turnover of €18.9m, paid €3.8m to An Post for services, rewarded shareholders with €5m in dividends, and booked a net profit of €7m. However, the gift cards market was changing rapidly, with encroachment from all sorts of digital cards.
Blackhawk deal
An Post and the other GVS shareholders would have to dig deep to invest in a digital future - or pass the parcel. A deal was sealed with Blackhawk in November 2018 and finalised at the end of January 2019.
Jock Jordan explains: “We wanted to go to the next stage, which we’ve now completed, and that’s moving to digital. There was a large investment required and as a team we looked at the payments and gift card sectors and decided that four or five Irish guys and An Post were never going to take on the world.
"In order to plan for the future, we had to consider where our business would go next, and An Post wanted a return on their investment. Blackhawk was considered the perfect fit, a global payments organisation that would offer opportunities to our staff. Many of our employees now have European and global roles across the business, which is absolutely fantastic.
”The enterprise value of GVS/One4all when sold to Blackhawk was c.€100m. Dawson had a stake of c.10% in the company, Paul Larkin owned c.8% while Jordan’s stake was under 1%. In the circumstances, Jordan says it took a couple of seconds to accept an offer from the new owners to stay on as Regional Vice President Incentives for Ireland and some European countries. He remarks that business travel is great, except for the airports.
Companies use One4all cards for multiple purposes, ranging from staff incentives and rewards to marketing tools. Despite or because of Covid, GVS turnover increased by 8% in 2020 to €22.3m.
That’s not the volume of card purchases: the accounts filing identifies €169m held in an escrow account in December 2020, money that is paid to retailers when vouchers are redeemed.
One4all digital cards launched a year ago, with some hiccups, but Jordan insists that the wobbles have been ironed out. Companies can now send the digital gift cards, perhaps with a CEO video message attached, direct to staff mobile phones, where they drop into digital wallets.
Though Jordan expects digital cards to increase in popularity, he still sees a place for the plastic cards that can nestle under the Christmas tree.
Photo: Jock Jordan, One4all
