Congrats to Newtek and CEO Barry Sloane. We thought they would get over the loss of a key customer for their merchant processing…and we thought their TV ads were working.

Bingo on both.

Barry Sloane, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer said, "We are pleased with this quarter's results, with a 67% increase in diluted earnings per share to $0.05. That said, historically, the second half of the year has proven to be stronger than the first half of the year. Having reached earnings of $0.09 per share for the first six months of this year, we believe we are well-poised to deliver at least 20% growth in earnings for 2013.

"Our three primary segments - Small business finance, Electronic payment processing and Managed technology solutions - all made solid contributions to our overall results for the quarter." Mr. Sloane explained, "We continue to be the largest non-bank SBA 7(a) lender and the 11th largest government-guaranteed SBA 7(a) lender in the U.S. including banks. Our funded loan amount increased by over 100% to $42.8 million in the second quarter, bringing total funded loans to almost $80 million for the first six months of the year. With our current robust lending pipeline of $391 million, we expect to grow our funded loans by approximately 63% to $175 million in 2013, and expect continued loan growth in 2014 and beyond.

"Furthermore, we experienced an increase of nearly 30% in pretax income and approximately 10% revenue growth in our Electronic payment processing segment. We increased our average monthly processing volume per merchant by 8% year over year, and currently anticipate processing approximately $4.5 billion of annualized electronic payment processing volume by the end of 2013. Going forward, if we can increase our client base through our independent sales organization (ISO) channel, our Electronic payment processing segment should realize a significant increase in revenue during the second half of 2013.

"Finally, we are pleased to report that we have begun to reap the benefits of our repositioning strategy in our Managed technology solutions segment, evidenced by this quarter's reversal to a slight year-over-year increase in revenue in this segment as well as the sequential upward trend in both revenue and pretax income over the first quarter of 2013. Our upgrade to Linux-based platforms and the increase in our cloud-based offerings have fostered the growth in this segment, and we believe will enable us to capture additional market share in this space. Notably, we continued to achieve year-over-year growth in key metrics including a 187% increase in new Linux accounts within our cloud environment. Cloud-computing instances and cloud service accounts increased by 8% and 31%, respectively, further illustrating the growth in our cloud-based offerings. As our strategy continues to take a greater hold, we fully expect to maintain this upward trend, and expect a year-over-year increase in revenue of approximately 3% in 2013."

Mr. Sloane concluded, "The Small Business Authority® brand continues to provide high levels of satisfaction to independent business owners in all 50 states. Evidenced by our consistent top- and bottom-line growth, Newtek is quickly becoming the brand of choice for small- and medium-sized businesses with our myriad of financial and technological solutions coupled with our premier level of service. And while we have experienced significant growth both financially and operationally, we still have a tremendous opportunity to continue to penetrate the vast small- to medium-sized business market of over 27.5 million businesses. In short, we believe the best is yet to come, and we anticipate delivering our fourth consecutive year of growth and upward trending profitability in 2013, with guidance of a 13% increase in operating revenues and a 22% increase in pretax net income."

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