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Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. is an American publicly traded provider of loyalty and marketing services, such as private label credit cards, coalition
loyalty programs A loyalty program is a marketing strategy designed to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of a business associated with the program. Today, such programs cover most types of commerce, each having varying features an ...
, and direct marketing, derived from the capture and analysis of transaction-rich data.


History

Alliance Data was formed from the December 1996
merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
of two entities:
J.C. Penney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Girl ...
's credit card processing unit and
The Limited The Limited was an American clothing retailer that operated retail stores between the early 1960s and the late 2010s. After 2007, it became a brand, originally owned by the private equity firm Sun Capital Partners, now owned by another private equ ...
's credit card bank operation, named World Financial Network National Bank. In August 1998, Alliance Data acquired LoyaltyOne, then-branded The Loyalty Group Canada, for $250 million. The deal gave Alliance Data two valuable business enhancements, Canada's Air Miles Rewards Program and the company behind the popular Air Miles program, LoyaltyOne. In May 2007, The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, announced plans to acquire Alliance Data. In April 2008, Alliance Data terminated the merger agreement with Blackstone Affiliates. Ed Heffernan was promoted to president and CEO of Alliance Data in February 2009, after being with the company since 1998. On June 7, 2019, Ed Heffernan resigned as CEO of Alliance Data and was replaced by Melisa Miller, who previously ran Alliance Data's Card Services division. This change in leadership effectively moved Alliance Data's Headquarters from Plano, TX to Columbus, OH. Melisa Miller held the role for roughly 6 months before being replaced by former CITI executive Ralph Andretta. The current Headquarters is located in Columbus, OH, with 5 additional locations throughout the nation, as well as in Bangalore, India. After the acquisition of Bread finance, Alliance Data decided to divest Loyalty One and Brand Loyalty into their own publicly traded entity known as Loyalty Ventures. Alliance Data changed its name to Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. on March 23, 2022, and its ticker symbol from "ADS" to "BFH" effective April 4, 2022.


Businesses


Alliance Data Card Services

Card Services is a provider of integrated credit and marketing services including private label, co-branded and commercial credit card programs. Alliance Data Card Services manages over 135 card programs for retail brands such as
Victoria’s Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest ret ...
,
J.Crew J.Crew Group, Inc., is an American multi-brand, multi-channel, specialty retailer. The company offers an assortment of women's, men's, and children's apparel and accessories, including swimwear, outerwear, lounge-wear, bags, sweaters, denim, dr ...
, Eddie Bauer, Buckle, HSN,
Pottery Barn Pottery Barn is an American upscale home furnishing store chain and e-commerce company, with retail stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia. Pottery Barn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, Inc. The company is headq ...
, Pier 1 Imports, Lexus, Toyota, Williams Sonoma and
Wayfair Wayfair Inc. is an American e-commerce company based in Boston, Massachusetts that sells furniture and home goods online. Formerly known as CSN Stores, it was founded in 2002, and currently offers 14 million items from more than 11,000 global su ...
among many others. In 2011, Alliance Data, in partnership with NICE Systems, was honored with the Operational Leadership Award for its customer care centers by Ventana Research. Alliance Data Card Services maintains two banks to manage the funding and receivables for its clients' credit programs. In September 2012, the banks rebranded their names from WFNNB (World Financial Network ationalBank) and WFCB (World Financial Capital Bank) to both operate under the Comenity name, as Comenity Bank and Comenity Capital Bank, respectively.


LoyaltyOne

LoyaltyOne, located in Canada, provides loyalty marketing programs for North American brands in the retail, financial services, grocery, petroleum, travel, and hospitality industries. Five businesses make up the LoyaltyOne:
Air Miles Air Miles is a group of loyalty programs operated by different companies in each region where the brand operates. The programs are available in Canada, the Netherlands and the Middle East. Points are earned on purchases at participating merchan ...
national reward program, in which approximately two-thirds of Canadian households participate;
Colloquy Colloquy may refer to: * Colloquy (religious), a meeting to settle differences of doctrine or dogma * Colloquy (company), a loyalty marketing company based in Milford, Ohio * Colloquy (law), a legal term * Colloquy (IRC client), an IRC client for ...
; LoyaltyOne Consulting; Precima; and Squareknot.
Hewitt Associates Hewitt may refer to: Places ;United Kingdom * Hewitt (hill), Hills in England, Wales and Ireland over two thousand feet with a relative height of at least 30 metres ;United States * Hewitt, Minnesota, a city * Hewitt, Texas, a city * Hewitt, M ...
named LoyaltyOne in their "2014 List of the 50 Best Employers in Canada."


Epsilon

Epsilon provides a broad range of loyalty marketing services spanning database marketing, direct mail, email marketing, web development, loyalty programs, analytics, data services, strategic consulting and creative services, among others. '' Ad Age'' has ranked Epsilon among the top marketing services firms and direct marketing agencies for several years, and Epsilon has the distinction as being the Top US Agency From All Disciplines and Top US CRM/Direct Marketing Agencies for 2012. It sends billions of permission-based emails every year. Acquired by Epsilon in 2011, Aspen Marketing Services is a marketing services agency headquartered in Chicago, Illinois with locations in the United States and Canada. In 2012, Epsilon reached an agreement to acquire the Hyper Marketing ("HMI") group of companies, the largest privately held digital marketing services agencies in the United States, for about $460 million. In March 2011, Epsilon detected unauthorized access to its email database, resulting in the theft of email addresses of its clients' customers. In late February 2013, Facebook announced partnerships with four companies, including Epsilon, to help reshape its targeted advertising strategy. Because of Epsilon's growth over the past several years, the company relocated its headquarters to the former Nokia regional headquarters space in Las Colinas, Texas, near Dallas. In March 2014, ''
60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...
'' interviewed Bryan Kennedy, chairman and CEO of Epsilon, as part of its segment, "The Data Brokers: Selling Your Personal Information". In April 2019, Publicis Groupe acquired Epsilon for $4.4 billion. This was the second biggest deal in the history of advertising, behind only Dentsu's $5 billion acquisition of Aegis Group in 2012.


Controversy

In 2010 Epsilon failed to heed warnings to secure data. In March 2011 it was discovered that email addresses from customers of 50 client companies were stolen. The company quickly notified the public about the breach. In June 2011 company executives were called before Congress to answer questions about the security breach.


Company acquisitions and divestitures

* 1998: LoyaltyOne was acquired by Alliance Data. * 2002: Colloquy/Frequency Marketing was acquired by Alliance Data. * 2004: Epsilon was acquired by Alliance Data. * 2005: Bigfoot Interactive was acquired by Alliance Data. * 2006: Abacus was acquired by Alliance Data's Epsilon from DoubleClick. * 2008: Heartland Payment Systems acquired Alliance Data's Network Services business. * 2008:
Vertex Vertex, vertices or vertexes may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics and computer science *Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines, or edges meet *Vertex (computer graphics), a data structure that describes the position ...
acquired Alliance Data’s Utility Services business. * 2011:
Aspen Marketing Services Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. is an American publicly traded provider of loyalty and marketing services, such as private label credit cards, coalition loyalty programs, and direct marketing, derived from the capture and analysis of transactio ...
was acquired by Alliance Data (to be a part of Epsilon). * 2012: Alliance Data acquired the $475 million private label credit card portfolio of The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. * 2012: Epsilon acquires Hyper Marketing and agencies Ryan Partnership & Catapult. * 2014: Alliance Data acquires BrandLoyalty. * 2014: Epsilon acquires Conversant, formerly ValueClick. *2019: Publicis Groupe acquired Alliance Data Systems' Epsilon. *2019: Alliance Data acquired Lon Operations Inc., a digital payments company operating under the trademark Bread.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Breadfinancial Marketing companies established in 1996 American companies established in 1996 Business models Companies based in the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Customer loyalty programs Data brokers Data collection