IDT Corporation
TypePublic
NYSE: IDT
Russell Microcap Index component
FoundedAugust 1990 (1990-08)
HeadquartersNewark, New Jersey, U.S.
Key people
Howard S. Jonas, Chairman
Samuel Jonas, CEO
Bill Pereira, COO
David Wartell, CTO
Marcelo Fisher, CFO
Products
[1] (2020)
Services
[1] (2020)
RevenueUS$1.346 billion[1] (2020)
US$17.94 million[1] (2020)
US$21.42 million[1] (2020)
Number of employees
1,256[1] (2020)
Websitewww.idt.net
Headquarters at 520 Broad Street in Newark

IDT Corporation[2][3] (originally standing for International Discount Telecommunications) is a multinational provider of cloud communications, point of sale systems, unified communications, and financial services foreign exchange services for selected clients. It has units dedicated for businesses and consumers such as the Boss Revolution pre-paid phone cards, headquartered in Newark, New Jersey.[1]

Overview

IDT's first service was callback,[4] which was based on the idea that "it costs two and three times as much to call from overseas as it does the other way."[5] [2]

History

IDT was founded by entrepreneur Howard Jonas in August 1990. He founded the company after opening a sales office in Israel, receiving large international phone bills and then discovering a way to lower them by re-originating calls in the United States.[2]

In 1996, IDT founded Net2Phone, the world's fourth-largest VoIP provider (2017),[6] and sold 32% of Net2Phone in August 2000 to AT&T for $1.1 billion in cash.[7][8]

Acquisitions and spinoffs

  • November 2004: launched IDT Energy, a retail energy business.[9] It and other energy-related businesses were spun off October 2011. IDT Energy went to its shareholders as Genie Energy.[10]
  • January 2006: IDT Telecom, Inc. sold to GVC Networks LLC all its IDT Winstar Solution subsidiaries: Winstar Communications, Winstar Government Solutions, LLC and Winstar Wireless, LLC.
  • February 2006: IDT announced it would reacquire full ownership of Net2Phone, a company it had launched in the mid 1990s.
  • March 2006: IDT sold its Russian telecom business, Corbina Telecom, to a Moscow-based consortium of private equity investors.[11]
  • May 2006: IDT agreed to sell its IDT Entertainment division to Liberty Media.[12]
  • August 2006: sale of all of IDT Entertainment's US operations and several international operations was completed.[13][14]
  • December 2006: IDT acquired a controlling interest in the parent company of 2003-founded Zedge.net, a social networking community for mobile users and platform for sharing free mobile content.[15][16] It was spun off in June 2016.[16]
  • 2007: IDT acquired a 53% interest in comic book, graphic novel, art book, and comic strip collection publisher Idea and Design Works (IDW). In 2009, IDT increased its interest to 76%. Shortly afterwards, IDT created CTM Media Holdings, which consisted of the majority interest in IDW and CTM Media Group, a distributor of print and online media advertising focused on tourist destinations.[17] On September 14, 2009, IDT spun off CTM Media Holdings to its shareholders.

IDT operated a wireless MVNO, TúYo Mobile on the T-Mobile network. It was terminated on May 1, 2012.[18] On July 31, 2013, IDT spun off Straight Path, a communications asset company holding 39 GHz (millimeter wave) nationwide spectrum and on average, 800 MHz of bandwidth in top 30 US markets.[19] In October 2014, IDT sold Fabrix Systems, an Israel-based software company that developed and licenses a proprietary cloud based storage and computing platform, to Ericsson.[20]

In February 2015 the company announced it had reached an agreement with Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA), Cuba's national telecom provider, for international long distance telephony between the United States and Cuba directly.[21]

In January 2017, Net2Phone, subsidiary of IDT Corporation, acquired LiveNinja, a Miami-based messaging and live chat technology startup. LiveNinja's messaging technology is being integrated into its new product now in development. Leveraging LiveNinja's technology, net2phone will offer a multi-channel platform for small and medium-sized enterprises that spans phone, messaging, SMS and web chat.[22]

On 24 January 2018, IDT began a pilot test on using Ripple's native cryptocurrency.[23] The aim to simplify cross border payments, in order to free up billions held in foreign Vostro accounts.[24]

In March 2018, IDT completed its spinoff of Rafael Holdings with IDT founder Howard Jonas serving as chairman of the board and chief executive officer[25] Rafael Holdings holds commercial real estate assets and interests in two clinical stage, oncology focused pharmaceutical companies.  The pharmaceutical holdings consist of interests in Rafael Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and a majority stake in Lipomedix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., both of which are focused on development and commercialisation of drugs in the oncology space.[26]

On April 20, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, IDT Corporation applied for and received a loan of US$10 million as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. On April 26, 2020, due to criticism of large companies who were accessing the loan program intended to help small businesses, IDT announced that they would return the loan.[27][28][29]

Subsidiaries and services

  • IDT Telecom, Inc.
    • IDT Europe
    • IDT Telecom Asia Pacific Ltd
    • Net2Phone, Inc.[30]
    • Union Telecard Alliance
    • IDT Financial Services

National Retail Solutions

In 2015, IDT launched National Retail Solutions (NRS).[31] NRS is a point-of-sale company that is the provider of touch-screen point-of-sale (POS) systems, which offers a customer-facing screen as well as payment and transaction processing services.

Boss Revolution

In 2009, IDT introduced Boss Revolution, a PIN-less international prepaid calling service.[32] Boss Revolution PIN-less allows smartphone users to make single touch international calls. Since its introduction, Boss Revolution and other PIN-less providers have largely supplanted the traditional prepaid international calling card industry. IDT subsequently announced initiatives to add various payment services to the Boss Revolution Platform, including international money transfer.[33]

PennyTalk

IDT inaugurated a service of low cost international calling called PennyTalk. Of note is the use of an Australian actress to play a woman from London during the initial PennyTalk commercial campaign.

Dial-up Internet access

"IDT first offered dial-up services in 1994."[34] They subsequently expanded to offer dedicated Internet access lines.[35] By 1999 this ISP[3][36] also became "one of the nation's first pre-paid bilingual Internet services."[34]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "IDT Corporation Annual Report 2020". www.sec.gov. sec.gov. October 14, 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 Ramirez, Anthony (January 9, 1992). "Hot-Wiring Overseas Telephone Calls". The New York Times. Retrieved May 5, 2010.
  3. 1 2 "IDT's New Calling Plan Undercuts Recent Moves From Phone". The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). September 1, 1999.
  4. ↑ "How IDT Plans to 'Net Long-Distance Clients". NJbiz.com. August 9, 2005.
  5. ↑ Bernard Bard (August 24, 1992). "Rining up $savings: Long-distance rate battle pits David vs. the Goliaths". The New York Post. p. 24.
  6. ↑ "Net2Phone Shifts to Software for Routing". The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). September 18, 2000.
  7. ↑ "AT&T May Buy All or Part Of IDT's Stake in Net2Phone". The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). March 31, 2000.
  8. ↑ "AT&T Pays Hefty Premium to Buy 32% of Net2Phone". The New York Times. August 12, 2000.
  9. ↑ "An Alternative to Con Ed Revs Up Its Sales Force". The New York Times. August 31, 2008.
  10. ↑ "GNE: Genie Energy Ltd. Company Profile & Executives". The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
  11. ↑ "IDT Corporation". AnnualReports.com. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help) |url=https://www.annualreports.com
  12. ↑ "Liberty Media to Acquire IDT Entertainment" (Press release). IDT Corporation. 2006-05-16. Archived from the original on 2011-07-23. Retrieved 2006-05-29.
  13. ↑ Liberty Completes First Stage of IDT Acquisition
  14. ↑ "Liberty Completes Final Stage of IDT Entertainment Acquisition". Archived from the original on 2006-10-05. Retrieved 2006-11-10.
  15. ↑ "ZDGE Company Profile & Executives - Zedge Inc". The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
  16. 1 2 "How Telecom Speculator Howard Jonas Made Billions from Verizon, AT&T". May 11, 2017.
  17. ↑ IDT Corporation – Press Releases
  18. ↑ "TúYo service". 2012. Archived from the original on May 13, 2012. Retrieved 2012-05-09.
  19. ↑ - IDT Corporation press release dated July 15, 2013
  20. ↑ "IDT Corporation Completes Sale of Fabrix Systems" (Press release). IDT Corporation. 2014-10-08. Retrieved 2020-05-03 – via Business Wire.
  21. ↑ "IDT Corp to provide long distance telephony between U.S. and Cuba". Reuters. 2015-02-20. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
  22. ↑ - Miami startup LiveNinja is acquired by telecom player
  23. ↑ "Ripple Adds New Partners in Push to Make Case for XRP". Fortune. Retrieved 2018-10-17.
  24. ↑ "Blockchain technology – speeding up and simplifying cross-border payments". Deloitte Nederland (in Dutch). Retrieved 2018-10-17.
  25. ↑ Inc., IDT Corporation; Rafael Holdings. "IDT Completes Spin-Off of Rafael Holdings". prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2018-10-29. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  26. ↑ "Rafael Holdings - Home". Rafael Holdings. Retrieved 2018-10-29.
  27. ↑ Popken, Ben (28 April 2020). "Which companies are returning their PPP loans? Here's the list". NBC News. Archived from the original on 29 April 2020. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  28. ↑ "EDGAR Filing Documents". US Securities and Exchanges Commission.
  29. ↑ "IDT CORPORATION (NYSE:IDT) Files An 8-K Other Events". Market Exclusive. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  30. ↑ "IDT Corp (IDT)". Reuters. Retrieved 31 May 2016.
  31. ↑ "The All-in-One POS System | National Retail Solutions". National Retail Solutions | Retail POS Solutions. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  32. ↑ "Call, Top Up, Send Money Around the World | BOSS Revolution". BOSS Revolution | Global Money Transfer.
  33. ↑ IDT Corporation – Press Releases
  34. 1 2 Patricia Fusco (May 25, 1999). "IDT Launches Prepaid Bilingual Internet Service".
  35. ↑ "BEGIN PRIVACY-ENHANCED MESSAGE----- Proc-Type ..." Within the U.S., IDT provides dedicated and dial-up Internet access services to approximately 80,000 retail customers.
  36. ↑ "IDT Corporation".
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