Heartland Payment Systems Acquires Leaf

PRINCETON, N.J.-- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- August 14, 2014 -- Heartland Payment Systems (NYSE:HPY), the nation's fifth largest payment processor and a leading provider of merchant business solutions, today announced that it acquired Leaf, creator of a mobile Point of Sale (POS) tablet specifically designed for commerce. Leaf's cost-effective product helps retail stores, restaurants, and other local merchants improve the speed and ease of checkout and offers easy-to-use business management, analytics, and customer engagement.

Through the acquisition, Heartland demonstrates its ongoing commitment to providing the support and resources needed to execute on the companies' shared vision of delivering an open and flexible POS platform that makes it easier to run and grow a small business. Leaf will continue to be payments agnostic, working with the majority of domestic payments processors, and continue to build distribution relationships with industry-leading sales organization and partners. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"Leaf and Heartland value serving customers with fair pricing and transparent business practices, making for a real partnership," said Robert O. Carr, chairman and CEO of Heartland Payment Systems. "We've made a significant investment in Leaf and we want to continue making sure it has the resources needed to realize its full potential."

In September 2013, Heartland made a $20 million investment in Leaf and with this acquisition has purchased the remaining minority interest. Leaf will operate as a separate business unit of Heartland, continuing its mission to help small businesses manage operations through an open and flexible technology platform that can best fit their needs.

"Leaf has accomplished a lot with the purpose-built POS tablet and commitment to empower a merchant's choice of service provider; Heartland clearly sees the potential in Leaf's longer-term vision to provide an open marketplace of business services for small and medium enterprises," said Sarah McCrary, Leaf's CEO. "What we're doing is a big undertaking, and with Heartland's backing and full commitment, we can focus 100 percent on the product while knowing that we'll have the resources we need."

Following the acquisition, McCrary will continue to lead the company as its CEO, and co-founder Sebastian Castro will continue in his role as chief technical evangelist.

About Heartland Payment Systems

Heartland Payment Systems, Inc. (NYSE:HPY), the fifth largest payments processor in the United States, delivers credit/debit/prepaid card processing, mobile commerce, e-commerce, marketing solutions, security technology, payroll solutions, and related business solutions and services to more than 300,000 business and educational locations nationwide. A FORTUNE 1000 company, Heartland is the founding supporter of The Merchant Bill of Rights, a public advocacy initiative that educates merchants about fair credit and debit card processing practices. Heartland also established The Sales Professional Bill of Rights to advocate for the rights of sales professionals everywhere. More detailed information can be found at HeartlandPaymentSystems.com or follow the company on Twitter @HeartlandHPY and Facebook at facebook.com/HeartlandHPY

About Leaf

Leaf empowers local merchants to run and grow their businesses by providing a mobile payment platform built for local commerce. By making the complex tasks of running a business easy, Leaf allows merchants to spend more time focusing on what's important--the needs of their customers. For more information on how Leaf is transforming Point of Sale into Point of Smart, visit www.leaf.me.

Forward-looking Statements

This press release contains statements of a forward-looking nature which represent our management's beliefs and assumptions concerning future events. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions and are based on information currently available to us. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements due to many factors, including risks and additional factors that are described in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including but not limited to the Company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2013. Given these risks and uncertainties, prospective and current investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.