All Forum Posts by: Brandon Shapiro

Hi Derek, I am not sure of other companies where you can passively invest but as for Paramount Management I would stay away.  Being in the industry for over ten years and running over 500 machines myself I can only say they are bad dudes.  Everyone I have ever talked to (and I know a lot of people in the industry) has only said bad things about those guys.  

Its hard to say a percentage.  35 people a day is not enough, you want about a 100 or so.  Further, there should be a reason to be using cash at the location.  Lower income areas get more usage, EBT is a huge driver of usage.  

With all that being said, we place many machines that have to be pulled and relocated.  I have also predicted locations to be poor and turned out pretty good.

Your generally right but quite a bit off on your numbers.  The business is good and you will earn high returns, much higher than real estate.  If a machine is making 2500 a month you would be putting more like 20-30k in it a week.  Most machines make around 200 bucks.  Good machines make 300-500 a month.  Steller machines make up to 3500 a month.  The better the machine the more you pay out to the merchant and thus the more fill cash you are supplying for a lower margin.  

It is a very capital intensive business.  We have grown our business for 6 years but have about 700k invested in it now just to keep our machines full.  It is scalable, the returns are good, you don't need a lot of employees (we have none currently) to grow a good size business but you do need capital. 

Happy to talk to you more about it if interested.

I am in the business and we have in constant growth mode.  Cash as a percentage of transactions is going down but overall gross cash usage is going up.  The business does not have the margins it used to but we are making good money and growing in this business.  

That structure above is nonsense.  Machines don't cost 3500 they cost 2200.  In a normal investment you get your principle back and a return.  In this you simply own the machine after 5 years and they are doing what, selling it for 1500 bucks used to me to place at another location...?

Multifamily properties can be good locations for machines.  They need a central lobby / elevators and I would say 150 units or more to make it worth the capital expense of the machine and the money to fill (for us at least).  

I am in the ATM business, we have over a 150 machines that we either own/fill or process.  I am happy to discuss the business with you if you want more information.

Yes, I know about Paramount Management Group.  Word on the street is they are extremely litigious company and the old heads in the business don't care for them very much.  I also think the structure of their investment is weird.  Anyway, I am in the ATM business we own/fill/manage/process over 150 machines in our area (not big but not small) and have a partner managing a portfolio in the Boston area.  I am happy to talk to you about the business and share what I know.

I would also like to attend a local hagerstown meetup as well.