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Note 3 - Investments
9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2018
Notes to Financial Statements  
Cost-method Investments, Description [Text Block]
3.
Investments
In the quarter ended
June 30, 2018,
we recorded an impairment charge of
$250,000
to reduce the carrying value of our minority equity ownership in
one
of our investee companies, a privately held technology company and program manager in the FinTech industry. Given the investee’s limited funding to support its operation and sales and marketing efforts, we are
not
comfortable assigning a higher realizable value to our investment at this point and therefore believe an impairment charge is prudent and required. CoreCard remains in an ongoing business relationship with the company pursuant to a Processing Agreement and a Program Management Services Agreement. CoreCard is positioned to assume the program management aspects of the investee company if the need should arise to ensure their program(s) ongoing viability and the completion of the Processing Agreement with CoreCard.
 
In the quarter ended
June 30, 2017,
we recorded an impairment charge of
$90,000
to reduce the carrying value of our minority equity ownership in an investee company, a privately-held technology company in the FinTech industry. During the quarter ended
June 30, 2017,
the investee closed on a Series A preferred stock financing with higher preference to our Series Seed preferred stock which resulted in substantial dilution to our investment. Subsequently, in the quarter ended
December 31, 2017,
the investee sold its intellectual property and is winding down its operations. As such, we recorded an additional impairment charge of
$10,000
to fully write-down our minority equity ownership in the investee company to zero. Given the operational and contractual wind-down costs of the investee coupled with the Series A preferred stock preference to our Series Seed preferred stock, we believe a full write-down was warranted. CoreCard remains in an ongoing contractual business relationship with the company through the wind-down period pursuant to a Processing Agreement and anticipates receiving liquidated damages as contractually allowed per the Processing Agreement. CoreCard has recognized processing services revenue from the investee company greater than our investment.
 
In the quarter ended
September 30, 2017,
the remaining cash held in escrow from the sale of
one
of our investee companies to Cisco, Inc. in the
fourth
quarter of
2015,
was released. Since we had
no
reasonable way to estimate the amount of escrow, if any, to be released to us at the initial time of the sale,
no
provision was previously recorded in the financial statements. We received cash of
$372,000,
which was recognized as a gain in the
third
quarter of
2017.
 
In the quarter ended
September 30, 2017,
we sold shares in a tender offer for stock of
one
of our investee companies, a privately-held technology company in the FinTech industry. We sold approximately
ninety-one
percent of our shares. We recognized a gain of
$1,466,000
over our carrying value of
$98,000.
We retained a small equity stake in the investee and CoreCard remains in an ongoing business relationship with the company pursuant to a Processing Agreement previously entered into by the parties.