Avista Advantage, a third-party manager of other businesses utility and other facility-related bills, has added two new clients that together operate more than 8,000 locations nationwide.


Spokane-based Avista Advantage, a subsidiary of Avista Corp., declines to identify the two clients for now.


Both are making transitions from another vendor or are laying off people as a result of their decisions to contract out management of their facility-related bills, says Michael Hyman, Avista Advantages vice president of sales and marketing.


The two new clients are among the largest retailers in the U.S., and their 8,000 locations amount to a 6 percent increase since July in the number of locations for which Avista Advantage manages site-related bills, Hyman says. In addition, the Spokane company has added four other clients in the last two months, one of which is Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City Stores Inc., for which Avista Advantage is handling bills at more than 800 locations in the U.S. and Canada.


Separately, Scott Morris, president of Avista Utilities, Avista Corp.s utility operating division, now is serving as Avista Advantages interim chief executive officer while the company continues its search for a new president and CEO to succeed Harry Stephens, who left the company in April. Avista Corp. Chairman, President, and CEO Gary Ely had been serving part time as Avista Advantages interim CEO, but Elys schedule this fall was tight, and Ely asked Morris to step in, Avista Corp. told its employees last month. Morris said in the same announcement that he planned to spend three days a week at Avista Advantage and two days a week at Avista Utilities.


Avista Advantage employs 300 people, most of whom work at its offices in Rock Pointe East, at 1313 N. Atlantic. Hyman had said in July that Avista Advantages need to hire a new CEO wasnt urgent because the companys business plan already was in effect for the next three years.


Morris is helping us focus on our biggest priorities as we move into 2005, Hyman says.


Hyman also had said earlier that Avista Advantage was hoping to hit revenues of $22 million this year, a 30 percent increase from its $16.9 million in revenues in 2003. Hyman now says the company will meet expectations for its revenue growth, but declines to say whether it will exceed those expectations. It might be premature to say we will exceed expectations, he says.


Avista Advantage, which had been handling $6.5 billion in utility billings a year, now is actually on pace to exceed $7 billion in the amount of billings it will handle in 2004, Hyman says. Altogether, its managing 24,000 additional accounts, Hyman says. Before signing those clients, Avista Advantage had been managing roughly 360,000 accounts.


Avista Advantage has never been profitable, but Avista Corp. said in July that it anticipated the subsidiary would post break-even to slightly positive earnings for the second half of 2004. Avista Corp. spokesman Hugh Imhof says the company expects to report its third-quarter earnings on Oct. 21.


Avista Advantage examines and pays site-related bills for clients with multiple locations and also analyzes bills to search for problems, such as water-line leaks and whether clients are being charged at the optimum rate for their utilities and services. Its computer system identifies bills that are accurate and pays them automatically, but in Hymans words kicks for edit a bill when it detects a potential problem. An Avista Advantage analyst then goes over the bill. The Spokane company says it finds lots of errors in the nearly 400,000 bills it processes each month and shoots for savings of 2 percent to 5 percent in its clients bills.