IRVINE, Calif. -

Spireon chief marketing officer Shawn Hansen gave dealers and subprime finance companies what he called the “bottom line” about the potential benefits of the company acquiring Inilex.

For operations that demand a GPS device be attached to a vehicle in order for the financing and installment contract to be finalized, Hansen highlighted that Spireon clients now can pivot the conversion to show that it’s not just about underwriting criteria. The device can open the door to a wide array of consumer applications, and more importantly for dealers and finance companies, the chance to generate more revenue.

“There is a whole range of consumer applications that can be layered once the GPS tracker is in place,” Hansen said during a conference call after Spireon announced the acquisition of Inilex earlier this week.

Hansen continued that during the past 20 years, “the IT industry in general has been totally turned on its head because of what’s happened with consumer applications.

“Because of consumer demand, companies have changed their IT policies in the way they give productivity apps to their users. We see that same thing happening with car dealerships in buy-here, pay-here and subprime,” he continued. “We see that users will benefit from additional applications they can use on their phones or get direct access to. This is a very complementary fit that give the dealer an opportunity to show where the value is to their customers.”

Through this acquisition, Spireon now has 2.3 million connected vehicles in its network.

“An auto finance company or dealership who already uses GPS technology and can offer the customer the chance to track their vehicle can now make more money. That’s the bottom line,” Hansen said.

“They can make more money by offering theft recovery services and additional consumer applications to the end user,” he continued. “It presents a way to increase their profits and to add another value proposition on top of the fact that their vehicle is being tracked and they’re getting a loan that they might not be able to get otherwise.”

While they might have been seen as industry competitors, Hansen indicated Spireon and Inilex have had “a long-standing relationship.” That situation led in part to the deal.

“Inilex has been a customer of Spireon in providing some of the underlying technology for them. It was a natural fit for the two companies to come together,” Hansen said.

“We’ve been discussing this for some time. I’m not in a position to say how long it was going on, but the business relationship has been in place for some time,” he continued.

Hansen noted Spireon did not face any antitrust or regulatory hurdles to complete the acquisition.

“This is a relatively straightforward integration of the two companies,” he said.

Hansen also mentioned a message to any dealers or finance companies that were solely Inilex customers prior to this week’s developments.

“Integration is happening right now. Sales and marketing channels are already integrating,” Hansen said. “As far as the technology is concerned, we’re kicking off those efforts. We’re going to out to all of our different dealer channels to let them know this work is being done and will be completely relatively shortly.”