Phoenix-Hecht Suspends Operations

Phoenix-Hecht, the market research firm famous for its lockbox mail service reports, has suspended its operations. Founded in 1968, the company’s services were a staple for remittance and treasury managers.

“We’ve made the difficult decision to suspend operations at this time,” the company states on its website.

No date is shown with the single-sentence announcement.

From Phoenix-Hecht LinkedIn page:

Phoenix-Hecht provides market research, data and education for treasury professionals and financial service providers.

Lee Hecht founded a company to perform operational research in cash management for his first client, The First National Bank of Chicago. Lee was a Ph.D. student and lecturer in applied mathematics at the University of Chicago, and the university was an early investor in Lee’s company. Two years later, Phoenix-Hecht performed the first mail study, which evolved to become one of the most recognized performance metrics in the field of treasury management.

The ‘Phoenix’ part of our name comes from the mythical phoenix depicted on the University of Chicago’s school shield. In Greek mythology, a phoenix is a long-lived bird that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. Like the phoenix, lockbox, once believed to be a mature product in decline, has become the key component of a banking relationship as corporations rely on their lockbox provider to be the primary hub for remittance information from all transaction types. The lockbox product has experienced a significant amount of innovation over the years, and we expect that trend to continue.

At Phoenix-Hecht, we treasure our academic heritage and the pursuit of rigorous analysis that is our foundation. We look forward to a bright future of providing relevant metrics to help generate business, improve services and increase profitability.