Ticker symbol: EBIX

Where traded: Nasdaq

Chief executive: Robin Raina, 41

Headquarters: Atlanta

Business summary: Ebix provides software and Internet-based systems to the international insurance industry. It has offices in the United States, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada and India.

COMPANY Q&A:

Insurance companies, unlike banks and other financial institutions, have been slow to embrace computers and software in their otherwise paper-weighted transactions. That's what 2-year-old Ebix is trying to change.

Raina spoke about the company's success and his charitable efforts:

Q: What is there about your business or your business strategy that resulted in a Top 10 performance?

A: We are an extremely high margin business. We run our business at 37 percent net margins. . . . That's one of the big things. In my mind there also has to be common sense in business.

Sometimes we get so lost in our marketing and business plans, we lose track of basic common sense that the selling price must be higher than the cost. There has been a lot of simplifying in the business, making sure internally that costs have to be under control.

Q: Even if the economy does not sink into a technical recession, analysts see slow growth and weakness ahead for an extended period. What is your forecast, or guidance, for the economy and especially the sectors that most affect your business?

A: Our targets are reasonably simple. We want to make sure our top line can grow proportionately with the bottom line. There are companies that want to go for the top line, some for the bottom line. We want to go for the bottom line.

Our key measure is to ensure that we can keep growing our net margins. We don't want to go below 35 percent in net margins.

We have aggressive goals to expand our operations in Europe. So I think over the next 12 months, this will be a big focus area. In the short term our desire is to triple our '07 revenue in the next 18 months or so. We are looking at lots of growth.

Q: What are your thoughts on the health care crisis, where so many people are not insured? This has come up in the presidential election campaign.

A: I think the health care issue can be solved. . . . A lot of the answer has to be in a balance between the market, to make sure it works, and having effective regulation – there has to be a degree of regulation. . . .

You have a lot of inefficiency in health care. Doctors use their minds to solve simple problems, but their hands are tied because they are scared of litigation. That doesn't happen in Europe or Asia.

We waste a lot of money in health care because we are trying to avoid future litigation.

Q: Tell us about your charitable work.

A: Half of my time every day is dedicated to charity. It has basically become my life.

One of the things I am known for is the Robin Raina Foundation. . . . We try to take care of underprivileged kids. We have adopted 3,500 children. We are building 6,000 small, concrete homes for slum dwellers. They aren't large, but they are bigger than anything these kids have ever had.

We support 87 blind kids in India, and 34 are finishing master's degrees this year. We do TV ads to tell people to sponsor kids, kids who have grown up in slums.

We want to make charity fashionable and cool.

– Tom Walker