Former Barter Baron Now A Spa Mogul

Moreton Binn, former Chairman and CEO of Atwood Richards, is now CEO of Xpres Spa, a leading retailer of spa services. With 38 locations in the biggest airports in the U.S. and the Netherlands, they offer travel related products as well as the usual spa services.

After earning a finance degree from New York University in 1958, Binn worked in advertising and ran a promotional services agency before purchasing Atwood Richards (a New York based corporate barter company) in 1974, thus becoming its CEO at age 38.

Barter was taking on a greater prominence in those days, when the U.S. broadcasting industry found a new use for it. Radio and TV stations needed a lot of new expensive equipment, but didn�t have the cash to buy it. So Atwood would provide whatever was needed in return for airtime, of which the stations had plenty. Atwood would then sell the acquired media time to its clients� with companies looking for exposure to plug their products.

By relieving corporate clients of huge quantities of unsold goods, ranging from Lotus cars to hockey pucks to bat manure, and giving them goods/services in return, Binn became known as the Baron of Barter.

He lived with his wife Penny, a clinical psychologist, for 37 years in a 12-room Colonial home on Long Island near their 80-acre farm (known as Pen-Mor � a blending of his name with that of his wife) where Binn bred and raised thoroughbred horses. When Penny tragically and suddenly died in a 1997 accident, Binn�s life was suddenly changed.

He subsequently made the decision to divest his interest in Atwood Richards. Eventually remarrying, Binn founded Asian Business Solutions, an international barter company, in 2001. He and his new wife, Marisol, lived in China for five years where they learned that spas and massage are an important part of the Asian culture.

Returning to the U.S. after the 2001 tragedy on 9/11, they were awestruck at the changes encountered at the U.S. airports. It was then that the Binns envisioned an unusual business opportunity at hand. Time at airports had lengthened and they discerned that a need for massages and spa services would be welcomed by many passengers. Quickly taking advantage of the opportunity at hand, they established Xpres Spa. Now, after a decade of hard work, former barter baron Moreton Binn has become a spa mogul.