NYSE:RM Regional Management Q3 2023 Earnings Report $31.26 +0.19 (+0.60%) Closing price 04/17/2025 03:59 PM EasternExtended Trading$31.26 0.00 (0.00%) As of 04/17/2025 04:05 PM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings HistoryForecast Regional Management EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.91Consensus EPS $0.82Beat/MissBeat by +$0.09One Year Ago EPSN/ARegional Management Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$140.88 millionExpected Revenue$139.45 millionBeat/MissBeat by +$1.43 millionYoY Revenue GrowthN/ARegional Management Announcement DetailsQuarterQ3 2023Date11/1/2023TimeN/AConference Call DateWednesday, November 1, 2023Conference Call Time5:00PM ETUpcoming EarningsRegional Management's Q1 2025 earnings is scheduled for Wednesday, April 30, 2025, with a conference call scheduled at 5:00 PM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Q1 2025 Earnings ReportConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Regional Management Q3 2023 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrNovember 1, 2023 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 9 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Regional Management Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask I would now like to turn the conference over to Garrett Edson with ICR. Operator00:00:35Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:37Thank you and good afternoon. By now everyone should have access to our earnings announcement and supplemental which were released prior to this call and may be found on our website at regionalmanagement.com. Before we begin our formal remarks, I will direct you to page 2 of our supplemental presentation, which contains important disclosures concerning forward looking statements and the use of non GAAP financial measures. Part of our discussion today may include Forward looking statements, which are based on management's current expectations, estimates and projections about the company's future financial performance and business prospects. These forward looking statements speak only as of today and are subject to various assumptions, risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in the forward looking statements. Speaker 100:01:19These statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore you should not place undue reliance upon them. We refer all of you to our press release presentation and recent filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of our forward looking statements and the risks and uncertainties that could impact our future operating results and financial condition. Also, our discussion today may include references to certain non GAAP measures. Reconciliation of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measure can be found within our earnings announcement or earnings presentation and posted on our website at regionalmanagement.com. I would now like to introduce Rob Beck, President and CEO of Regional Management Corp. Speaker 200:01:53Thanks, Garrett, and welcome to our Q3 2023 earnings call. I'm joined today by Harp Rana, our Chief Financial Officer. Harp and I will take you through our Q3 results, discuss the current operating environment and loan portfolio performance and share our expectations for the Q4. We continued our focus on portfolio quality, expense management and strong execution of our core business in the 3rd quarter. We generated $8,800,000 of net income and $0.91 of diluted EPS. Speaker 200:02:22Strong loan demand and our conservative underwriting criteria led to a high quality portfolio growth of $62,000,000 record revenue of $141,000,000 and a sequential increase in revenue yields of 80 basis points, all of which exceeded our expectations for the quarter. We also continue to closely manage our G and A expenses while investing in our business, driving a 50 basis points improvement in our operating expense ratio from the prior year. We're pleased with our team's ability to deliver consistent, predictable and superior results for our shareholders quarter after quarter. As you would expect, we're keeping a close eye on the economic environment and its impact on our consumer base. Recent data indicates a strong labor market, moderating inflation and real wage growth. Speaker 200:03:08However, we continue to observe stress in certain segments of our portfolio caused by inflationary pressures. We also remain mindful that the resumption of student loan repayments will impact many consumers' budgets, and we're monitoring whether recent geopolitical events may cause energy prices to increase further. As a result, we remain selective in making loans within our tightened credit box. While we achieved strong high quality portfolio growth in the 3rd quarter, we slowed our year over year growth rate to 9%, down from 22% in the Q3 of last year. We're prepared to lean back into growth when the economic conditions are right, but until then, we'll maintain a conservative credit posture. Speaker 200:03:49Our 3rd quarter originations again reflected our selective underwriting. We originated 60% of our volume to our top two risk ranks. We continue to emphasize present and former borrower lending over new borrower lending and we further grew our auto secured portfolio to 8.3% of our total portfolio, up from 6% a year ago. We're also seeing the benefit of the machine learning driven credit and marketing models that we've implemented in recent quarters, and we see additional opportunity for improvement as we develop our next generation models. We ended the 3rd quarter with a 30 plus day delinquency rate of 7.3%, up 40 basis points from the Q2, but consistent with normal seasonal trends. Speaker 200:04:30Our higher quality originations from credit tightening have kept our 1st payment default and early stage delinquency rates below 2019 levels. Our July 1st payment default rate was 50 basis points better than July 2019 rate Our Q3 1 to 59 day delinquency rate was 110 basis points better than the Q3 of 2019. Notably, we're seeing solid performance in Q4 20222023 vintages. As of September 30, These vintages represent nearly 70% of our portfolio, a number that we expect to increase to nearly 80% by year end. Macroeconomic conditions, however, have continued to stress mid- and late stage delinquencies and roll rates, something that we've observed across our industry, particularly for loan businesses originated prior to late 2022. Speaker 200:05:21This is causing our delinquency levels and credit losses to be higher than we'd like. We anticipate that this stress will linger into at least the early part of 2024, but we continue to expect that credit tightening actions, strong collections execution and moderating inflation will gradually bring delinquencies and credit losses back down to more normalized levels over time, subject to the macroeconomic environment. Looking ahead in the near to midterm, we'll navigate this challenging economic environment in much the same way that we have over the past year. We'll focus on strong execution of our core business, including by maintaining a tight credit box and originating loans only where we can achieve our return hurdles under an assumption of additional credit stress and higher funding costs. As we've discussed in the past, we have a large addressable market that provides us Apple opportunity to take advantage of high levels of consumer demand to drive strong portfolio growth, while still remaining selective in approving borrowers under our conservative underwriting criteria. Speaker 200:06:20Where appropriate, we'll also continue to pursue opportunities to increase pricing and expand our margins, a strategy that has been effective in recent quarters in improving our revenue yield. At the same time, we'll keep a firm handle on expenses, while continuing to make create additional sustainable growth, improved credit performance and greater operating efficiency and leverage over the long term. In summary, we're pleased with our results and we're proud of our team's execution. We're well positioned to operate effectively in the current economic cycle and with ample liquidity, I'll now turn the call over to Harp to provide additional color on our financial results. Speaker 300:07:15Thank you, Rob, and hello, everyone. I'll now take you through our 3rd quarter results in more detail. On Page 3 of the supplemental presentation, we provide our 3rd quarter financial highlights. We generated net income of $8,800,000 and diluted earnings per share of $0.91 Our results were driven once again by high quality portfolio and revenue growth and careful management of expenses, partially offset by increased funding costs and net credit loss headwinds caused by macroeconomic conditions. Turning to Pages 4 and 5, demand remained strong in the quarter, but our tighter underwriting standards, emphasis on present and former borrower originations and collections focus led us to increase total originations by only 2% from the prior year. Speaker 300:08:00By channel, direct mail originations were up 12%, while branch and digital originations were down 1% 10%, respectively. As we've consistently noted, we've deliberately reduced Page 6 displays our portfolio growth and product mix for the quarter. We closed the Q3 with net finance receivables of just over $1,750,000,000 up $62,000,000 from June 30 and ahead Speaker 200:08:33of our guidance. As of Speaker 300:08:35the end of the 3rd quarter, Our large loan book comprised 73% of our total portfolio and 85% of our portfolio carries an APR at or below 36%. Notably, we grew our small loan portfolio by $30,000,000 or 7% in the 3rd quarter. These higher margin loans will support future revenue yield, offsetting increasing funding costs and meet our return hurdles despite higher expected net credit losses on these somewhat riskier segments. Looking ahead, we expect our ending net receivables in the 4th quarter to grow by approximately $35,000,000 as we continue to monitor the economic environment and maintain our current underwriting standards. We remain focused on smart, controlled growth, particularly given the continued uncertainty around consumer financial health. Speaker 300:09:23As circumstances dictate, we're prepared to further tighten our underwriting or lean back into growth, either of which would impact ending net receivables. As shown on Page 7, our lighter branch footprint strategy in new states and branch consolidation actions in legacy states continue to drive our receivables per branch to all time highs, coming in at $5,000,000 at the end of the quarter. We believe considerable growth During the Payday, total revenue grew 7% to $141,000,000 in the 3rd quarter. Our total revenue yield and interest and fee yield were 32.7% and of 29%, respectively. The year over year decline in yield is primarily attributable to our continued mix shift towards larger, Higher quality loans and the impact of the macroeconomic environment, but we're pleased to see yields move up 80 basis points sequentially, in part from the impact of pricing increases on newer loans and improved credit performance. Speaker 300:10:27In the 4th quarter, we expect sequential declines in interest and fee yield and total revenue yield of 20 basis points and 50 basis points, respectively, due to seasonally higher net credit losses and interest reversals, offset in part by the impact of pricing increases. We continue to anticipate that our increased pricing will drive further benefits for our yields in future quarters as these actions roll through the portfolio over time. Moving to Page 9, our 30 plus day delinquency rate as of quarter end was 7.3% Our net credit loss rate in the 3rd quarter was 11%. Our tightened underwriting helped to ensure that the increase in our delinquency rates stayed in line with seasonal patterns, while net credit losses came off of their 2nd quarter highs as expected. In the 4th quarter, we expect our delinquency rate to increase slightly compared to the Q3 based on normal seasonality. Speaker 300:11:21In addition, we anticipate that our net credit losses will be approximately $52,000,000 in the 4th quarter, with the sequential increase also being due to normal seasonality. Turning to Page 10. Our allowance for credit losses increased slightly in the 3rd quarter as we built reserves to support receivables growth that decreased our reserve rate by 10 basis points to 10.6%. As of quarter end, the allowance was $185,000,000 which continues to compare favorably to our 30 plus day contractual delinquency of $128,000,000 We expect to end the year with a reserve rate between 10.4% and 10.6%, subject to macroeconomic conditions. Over the long term, under a normal economic environment, we continue to expect that our net credit loss to as low as 10%, with the improvement attributable to our shift to higher quality loans. Speaker 300:12:22As we've always done, however, will manage the business in a way that maximizes direct contribution margin and bottom line results. Moving to Page 11, we continue to closely manage our spending while investing in our capabilities and strategic initiatives. G and A expenses for the Q3 were better than our prior guidance coming in at $62,100,000 Our annualized operating Expense ratio was 14.4 percent in the 3rd quarter, 50 basis points better than the prior year period, and our revenue growth outpaced our expense growth by a factor of 2.4x. We'll continue to manage our spending closely moving forward. In the 4th quarter, we expect G and A expenses to be approximately $64,000,000 to $65,000,000 to support receivables growth and continued targeted investments in our operations. Speaker 300:13:14Turning to PAGES 12 and 13, our interest expense for the Q3 was $16,900,000 or 4% of average net receivables on an annualized basis. Despite the sharp increase in benchmark rates since early 2022, we've experienced a comparatively modest increase in interest expense as a percentage of average net receivables, thanks to our fixed rate debt issued through our asset backed securitization program. As of September 30, 87 percent of our debt is fixed rate with a weighted average of 3.6% and a weighted average revolving duration of 1.3 years. In the Q4 of 2023, we expect interest expense to be approximately $18,000,000 or 4.1 percent of average net receivables, with the increase in expense primarily attributable to our expected We also continue to maintain a very strong balance sheet with low leverage, healthy reserves and ample liquidity to fund our growth. As of the end of the Q3, we had $613,000,000 of unused capacity on our credit facility and $179,000,000 of available liquidity, consisting of unrestricted cash on hand and immediate availability to draw down on our revolving credit facilities. Speaker 300:14:40Our debt has staggered revolving duration stretching out 2026. And since 2020, we've maintained a quarter end unused borrowing capacity of between roughly $400,000,000 $700,000,000 demonstrating our ability to protect ourselves against short term disruptions in the credit market. Our 3rd quarter funded debt to equity ratio remains a conservative 4.2:one. We have ample capacity to fund our business even if access to the securitization market were to become restricted. We incurred an effective tax rate of 19% for the 3rd quarter, lower than guidance due to tax benefits from reestablished deferred tax assets for certain state net operating losses. Speaker 300:15:21For the Q4, we expect an effective tax rate of approximately 24% prior to discrete items, such as any tax impacts of equity compensation. We also continue to return capital to our shareholders. Our Board declared a dividend of $0.30 per common share for the Q4. The dividend will be paid on December 13, 2023 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 22, 2023. We're pleased with our Q3 results, our strong balance sheet and our near and long term prospects for controlled Sustainable Growth. Speaker 300:15:55That concludes my remarks. I'll now turn the call back over to Rob. Speaker 200:15:59Thanks, Harp. And as always, I'd like to recognize our team for the outstanding results that it's delivered throughout this economic cycle. Looking ahead, we'll remain focused on consistent execution of our core business, including originating high quality loans within our tightened credit box, closely managing expenses and maintaining a strong balance sheet. Our geographic expansion over the past few years have greatly increased our addressable market, positioning us well to take advantage of consumer demand, while maintaining our conservative credit posture. We're pleased that our early delinquency and first payment default rates continue to outperform 2019 levels. Speaker 200:16:37Thanks in large part to our credit tightening actions over the last several quarters and the strong performance of our more recent loan vintages. We also remain sharply focused on limiting our G and A expenses, while still furthering our key technology, digital and data analytics initiatives that will create additional growth, improved credit performance and greater operating leverage in the future. And of course, we'll continue to monitor the economic environment So that when the conditions are right, we need to immediately leverage our substantial balance sheet strength, liquidity and borrowing capacity to reopen our credit box and lean further into growth. Thank you again for your time and interest. I'll now open up the call for questions. Speaker 200:17:15Operator, would you please open the line? Operator00:17:18Certainly. We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question is from John Hecht with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:17:47Afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. First question is, I think you guys said $52,000,000 of losses or charge offs in the 4th quarter. Just wondering, the roll rates you're assuming behind that, are they relatively consistent with recent quarters or anything that you're Assuming in terms of the migration of roll rates. Speaker 500:18:09Hey, John. How are you? Thanks for the question. Yes, we're assuming consistent roll rates from prior quarter with The normal seasonal lift that we would see, albeit off of elevated levels still. Speaker 400:18:28Okay. And then, I think you guys referred a couple of times in the presentation a little bit of focus on kind of recurring Speaker 200:18:43Of Speaker 400:18:45a recurring customer, but a new customer is just to kind of get a sense for what that specific Focus, Mike, due to the kind of loss mix? Speaker 500:18:56Yes. You broke up there, John, right in the middle of your question. Can I ask you to repeat it because we I think we missed the gist of it? Speaker 400:19:06I apologize. I'm wondering what the kind of loss experience is with between new and recurring customers to get a sense And what that focus might do to losses over the next few quarters? Speaker 500:19:18Yes. And so look, new borrowers and we've never The difference between a new borrower and an existing borrower in terms of higher losses. But new borrowers do perform worse until they're seasoned, right? Now obviously, we've been shifting the mix of our book to Present borrowers and former borrowers from new borrowers over a period of time. But when you're in new geographies and the new states We are. Speaker 500:19:48We're still going to have a reasonably high percentage of new borrowers and that will naturally take time to season through. But Actually take time to season through, but I will tell you though that our underwriting models adjust for the new borrower effect and assume additional stress on those customers. And we underwrite, Obviously, with the assumption not only of that stress, but the incremental cost of funds that we today as well as fully loaded expenses to make sure that we achieve our hurdle. So it's factored Into our models. But Harp, anything to add to that? Speaker 600:20:31Yes. I would just say that our originations continue to be concentrated On programs for present and former borrowers and we know that they perform better than new borrowers just because of the on us data that we have on them. And then the other thing that I would probably add to that in terms of the new borrowers, Rob touched on this, but they fit within our risk box. So when we're making loans to new borrowers, we're making sure that they are meeting those internal hurdles that we have. Speaker 500:21:00Yes. And John, over 70% of our customers are farmer and present borrowers this quarter, Which has been pretty steady, I guess, since last year, a little bit up from last year, Pretty steady. And again, that's related to the new states we're going to have some of that new borrower effect. Speaker 400:21:25Yes. Okay. That's very helpful. Speaker 500:21:27Yes. And it's also important to note though that the vintages Q4 2022 and more recent They're all performing very well. Now they're just now getting to the earliest vintage Q4 2022 is just now getting to 12 months on book. So we're Now performance is good and that's reflective of that mix of new borrowers and present and former borrowers. So that's we feel good about where things are Given the current macro environment for those vintages. Speaker 400:22:05That's very good context. Thank you. And my last question is, I think you guys mentioned and what we've heard is the kind of loss experience is somewhat tied to income ranges. I'm wondering, Are you seeing anything like any dispersion of I guess of credit metrics on a geographical basis? Or is there anything else To discern or is it in your mind is it largely income driven? Speaker 200:22:31Well, Speaker 500:22:34It's not just one factor. I mean, look, we naturally when we tightened, We reduced the lower FICO and increased the percentage to higher income bands. I I think that's just a natural effect of when you're tightening. So it's kind of all built into the mix, but obviously, Employment is a factor, industry states perform differently. We have all these cuts in our underwriting models. Speaker 500:23:06In fact, 100 and 100 of sales where we look at what the returns are and whether that's small loan, large loan, check, Digital loan, homeowner, renter, state by state, we have all those cuts. And We've talked about tightening since the Q4 of 2022 where we really tightened, but we've been tightening throughout 22, but inflation shot up to 9%. But ever since Q4 2022 and every quarter that goes by, We're constantly turning the dials in reaction to what we see in all those individual segments And cuts that we have. And so we feel good that we're making the right decisions and putting on the assets that We'll hit a hurdle even under a stress additional stressed environment, and we're putting on in the end the highest confidence assets each and every quarter. Speaker 700:24:11Great. Thank you very much. Speaker 200:24:16The Operator00:24:22next question is from Vincent Caintic. Anumet, your line is open. Speaker 200:24:29Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Good Speaker 800:24:31afternoon. Thanks for all the detailed guidance that you're giving in the Q4 and laying it out in the slides really very helpful. And, 1st, just wondering the trends that we're seeing in the 4th quarter, Just if that's a good jumping off point when we think about 2024 or going forward, I know it's a little bit of ways away. But When you think about the revenues, the credit performance and your expense controls, just wondering if that's Speaker 200:25:02a good jumping off point in the Q4? Thank you. Speaker 500:25:06Yes, I mean, naturally, you've got to look at 4th quarter and project out from there. And we're not giving specific guidance at this In time for next year, naturally, we're still in the middle of our budget process. But I think most importantly is those vintages that we You said originated at Q4 2022 and sooner is going to be about 80% of the book by the end of this year. A couple more months of seeing how those vintages perform is going to help give us better guidance for all of you as to what we might expect next year. What we do know is the 20% of the book that is pre Q4 'twenty two, That those vintages and some have called it a back book, those vintages are going to create stress in the early part of next year. Speaker 500:26:01By the very nature, they've been matured, Renewed where they could be renewed, paid off and there's still a lot of good customers in there, but there's also customers in there probably proportionately that are under some form of borrower assistance program, which for us is important for them to stay active and engaged, Particularly leading up to tax season. So, if we sit here right now and say what does the credit profile look like for next year, I don't think anybody can predict precisely, particularly given some of the macro events. But what I think we can say is there will be some stress From those earlier vintages that the more recent vintages are performing well and we haven't seen anything there that is causing concern. And I think the things that will make a difference for next year will be, what's the tax refund season look like. I think that's always A big help and a lever very beginning of the year and we will ring fence those assets and Make sure we put everything against collecting against them. Speaker 500:27:09And then of course, if there's any other macro stresses that might be out there, probably The one that we're all kind of looking at is, is there any results or contagion from the Middle East That ends up hitting oil prices. So that would be the one thing we would be looking at as we get close here to the end of the year And figuring out, what next year looks like. Speaker 700:27:36Okay, great. And then I Speaker 800:27:37guess the other, maybe those other lines like Expenses, you've been pretty able to hold those expenses, controls pretty well, the expense ratio. Just wondering if there's more kind of room to hold it, can you hold it kind of relatively fixed for a while? Speaker 500:27:56What I would tell you is that we are laser like focused that every dollar we spend helps drive the business forward. And And we've been strongly profitable in this environment and yet still investing in the business. And we will adjust the spending pattern as we need to, to continue to grow the business Where growth is needed, or to continue to drive operating leverage, that we need to do over time as well. So, can't really give you any more guidance in that right now. Speaker 800:28:36Okay, perfect. And last one for me. So the product mix has shifted. You've talked about high quality loans doing more auto secured. I just wonder if that's a trend That we should expect to continue and if there's any way or are there maybe certain products you want to lean into more? Speaker 800:28:56Thank you. Speaker 500:28:58Well, look, I think auto secured is definitely one that will continue to lean into and grow. And I kind of view that, We've said this before, kind of a one end of the barbell. We have our large loan products that are the bulk of our business now and that are performing well. And then we have the small loan business. And the small loan business It's very attractive on a return basis and you would have seen that we actually grew that This quarter sequentially, same as we did last year sequentially at this time. Speaker 500:29:36And part of that is, we It was part of our tightening where we said, you know what, we have the opportunity instead of making a larger loan to some group of customers, we can give them a Smaller loan, but charge them a little bit more because we perceive the risk to be higher. So we risk based priced it and put on some more small loans and Effectively, we think created a pretty good return on that growth that we did in the small loan book. So There's always that opportunity for us to lean in where it's attractive on small loans. We haven't limited ourselves to a rate cap at 36%. So having the ability, particularly in a rising rate environment or hopefully a Flat rate environment, we'll see how that turns out. Speaker 500:30:27Having that ability to lean back into those segments when it's Appropriate, is something that I think helps us stand out versus competitors. Speaker 700:30:40Great. Very helpful. Thank you. Speaker 200:30:43Great. Appreciate it. Operator00:30:51The next question is from Bill Dezelman with Tieton Capital. Please go ahead. Speaker 700:30:58Thank you. I'd actually like to kind of circle back to the comments that you just made here. You had some pretty significant small loan origination growth this quarter. What is that actually signaling to us? Or What were you doing there? Speaker 700:31:16I think you started to allude to that in your last answer. Speaker 500:31:20Yes. I think, Bill, as we look to put on High confidence growth. High confidence growth doesn't just mean you put on Larger loans with the highest risk ranks. You've got to look at it from a bottom line return On a risk basis as well. And so when we were looking and I'll just give you an example, when you're looking at Whether it's a digital or a check or even a branch loan, renewal on a branch, As we look at that and we've been staying focused on where we might reprice, and we have this $1500 line on small loans, instead of giving somebody $2,000 or $2,500 below a 36% rate, We're looking at the credit quality and say on the margin, you know what, let's give the person a $1500 loan and maybe charge them a 43% rate Because we believe that they're good credit on a relative basis and now we've got the pricing to make sure that we've got plenty of room in buffer built into the stresses on the model to be able to achieve our return hurdles. Speaker 500:32:44So When we say highest confidence asset, we're looking at the highest confident asset on a marginal basis bottom line return. It's not just Necessarily putting on the highest FICO customer. Speaker 700:32:59And Rob, taking that one step further, Said another way, that's the highest ROE customer or are you saying something slightly different than that? Speaker 500:33:09I'm not going to say it's the necessarily the highest ROE or ROA customer. I think what I Because it varies. What I'm saying is, when you look at the best assets you can put on, there is a portion of Parts of the portfolio that you're putting on, and it's attractive business. Speaker 700:33:41All right. And taking that a A step further, I believe that you have given guidance for a 50 basis point sequential decline in your revenue yield in Q4 4 versus Q3. Would you relate that expectation To what you had just highlighted for us? Yes. They seem in contrast that's why it posed the question. Speaker 500:34:09Yes. And the decline in revenue yield that you see in the Q4 is really because of the seasonal increase in NCLs And delinquencies, which will lead to higher reversals. So that's going to be what's driving that impact on a sequential basis. But I think if you were to back out that guidance from the 4th quarter guidance, The still the resulting revenue yields would be higher than what they were in Q2. So The repricing power is in there. Speaker 500:34:47It obviously takes time to build as the portfolio turns over and we're not done Repricing, we are always looking for opportunities to reprice, but it gets masked quarter to quarter sometimes by the Seasonality of the NCLs. Speaker 700:35:06That's very helpful. Thank you. And then, I certainly see the many uncertainties out in the broad environment. But that having been said, are you seeing anything that leads you to think about being more aggressive with originations? Speaker 500:35:27I'm surprised I got that question a little bit in this environment. Look, we're constantly ourselves as I think you would expect us to do is, are we seeing things that indicate we should lean into growth? Or are we seeing things that would say, hey, let's pull back, right? It's a weekly discussion, if you will. And we're able to turn those dials On the underwriting side, weekly to the greatest extent possible. Speaker 500:36:00And so I think that Inflation coming down is key. I think we want to see, as I mentioned earlier, How our recent vintages continue to mature here over the next 3 months or so because look, that's the best indication is where you tightened, are you Seeing the performance that you expected. And then I think it really comes down to just seeing if There's any other macro headwinds that are out there. I mean, we like the fact that there's lots of jobs out there. Unemployment is low. Speaker 500:36:36The economy seems to be Robust and maybe heading for a soft landing even with some pullback in consumer spending. But we're mindful of the fact that There are other effects that could hit us, particularly if oil prices spike for some reason. And so We're just taking that all into consideration. I think it's partly why we're guiding to kind of a more modest growth in the Q4 versus Q3, Because we're making these judgments real time. Speaker 700:37:14Great. Thank you for the time. Speaker 500:37:16That was great. Appreciate it, Bill. Operator00:37:20This This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Beck for any closing remarks. Speaker 500:37:29Thanks, operator, and thanks everyone for joining the call. Look, as we close out this year and approach 2024, As I said, we're going to continue to monitor the changing macro conditions and the overall health of the consumer. And let me just Say again, and I know we had it in our prepared remarks, but we're focused on the fundamentals. Strong underwriting, we're adjusting our underwriting as needed. We're focused on disciplined growth and growth as appropriate, as we put on our highest confidence assets. Speaker 500:38:04We're always focused on tight expense management and investing in those initiatives that drive growth and improve our operating leverage, And of course, maintaining a strong balance sheet and liquidity. And those are the mantra at which we manage the business And we'll continue to do so. And I think like everybody, we're hoping for A brighter 2024 and we're prepared to we're positioned well for 2024 Regardless of the environment, but we're hoping for a very strong environment. Operator00:38:42This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.Read morePowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallRegional Management Q3 202300:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Regional Management Earnings HeadlinesRegional Management Completes $265 Million SecuritizationApril 2, 2025 | tipranks.comRegional Management Corp. to Report First Quarter 2025 Results on Wednesday, April 30, 2025April 2, 2025 | businesswire.comThe Crypto Market is About to Change LivesI've discovered something so significant about the 2025 crypto market that I had to put everything else aside and write a book about it. This isn't just another Bitcoin prediction – it's a complete roadmap for what I believe will be the biggest wealth-building opportunity of this decade. The evidence is so compelling, I'm doing something that probably seems insane: I'm giving away my entire book for free. April 20, 2025 | Crypto 101 Media (Ad)Regional Management Corp. Completes $265 Million Asset-Backed SecuritizationApril 2, 2025 | businesswire.comRegional Management Updates Executive Compensation PlanMarch 19, 2025 | tipranks.comRegional Management Corp. Appoints Julie Booth to Its Board of DirectorsMarch 13, 2025 | gurufocus.comSee More Regional Management Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Regional Management? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Regional Management and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Regional ManagementRegional Management (NYSE:RM), a diversified consumer finance company, provides various installment loan products primarily to customers with limited access to consumer credit from banks, thrifts, credit card companies, and other lenders in the United States. It offers small and large installment loans; and retail loans to finance the purchase of furniture, appliances, and other retail products. The company also provides insurance products, including credit life, credit accident and health, credit property, vehicle single interest, and credit involuntary unemployment insurance; collateral protection insurance; and property insurance, as well as reinsurance products. In addition, its loans are sourced through branches, centrally-managed direct mail campaigns, and digital partners, as well as its consumer website. The company was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Greer, South Carolina.View Regional Management ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Archer Aviation Unveils NYC Network Ahead of Key Earnings Report3 Reasons to Like the Look of Amazon Ahead of EarningsTesla Stock Eyes Breakout With Earnings on DeckJohnson & Johnson Earnings Were More Good Than Bad—Time to Buy? 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There are 9 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Regional Management Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask I would now like to turn the conference over to Garrett Edson with ICR. Operator00:00:35Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:37Thank you and good afternoon. By now everyone should have access to our earnings announcement and supplemental which were released prior to this call and may be found on our website at regionalmanagement.com. Before we begin our formal remarks, I will direct you to page 2 of our supplemental presentation, which contains important disclosures concerning forward looking statements and the use of non GAAP financial measures. Part of our discussion today may include Forward looking statements, which are based on management's current expectations, estimates and projections about the company's future financial performance and business prospects. These forward looking statements speak only as of today and are subject to various assumptions, risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in the forward looking statements. Speaker 100:01:19These statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore you should not place undue reliance upon them. We refer all of you to our press release presentation and recent filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of our forward looking statements and the risks and uncertainties that could impact our future operating results and financial condition. Also, our discussion today may include references to certain non GAAP measures. Reconciliation of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measure can be found within our earnings announcement or earnings presentation and posted on our website at regionalmanagement.com. I would now like to introduce Rob Beck, President and CEO of Regional Management Corp. Speaker 200:01:53Thanks, Garrett, and welcome to our Q3 2023 earnings call. I'm joined today by Harp Rana, our Chief Financial Officer. Harp and I will take you through our Q3 results, discuss the current operating environment and loan portfolio performance and share our expectations for the Q4. We continued our focus on portfolio quality, expense management and strong execution of our core business in the 3rd quarter. We generated $8,800,000 of net income and $0.91 of diluted EPS. Speaker 200:02:22Strong loan demand and our conservative underwriting criteria led to a high quality portfolio growth of $62,000,000 record revenue of $141,000,000 and a sequential increase in revenue yields of 80 basis points, all of which exceeded our expectations for the quarter. We also continue to closely manage our G and A expenses while investing in our business, driving a 50 basis points improvement in our operating expense ratio from the prior year. We're pleased with our team's ability to deliver consistent, predictable and superior results for our shareholders quarter after quarter. As you would expect, we're keeping a close eye on the economic environment and its impact on our consumer base. Recent data indicates a strong labor market, moderating inflation and real wage growth. Speaker 200:03:08However, we continue to observe stress in certain segments of our portfolio caused by inflationary pressures. We also remain mindful that the resumption of student loan repayments will impact many consumers' budgets, and we're monitoring whether recent geopolitical events may cause energy prices to increase further. As a result, we remain selective in making loans within our tightened credit box. While we achieved strong high quality portfolio growth in the 3rd quarter, we slowed our year over year growth rate to 9%, down from 22% in the Q3 of last year. We're prepared to lean back into growth when the economic conditions are right, but until then, we'll maintain a conservative credit posture. Speaker 200:03:49Our 3rd quarter originations again reflected our selective underwriting. We originated 60% of our volume to our top two risk ranks. We continue to emphasize present and former borrower lending over new borrower lending and we further grew our auto secured portfolio to 8.3% of our total portfolio, up from 6% a year ago. We're also seeing the benefit of the machine learning driven credit and marketing models that we've implemented in recent quarters, and we see additional opportunity for improvement as we develop our next generation models. We ended the 3rd quarter with a 30 plus day delinquency rate of 7.3%, up 40 basis points from the Q2, but consistent with normal seasonal trends. Speaker 200:04:30Our higher quality originations from credit tightening have kept our 1st payment default and early stage delinquency rates below 2019 levels. Our July 1st payment default rate was 50 basis points better than July 2019 rate Our Q3 1 to 59 day delinquency rate was 110 basis points better than the Q3 of 2019. Notably, we're seeing solid performance in Q4 20222023 vintages. As of September 30, These vintages represent nearly 70% of our portfolio, a number that we expect to increase to nearly 80% by year end. Macroeconomic conditions, however, have continued to stress mid- and late stage delinquencies and roll rates, something that we've observed across our industry, particularly for loan businesses originated prior to late 2022. Speaker 200:05:21This is causing our delinquency levels and credit losses to be higher than we'd like. We anticipate that this stress will linger into at least the early part of 2024, but we continue to expect that credit tightening actions, strong collections execution and moderating inflation will gradually bring delinquencies and credit losses back down to more normalized levels over time, subject to the macroeconomic environment. Looking ahead in the near to midterm, we'll navigate this challenging economic environment in much the same way that we have over the past year. We'll focus on strong execution of our core business, including by maintaining a tight credit box and originating loans only where we can achieve our return hurdles under an assumption of additional credit stress and higher funding costs. As we've discussed in the past, we have a large addressable market that provides us Apple opportunity to take advantage of high levels of consumer demand to drive strong portfolio growth, while still remaining selective in approving borrowers under our conservative underwriting criteria. Speaker 200:06:20Where appropriate, we'll also continue to pursue opportunities to increase pricing and expand our margins, a strategy that has been effective in recent quarters in improving our revenue yield. At the same time, we'll keep a firm handle on expenses, while continuing to make create additional sustainable growth, improved credit performance and greater operating efficiency and leverage over the long term. In summary, we're pleased with our results and we're proud of our team's execution. We're well positioned to operate effectively in the current economic cycle and with ample liquidity, I'll now turn the call over to Harp to provide additional color on our financial results. Speaker 300:07:15Thank you, Rob, and hello, everyone. I'll now take you through our 3rd quarter results in more detail. On Page 3 of the supplemental presentation, we provide our 3rd quarter financial highlights. We generated net income of $8,800,000 and diluted earnings per share of $0.91 Our results were driven once again by high quality portfolio and revenue growth and careful management of expenses, partially offset by increased funding costs and net credit loss headwinds caused by macroeconomic conditions. Turning to Pages 4 and 5, demand remained strong in the quarter, but our tighter underwriting standards, emphasis on present and former borrower originations and collections focus led us to increase total originations by only 2% from the prior year. Speaker 300:08:00By channel, direct mail originations were up 12%, while branch and digital originations were down 1% 10%, respectively. As we've consistently noted, we've deliberately reduced Page 6 displays our portfolio growth and product mix for the quarter. We closed the Q3 with net finance receivables of just over $1,750,000,000 up $62,000,000 from June 30 and ahead Speaker 200:08:33of our guidance. As of Speaker 300:08:35the end of the 3rd quarter, Our large loan book comprised 73% of our total portfolio and 85% of our portfolio carries an APR at or below 36%. Notably, we grew our small loan portfolio by $30,000,000 or 7% in the 3rd quarter. These higher margin loans will support future revenue yield, offsetting increasing funding costs and meet our return hurdles despite higher expected net credit losses on these somewhat riskier segments. Looking ahead, we expect our ending net receivables in the 4th quarter to grow by approximately $35,000,000 as we continue to monitor the economic environment and maintain our current underwriting standards. We remain focused on smart, controlled growth, particularly given the continued uncertainty around consumer financial health. Speaker 300:09:23As circumstances dictate, we're prepared to further tighten our underwriting or lean back into growth, either of which would impact ending net receivables. As shown on Page 7, our lighter branch footprint strategy in new states and branch consolidation actions in legacy states continue to drive our receivables per branch to all time highs, coming in at $5,000,000 at the end of the quarter. We believe considerable growth During the Payday, total revenue grew 7% to $141,000,000 in the 3rd quarter. Our total revenue yield and interest and fee yield were 32.7% and of 29%, respectively. The year over year decline in yield is primarily attributable to our continued mix shift towards larger, Higher quality loans and the impact of the macroeconomic environment, but we're pleased to see yields move up 80 basis points sequentially, in part from the impact of pricing increases on newer loans and improved credit performance. Speaker 300:10:27In the 4th quarter, we expect sequential declines in interest and fee yield and total revenue yield of 20 basis points and 50 basis points, respectively, due to seasonally higher net credit losses and interest reversals, offset in part by the impact of pricing increases. We continue to anticipate that our increased pricing will drive further benefits for our yields in future quarters as these actions roll through the portfolio over time. Moving to Page 9, our 30 plus day delinquency rate as of quarter end was 7.3% Our net credit loss rate in the 3rd quarter was 11%. Our tightened underwriting helped to ensure that the increase in our delinquency rates stayed in line with seasonal patterns, while net credit losses came off of their 2nd quarter highs as expected. In the 4th quarter, we expect our delinquency rate to increase slightly compared to the Q3 based on normal seasonality. Speaker 300:11:21In addition, we anticipate that our net credit losses will be approximately $52,000,000 in the 4th quarter, with the sequential increase also being due to normal seasonality. Turning to Page 10. Our allowance for credit losses increased slightly in the 3rd quarter as we built reserves to support receivables growth that decreased our reserve rate by 10 basis points to 10.6%. As of quarter end, the allowance was $185,000,000 which continues to compare favorably to our 30 plus day contractual delinquency of $128,000,000 We expect to end the year with a reserve rate between 10.4% and 10.6%, subject to macroeconomic conditions. Over the long term, under a normal economic environment, we continue to expect that our net credit loss to as low as 10%, with the improvement attributable to our shift to higher quality loans. Speaker 300:12:22As we've always done, however, will manage the business in a way that maximizes direct contribution margin and bottom line results. Moving to Page 11, we continue to closely manage our spending while investing in our capabilities and strategic initiatives. G and A expenses for the Q3 were better than our prior guidance coming in at $62,100,000 Our annualized operating Expense ratio was 14.4 percent in the 3rd quarter, 50 basis points better than the prior year period, and our revenue growth outpaced our expense growth by a factor of 2.4x. We'll continue to manage our spending closely moving forward. In the 4th quarter, we expect G and A expenses to be approximately $64,000,000 to $65,000,000 to support receivables growth and continued targeted investments in our operations. Speaker 300:13:14Turning to PAGES 12 and 13, our interest expense for the Q3 was $16,900,000 or 4% of average net receivables on an annualized basis. Despite the sharp increase in benchmark rates since early 2022, we've experienced a comparatively modest increase in interest expense as a percentage of average net receivables, thanks to our fixed rate debt issued through our asset backed securitization program. As of September 30, 87 percent of our debt is fixed rate with a weighted average of 3.6% and a weighted average revolving duration of 1.3 years. In the Q4 of 2023, we expect interest expense to be approximately $18,000,000 or 4.1 percent of average net receivables, with the increase in expense primarily attributable to our expected We also continue to maintain a very strong balance sheet with low leverage, healthy reserves and ample liquidity to fund our growth. As of the end of the Q3, we had $613,000,000 of unused capacity on our credit facility and $179,000,000 of available liquidity, consisting of unrestricted cash on hand and immediate availability to draw down on our revolving credit facilities. Speaker 300:14:40Our debt has staggered revolving duration stretching out 2026. And since 2020, we've maintained a quarter end unused borrowing capacity of between roughly $400,000,000 $700,000,000 demonstrating our ability to protect ourselves against short term disruptions in the credit market. Our 3rd quarter funded debt to equity ratio remains a conservative 4.2:one. We have ample capacity to fund our business even if access to the securitization market were to become restricted. We incurred an effective tax rate of 19% for the 3rd quarter, lower than guidance due to tax benefits from reestablished deferred tax assets for certain state net operating losses. Speaker 300:15:21For the Q4, we expect an effective tax rate of approximately 24% prior to discrete items, such as any tax impacts of equity compensation. We also continue to return capital to our shareholders. Our Board declared a dividend of $0.30 per common share for the Q4. The dividend will be paid on December 13, 2023 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 22, 2023. We're pleased with our Q3 results, our strong balance sheet and our near and long term prospects for controlled Sustainable Growth. Speaker 300:15:55That concludes my remarks. I'll now turn the call back over to Rob. Speaker 200:15:59Thanks, Harp. And as always, I'd like to recognize our team for the outstanding results that it's delivered throughout this economic cycle. Looking ahead, we'll remain focused on consistent execution of our core business, including originating high quality loans within our tightened credit box, closely managing expenses and maintaining a strong balance sheet. Our geographic expansion over the past few years have greatly increased our addressable market, positioning us well to take advantage of consumer demand, while maintaining our conservative credit posture. We're pleased that our early delinquency and first payment default rates continue to outperform 2019 levels. Speaker 200:16:37Thanks in large part to our credit tightening actions over the last several quarters and the strong performance of our more recent loan vintages. We also remain sharply focused on limiting our G and A expenses, while still furthering our key technology, digital and data analytics initiatives that will create additional growth, improved credit performance and greater operating leverage in the future. And of course, we'll continue to monitor the economic environment So that when the conditions are right, we need to immediately leverage our substantial balance sheet strength, liquidity and borrowing capacity to reopen our credit box and lean further into growth. Thank you again for your time and interest. I'll now open up the call for questions. Speaker 200:17:15Operator, would you please open the line? Operator00:17:18Certainly. We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question is from John Hecht with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:17:47Afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. First question is, I think you guys said $52,000,000 of losses or charge offs in the 4th quarter. Just wondering, the roll rates you're assuming behind that, are they relatively consistent with recent quarters or anything that you're Assuming in terms of the migration of roll rates. Speaker 500:18:09Hey, John. How are you? Thanks for the question. Yes, we're assuming consistent roll rates from prior quarter with The normal seasonal lift that we would see, albeit off of elevated levels still. Speaker 400:18:28Okay. And then, I think you guys referred a couple of times in the presentation a little bit of focus on kind of recurring Speaker 200:18:43Of Speaker 400:18:45a recurring customer, but a new customer is just to kind of get a sense for what that specific Focus, Mike, due to the kind of loss mix? Speaker 500:18:56Yes. You broke up there, John, right in the middle of your question. Can I ask you to repeat it because we I think we missed the gist of it? Speaker 400:19:06I apologize. I'm wondering what the kind of loss experience is with between new and recurring customers to get a sense And what that focus might do to losses over the next few quarters? Speaker 500:19:18Yes. And so look, new borrowers and we've never The difference between a new borrower and an existing borrower in terms of higher losses. But new borrowers do perform worse until they're seasoned, right? Now obviously, we've been shifting the mix of our book to Present borrowers and former borrowers from new borrowers over a period of time. But when you're in new geographies and the new states We are. Speaker 500:19:48We're still going to have a reasonably high percentage of new borrowers and that will naturally take time to season through. But Actually take time to season through, but I will tell you though that our underwriting models adjust for the new borrower effect and assume additional stress on those customers. And we underwrite, Obviously, with the assumption not only of that stress, but the incremental cost of funds that we today as well as fully loaded expenses to make sure that we achieve our hurdle. So it's factored Into our models. But Harp, anything to add to that? Speaker 600:20:31Yes. I would just say that our originations continue to be concentrated On programs for present and former borrowers and we know that they perform better than new borrowers just because of the on us data that we have on them. And then the other thing that I would probably add to that in terms of the new borrowers, Rob touched on this, but they fit within our risk box. So when we're making loans to new borrowers, we're making sure that they are meeting those internal hurdles that we have. Speaker 500:21:00Yes. And John, over 70% of our customers are farmer and present borrowers this quarter, Which has been pretty steady, I guess, since last year, a little bit up from last year, Pretty steady. And again, that's related to the new states we're going to have some of that new borrower effect. Speaker 400:21:25Yes. Okay. That's very helpful. Speaker 500:21:27Yes. And it's also important to note though that the vintages Q4 2022 and more recent They're all performing very well. Now they're just now getting to the earliest vintage Q4 2022 is just now getting to 12 months on book. So we're Now performance is good and that's reflective of that mix of new borrowers and present and former borrowers. So that's we feel good about where things are Given the current macro environment for those vintages. Speaker 400:22:05That's very good context. Thank you. And my last question is, I think you guys mentioned and what we've heard is the kind of loss experience is somewhat tied to income ranges. I'm wondering, Are you seeing anything like any dispersion of I guess of credit metrics on a geographical basis? Or is there anything else To discern or is it in your mind is it largely income driven? Speaker 200:22:31Well, Speaker 500:22:34It's not just one factor. I mean, look, we naturally when we tightened, We reduced the lower FICO and increased the percentage to higher income bands. I I think that's just a natural effect of when you're tightening. So it's kind of all built into the mix, but obviously, Employment is a factor, industry states perform differently. We have all these cuts in our underwriting models. Speaker 500:23:06In fact, 100 and 100 of sales where we look at what the returns are and whether that's small loan, large loan, check, Digital loan, homeowner, renter, state by state, we have all those cuts. And We've talked about tightening since the Q4 of 2022 where we really tightened, but we've been tightening throughout 22, but inflation shot up to 9%. But ever since Q4 2022 and every quarter that goes by, We're constantly turning the dials in reaction to what we see in all those individual segments And cuts that we have. And so we feel good that we're making the right decisions and putting on the assets that We'll hit a hurdle even under a stress additional stressed environment, and we're putting on in the end the highest confidence assets each and every quarter. Speaker 700:24:11Great. Thank you very much. Speaker 200:24:16The Operator00:24:22next question is from Vincent Caintic. Anumet, your line is open. Speaker 200:24:29Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Good Speaker 800:24:31afternoon. Thanks for all the detailed guidance that you're giving in the Q4 and laying it out in the slides really very helpful. And, 1st, just wondering the trends that we're seeing in the 4th quarter, Just if that's a good jumping off point when we think about 2024 or going forward, I know it's a little bit of ways away. But When you think about the revenues, the credit performance and your expense controls, just wondering if that's Speaker 200:25:02a good jumping off point in the Q4? Thank you. Speaker 500:25:06Yes, I mean, naturally, you've got to look at 4th quarter and project out from there. And we're not giving specific guidance at this In time for next year, naturally, we're still in the middle of our budget process. But I think most importantly is those vintages that we You said originated at Q4 2022 and sooner is going to be about 80% of the book by the end of this year. A couple more months of seeing how those vintages perform is going to help give us better guidance for all of you as to what we might expect next year. What we do know is the 20% of the book that is pre Q4 'twenty two, That those vintages and some have called it a back book, those vintages are going to create stress in the early part of next year. Speaker 500:26:01By the very nature, they've been matured, Renewed where they could be renewed, paid off and there's still a lot of good customers in there, but there's also customers in there probably proportionately that are under some form of borrower assistance program, which for us is important for them to stay active and engaged, Particularly leading up to tax season. So, if we sit here right now and say what does the credit profile look like for next year, I don't think anybody can predict precisely, particularly given some of the macro events. But what I think we can say is there will be some stress From those earlier vintages that the more recent vintages are performing well and we haven't seen anything there that is causing concern. And I think the things that will make a difference for next year will be, what's the tax refund season look like. I think that's always A big help and a lever very beginning of the year and we will ring fence those assets and Make sure we put everything against collecting against them. Speaker 500:27:09And then of course, if there's any other macro stresses that might be out there, probably The one that we're all kind of looking at is, is there any results or contagion from the Middle East That ends up hitting oil prices. So that would be the one thing we would be looking at as we get close here to the end of the year And figuring out, what next year looks like. Speaker 700:27:36Okay, great. And then I Speaker 800:27:37guess the other, maybe those other lines like Expenses, you've been pretty able to hold those expenses, controls pretty well, the expense ratio. Just wondering if there's more kind of room to hold it, can you hold it kind of relatively fixed for a while? Speaker 500:27:56What I would tell you is that we are laser like focused that every dollar we spend helps drive the business forward. And And we've been strongly profitable in this environment and yet still investing in the business. And we will adjust the spending pattern as we need to, to continue to grow the business Where growth is needed, or to continue to drive operating leverage, that we need to do over time as well. So, can't really give you any more guidance in that right now. Speaker 800:28:36Okay, perfect. And last one for me. So the product mix has shifted. You've talked about high quality loans doing more auto secured. I just wonder if that's a trend That we should expect to continue and if there's any way or are there maybe certain products you want to lean into more? Speaker 800:28:56Thank you. Speaker 500:28:58Well, look, I think auto secured is definitely one that will continue to lean into and grow. And I kind of view that, We've said this before, kind of a one end of the barbell. We have our large loan products that are the bulk of our business now and that are performing well. And then we have the small loan business. And the small loan business It's very attractive on a return basis and you would have seen that we actually grew that This quarter sequentially, same as we did last year sequentially at this time. Speaker 500:29:36And part of that is, we It was part of our tightening where we said, you know what, we have the opportunity instead of making a larger loan to some group of customers, we can give them a Smaller loan, but charge them a little bit more because we perceive the risk to be higher. So we risk based priced it and put on some more small loans and Effectively, we think created a pretty good return on that growth that we did in the small loan book. So There's always that opportunity for us to lean in where it's attractive on small loans. We haven't limited ourselves to a rate cap at 36%. So having the ability, particularly in a rising rate environment or hopefully a Flat rate environment, we'll see how that turns out. Speaker 500:30:27Having that ability to lean back into those segments when it's Appropriate, is something that I think helps us stand out versus competitors. Speaker 700:30:40Great. Very helpful. Thank you. Speaker 200:30:43Great. Appreciate it. Operator00:30:51The next question is from Bill Dezelman with Tieton Capital. Please go ahead. Speaker 700:30:58Thank you. I'd actually like to kind of circle back to the comments that you just made here. You had some pretty significant small loan origination growth this quarter. What is that actually signaling to us? Or What were you doing there? Speaker 700:31:16I think you started to allude to that in your last answer. Speaker 500:31:20Yes. I think, Bill, as we look to put on High confidence growth. High confidence growth doesn't just mean you put on Larger loans with the highest risk ranks. You've got to look at it from a bottom line return On a risk basis as well. And so when we were looking and I'll just give you an example, when you're looking at Whether it's a digital or a check or even a branch loan, renewal on a branch, As we look at that and we've been staying focused on where we might reprice, and we have this $1500 line on small loans, instead of giving somebody $2,000 or $2,500 below a 36% rate, We're looking at the credit quality and say on the margin, you know what, let's give the person a $1500 loan and maybe charge them a 43% rate Because we believe that they're good credit on a relative basis and now we've got the pricing to make sure that we've got plenty of room in buffer built into the stresses on the model to be able to achieve our return hurdles. Speaker 500:32:44So When we say highest confidence asset, we're looking at the highest confident asset on a marginal basis bottom line return. It's not just Necessarily putting on the highest FICO customer. Speaker 700:32:59And Rob, taking that one step further, Said another way, that's the highest ROE customer or are you saying something slightly different than that? Speaker 500:33:09I'm not going to say it's the necessarily the highest ROE or ROA customer. I think what I Because it varies. What I'm saying is, when you look at the best assets you can put on, there is a portion of Parts of the portfolio that you're putting on, and it's attractive business. Speaker 700:33:41All right. And taking that a A step further, I believe that you have given guidance for a 50 basis point sequential decline in your revenue yield in Q4 4 versus Q3. Would you relate that expectation To what you had just highlighted for us? Yes. They seem in contrast that's why it posed the question. Speaker 500:34:09Yes. And the decline in revenue yield that you see in the Q4 is really because of the seasonal increase in NCLs And delinquencies, which will lead to higher reversals. So that's going to be what's driving that impact on a sequential basis. But I think if you were to back out that guidance from the 4th quarter guidance, The still the resulting revenue yields would be higher than what they were in Q2. So The repricing power is in there. Speaker 500:34:47It obviously takes time to build as the portfolio turns over and we're not done Repricing, we are always looking for opportunities to reprice, but it gets masked quarter to quarter sometimes by the Seasonality of the NCLs. Speaker 700:35:06That's very helpful. Thank you. And then, I certainly see the many uncertainties out in the broad environment. But that having been said, are you seeing anything that leads you to think about being more aggressive with originations? Speaker 500:35:27I'm surprised I got that question a little bit in this environment. Look, we're constantly ourselves as I think you would expect us to do is, are we seeing things that indicate we should lean into growth? Or are we seeing things that would say, hey, let's pull back, right? It's a weekly discussion, if you will. And we're able to turn those dials On the underwriting side, weekly to the greatest extent possible. Speaker 500:36:00And so I think that Inflation coming down is key. I think we want to see, as I mentioned earlier, How our recent vintages continue to mature here over the next 3 months or so because look, that's the best indication is where you tightened, are you Seeing the performance that you expected. And then I think it really comes down to just seeing if There's any other macro headwinds that are out there. I mean, we like the fact that there's lots of jobs out there. Unemployment is low. Speaker 500:36:36The economy seems to be Robust and maybe heading for a soft landing even with some pullback in consumer spending. But we're mindful of the fact that There are other effects that could hit us, particularly if oil prices spike for some reason. And so We're just taking that all into consideration. I think it's partly why we're guiding to kind of a more modest growth in the Q4 versus Q3, Because we're making these judgments real time. Speaker 700:37:14Great. Thank you for the time. Speaker 500:37:16That was great. Appreciate it, Bill. Operator00:37:20This This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Beck for any closing remarks. Speaker 500:37:29Thanks, operator, and thanks everyone for joining the call. Look, as we close out this year and approach 2024, As I said, we're going to continue to monitor the changing macro conditions and the overall health of the consumer. And let me just Say again, and I know we had it in our prepared remarks, but we're focused on the fundamentals. Strong underwriting, we're adjusting our underwriting as needed. We're focused on disciplined growth and growth as appropriate, as we put on our highest confidence assets. Speaker 500:38:04We're always focused on tight expense management and investing in those initiatives that drive growth and improve our operating leverage, And of course, maintaining a strong balance sheet and liquidity. And those are the mantra at which we manage the business And we'll continue to do so. And I think like everybody, we're hoping for A brighter 2024 and we're prepared to we're positioned well for 2024 Regardless of the environment, but we're hoping for a very strong environment. Operator00:38:42This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.Read morePowered by