Ken Vecchione
Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is open
Thank you, Bruce, and good afternoon everyone. I appreciate everyone joining us this afternoon. After the market closed we posted our third quarter 2015 financial results and we are pleased with our performance. We once again established new records for adjusted income, non-GAAP economic EPS and adjusted EBITDA on a trailing 12 month basis. All progress in the third quarter was driven primarily by three of our strategic initiatives within the company. First, our international platform is delivering strong growth in collections, revenues, and earnings; second, we continued to expand our global footprint by entering new markets and by strengthening and widening our presence in geographies where we are already established. And told they are successfully sustaining our core U.S. business through sizable capital deployments and commitments for 2016 forward flows. Turning to our results, in the third quarter Encore recorded a GAAP loss of $0.43 per share driven primarily by a one-time after-tax charge of $42 million related to our settlement with the CFPD. The corresponding net loss was $11 million. Non-GAAP economic EPS reached a record $1.34 per share compared to $1.17 per share, an increase of 15% from the third quarter of 2014. This is the ninth consecutive quarter that we delivered double-digit economic EPS growth on a percentage basis. Adjusted income grew 12% over the last year to a record $34 million. Cash collections increased 4% to a record $422 million. Adjusted EBITDA, one of our most important measures of underlying performance grew to $268 million; an increase of 7%. On a trailing 12-month basis, adjusted EBITDA grew 9% to $1.053 billion compared to $963 million a year ago . Our overall cost to collect this quarter was 39.2%, up slightly from the 38.9% a year ago reflecting a higher concentration of legal collections compared to a year ago. Our estimated remaining collections or ERC at September 30 was approximately $5.7 billion, an increase of 10% or $526 million compared to the end of the third quarter of 2014. Deployments totaled $215 million in the quarter. In the U.S. the majority of the deployments represented charged off credit card paper mostly comprised of fresh accounts. This purchasing level reflects our substantial domestic market share and reinforces the fact that the U.S. core markets to provides us with solid opportunities to deploy capital. Our Propel subsidiary also purchased $28 million in tax liens during the third quarter. Our operations in Cabot and Grove deployed $42 million in Europe during the quarter. In Latin America we deployed $13 million. Approaching the unity expect to deploy capital in 2015 at a level that is consistent with the previous years' deployments in the U.S. and we remain on track to deploy capital globally within the $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion target range for the full-year. As you take a view towards 2016, committed contractual flows has positioned as well for the upcoming year. Issuers have become more comfortable lengthening their forward flow contracts with us as the ambiguity surrounding the regulatory environment has been resolved. We are no more convinced than ever that has to increased emphasis on compliance itself by the others in the industry, the mould around our business built upon debt compliance and risk management practices would only get wider and deeper enhancing the barriers to entry and competition within the U.S. market. The primary driver of our collection performance in Q3 was the continued growth of our international business over the past two years, our acquisitions around the world have expanded our footprint and provided Encore with greater optionality when we may capital allocation decision. Establishing leadership positions in the markets outside of the United States has been a primary goal of Encore’s overall growth strategy. In the third quarter, collections from our international business grew 23% compared to last year and now comprised 33% of our total collections, reflecting our continue growth outside of the United States. Most notably collections in Europe grew 26% in the third quarter compared to the last year. Our collection performance in the third quarter let us strong cash flows we generated $268 million of adjusted EBITDA, an increase of 7% over the third quarter of 2014. Adjusted EBITDA is one of the most important ways that we measure our company’s operating performance that helps us determine amounts of available for future purchases, capital expenditures, debt service, and taxes and it gives the investors a clear picture of the strong cash flow generated by our business. On a trailing 12-month basis, adjusted EBITDA grew 9% to over $1 billion. Cabot continues to improve its position in the growing UK market and delivering solid performance in the third quarter. Cabot's revenues grew 22% year-over-year while Cabot generated $123 million of collections in the third quarter of 2015 reflecting more than 20% growth in collections compared with the same period a year ago. To the end of the third quarter, Cabot has deployed approximately $335 million in 2015 including the portfolio purchase as part of the DLC acquisition. Cabot’s economic EPS contribution to Encore's results rose to $0.30 in the third quarter of 2015, up 43% compared to the $0.21 contribution from the same quarter a year ago. Cabot continues to enhance their collections through Marlin’s litigation focused capabilities. In October, we completed the acquisition of the controlling interest in Baycorp, a leader in the debt recovery solutions throughout Australia and New Zealand. Baycorp is well recognized by consumers in the region and is well respected by the issuers there. Baycorp holds a top four position in Australia and the clear number one in New Zealand. These are the two markets for Encore that are showing solid growth and possess promises and opportunities to continue to diversify geographically while growing and consolidating market share. Approximately one-third of Baycorp’s current business is in contingency collections. We expect to leverage Encore’s resources in India and the U.S. to support Baycorp becoming the leading debt specialist in the models. In September, we announced the settlement agreement with the CFPB that removes uncertainty that was associated with the Bureau Investigation of the debt buying industry. Importantly, through our settlement the industry received much needed clarity regarding the Bureau operational expectations in advance of their anticipated rule making due in 2016. In our discussions with the CFPB, we provided many detailed examples of our current collection practices believing that they should become the industry's new standards. Indications are that the issuers are adapting some of these same standards and will require mid-tier competitors to comply with these enhanced expectations. This is what we wanted and what we have worked towards for the past several years as the market leader in driving initiatives that protect consumer’s right in the debt recovery status. We introduced our Consumer Bill of Rights in 2011 and since then we have grown our business and improved our procedures with the ultimate goal of providing economic relief and empowerment to consumers so they can restore their personal, financial health. This principal intent remains an important footing upon which we built our company. I want to take a moment to address the events of the past couple of days. First, we welcome and fully support the FTC and their new initiative to crack down on abusive debt collectors who continue to give our important industry a poor reputation. We also applaud the FTC and their partners' efforts in establishing a clear, reasonable basis to collect. This is the cause that we have worked diligently towards so that we can assure the consumer really owes what we are trying to collect. While now since like the one made on Tuesday can cause a temporary dislocation of our stock price, we want to emphasize that we continue to differentiate ourselves within our industry by the level of investment that we have made in compliance and risk management. Alongside of our strong data analysts these investments represent a true competitor advantage. The star truth is that companies who want to compete with us going forward must also invest heavily in their own compliance capabilities. We made this in an intense area of focus for ourselves. The issuers appreciate our diligent approach and have begun to require it from our competitors and the regulators now demand it. This is the standard we have set in the industry. Cemented in place by our settlement with the CFPB. I will turn it over to John who will go through the financial results and then I will answer some of your questions.