David Fisher
Analyst · Janney. Please go ahead
Good afternoon everyone. Thanks for joining our call today. I’m going to start by giving a brief overview of the quarter, then I’ll update you on our strategy or 2018. And finally, I will share our perspectives looking forward. After my remarks, I will turn the call over to Steve Cunningham, our CFO, to discuss our financial results and guidance in more detail. The fourth quarter was a strong end to a strong year for Enova. We're very pleased with performance across the business and the momentum we have going into 2018. Fourth quarter revenue was a record $244 million, an increase of 20% from Q4 of last year, and above the high end of our guidance range. Driving the increase in revenue was growth in our US and international subprime installment loan portfolios, our line of credit portfolios and NetCredit. But we also saw a healthy demand across our other products. We continue to believe we offer the best products in each of our markets by providing simple, fast access to high quality credit for people and small businesses who have limited savings and who do not qualify for traditional bank products. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter rose 9% from a year ago to $38 million, which was in line with our guidance of $32 million to $42 million. EBITDA once again benefited from our effective and efficient marketing, as well as continued solid credit performance. Total company wide originations in Q4 increased 8% sequentially and 19% from the prior year. This drove growth in our loan and financing receivables book of 24% year over year, and 12% from the prior quarter. The largest contributors to this growth were again, our domestic and international installment loan products, our line of credit products and NetCredit. Installment loans and lines of credit now comprise 78% of our total revenue and 88% of our portfolio. Importantly, we believe that the significant momentum we built in 2017 as exhibited by the strong growth in originations and our loan and financing receivables book, will benefit us as we move forward. Our success and strong results across our short term line of credit and installment and receivables purchase agreement segment, have been driven by our focus on our six growth businesses, namely our US subprime business, our US near-prime offering, our UK consumer brands, US Small Business financing, our installment loan business in Brazil, and Enova Decisions, our analytics-as-a-service business. We remain focused on actively building out each of these businesses and adding additional products within them to drive growth. Given our experience so far and the large market opportunity each of these businesses is attacking, we continue to believe that each has potential to reach $100 million plus in EBITDA contribution. Our large US subprime consumer business generated another strong quarter of profitability. As this business grows, it is also becoming more diversified, with 35% of that business portfolio now consisting of installment products, 44% line of credit products, and only 21% single pay products. In fact, all of our domestic revenue growth in 2017 were generated by installment and line of credit products. And across our entire US portfolio, only 8% of our balances are from single pay products, showing the success of our diversification efforts. This compares to almost 24% in 2014 when we completed our spin off. In the UK, we achieved our first full year of revenue growth following the regulatory changes there. Our UK revenue rose 11% in 2017, and Q4 revenue increased by 31% year over year. Meanwhile, our Q4 UK loan originations rose 33% from 2016, driven by strong growth in both our single pay and installment products. On a constant currency basis, loan originations increased 25% year over year. We remain the leading subprime wonder in the UK by market share, and our UK business is profitable, with approximately $20 million of EBITDA contribution in 2017. Given the strong momentum we're seeing in the UK, we expect substantial revenue and EBITDA growth in this business in 2018. NetCredit sustained its strong pace of growth in 2017, with loan balances increasing by nearly $100 million. During Q4, NetCredit loan balances reached $371 million, which is up 33% from the fourth quarter of 2016. As a result of this growth, our US near-prime product represented 4 9% of our total US portfolio at the end of Q4. NetCredit’s Q4 originations rose 78% over the prior year, and 8% sequentially as we saw growth in NetCredit accelerate throughout the year. During 2017, NetCredit reached nearly $30 million of EBITDA contribution. And we anticipate that NetCredit’s large AR balance, combined with continued origination growth, will lead to meaningfully higher levels of EBITDA contribution going forward. Our small business financing portfolio represented 9% of our total loan book at the end of Q4. As we have mentioned in prior quarters, we maintained a more methodical approach than some of our peers, to growth of these products, and we continue to see the benefits of that approach. Recent vintages of our small business book are performing well, and the unit economics continue to improve. While our loan portfolio contracted slightly sequentially and year over year, the business was EBITDA positive for the first time in 2017. Our Brazilian loan portfolio ended the quarter at $17 million. Q4 originations rose 97% from Q4 of last year, but were down 11% from Q3, reflecting typical seasonality. We continue to see a large opportunity in Brazil from a combination of its sizable population, strong demand for credit, a stable regulatory environment, and a modern banking system. Finally, Enova Decisions, our real time analytics-as-a-service business, continues to make good progress and gain traction with customers across several verticals. While this business is still in its very early stages, it’s encouraging that we're able to generate millions of dollars in run rate revenue in our first full year in business. The next big test will be increasing the rate of customer acquisition while successfully serving our current customers. Before wrapping up today, I want to touch on recent regulatory developments. I think everyone has seen the news about more changes at the CFPB. We worked with CFPB during the formulation of the small dollar rule that was published in October. However, we felt there were several recommendations that industry and advocate groups made that were not adopted in that rule. Ideas like the NACHA guidelines for ACH, using the CARD Act passed by Congress for ability to repay standards, and establishing a national registry of lenders. We're glad to see there will be reconsideration of common sense approaches like those, as the CFPB has announced that it may review the rule again. At this point, it isn't clear what the timeline will be, nor is it clear what the outcome will be. But in the meantime, we will continue to build a flexible lending platform that will allow us to adapt our products to a final rule. We believe that our focus on products with the features customers want and our flexible online model, are preferred by borrowers and will enable us to grow our share of the non-prime credit market. Overall, we're very pleased with our performance in 2017 and the continued momentum we see in the business. This sets us up for another strong year. So it's also a testament to our strategy to transform the business since our spin off a little over three years ago. On the shoulders of our world class analytics and technology, during this time we entered new markets, launched multiple new products, and diversified our marketing channels, all while navigating significant regulatory changes. As a result, we substantially diversified our revenue to drive growth and decrease regulatory risk. And we continue to win on the competitor front as our advanced and efficient marketing is resonating with customers. Furthermore, our deep and solid diversified funding, enables us to aggressively pursue growth opportunities when we see them. I feel confident in our direction and I believe that our outstanding team, focused growth strategy, strong competitive position, and solid balance sheet, will enable us to drive continued success in 2018 and achieve our mission of helping hardworking people fulfill their financial responsibilities with fast, trustworthy credit. Now I’d like to turn the call over to Steve Cunningham, our CFO, who’ll go over the financials in more detail. Following Steve’s remarks, we’ll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Steve?