Shiven Shah
Analyst · David Scharf with JMP Securities. Please proceed with your question
Thanks, Jared, and good afternoon, everyone. As Jared highlighted in his remarks, during the second quarter, we continue to see favorable trends in credit quality and originations, which drove strong profitability continuing the momentum from the first quarter. Prior to going into more details in our second quarter results and full year outlook, I would like to start by walking through a couple of key financial drivers of our business model, starting with the unit economics of our installment loan product. Our flagship product, the OppLoan is a fully amortizing 11 months $15 installment loan, after banks originate the product through a platform, we buyback the majority of economic interests. We earn interest on those receivables. There are no other fees. Our goal is full transparency and ensuring customers have the ability to repay, which underpins our proprietary credit model. Our customer takes about 2.5 loans out over the life, which on average is approximately 11 months. The average customer will have a net charge-off rate of about 38% as a percent of revenue, although we have seen significantly lower loss rates recently during by healthier customer balance sheets, as a result of the government stimulus program. Apart from cost of credit, the other main variable cost driver is our cost of customer acquisition, which has historically been in the $200 range, but 80% of our acquisition channels, which include our third party referral relationship, search engine optimization, customer referrals, and remarketing are based on a variable cost per funded loan, meaning we pay a fixed amount when we fund a loan. The other two variable cost drivers are our sales costs, and cost of financing. About half of our sales costs are from reporting data and tools to support our bank partners underwriting models, and the other half are related to our customer service team, which have played a key role in driving our NPS scores. Our debt financing assumes an 82% loan-to-value and 8% cost of financing, which we have driven lower by about 500 basis points over the past five years, across a diversified set of lenders. This leads to an average of over $600 contribution margin over the customer life and a multiple on invested capital of over two times. Next, I wanted to turn to our operational leverage and our focus on automation. As Jared mentioned, our bank partners now auto approve over 50% of their originations through our platform. That's up from 0% three years ago and 26% at the end of 2020. This has driven an improvement in the conversion rate for our applications to funded loans to 24% at the end of the second quarter versus 14% at the same time in 2019. Now, I'd like to turn to our second quarter 2021 financial results. I would like to note that all comparisons to 2020 from the income statement perspective are based on a proforma fair value adjusted view for 2020 to be able to present a like-for-like comparison. You will recall that on January 1, 2021 the company transition to the fair value accounting method for its receivables from the incurred credit loss application method. We have a solid financial performance in the second quarter highlighted by strong profitability, robust originations and receivables growth and a healthy balance sheet. Second quarter revenue was $78 million. An increase of 6% from the second quarter a year ago and down 7% sequentially. And the receivables balance on an amortized basis were $216 million at the end of the second quarter up 6% sequentially and 19% higher than second quarter a year ago. The sequential drop in revenue was due to seasonality from the tax season as well as government stimulus, which affected customer demand in the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter. This impacted the beginning receivables in the second quarter and drove a 7% decline in average receivables from the first quarter to second quarter this year as the second quarter receivables growth was back awaited. Company originations continue to rebound during the quarter as customer demand accelerate. Total originations were $144 million, up 44% sequentially, 84% in the second quarter a year ago, and 20% from the second quarter of 2019. New customers help drive our growth in the quarter with new customer origination growth up 80% quarter-over-quarter and 143% year-over-year and closer to 2019 levels, but still slightly down this demands remain only at about 75% of pre-COVID levels. Growth in new customers are especially impactful as they can drive the cross sell of additional products in subsequent period. Company origination growth was also driven by improved operating efficiency, as the company's auto approval rate increased from 41% in the first quarter to 51% in the second quarter. This led to a greater than 11% conversion rate of applications to funded loans for new originations, up from 8% a year ago. We are projecting ending receivables at year end to be up over 50% from the second quarter. As a result, we expect total company revenue to increase in the third and fourth quarters of 2021 and have a growth rate of over 20% in the second half of the year versus the first half. Next, I will turn to the change in Fair Value Line which consists of two main components. The first is net charge offs and the second are changes to the portfolio's fair value. The latter is driven by the change in ending receivables over the reporting period as well as the change in the fair value mark as a result of updates to key valuation inputs. These include the weighted average life of the portfolio, future credit loss specification, prepayment assumptions, weighted average coupon and the discount rate. I'll discuss those items in more detail in a moment. First, the company's annualized net charge off ratio as a percentage of average receivables was 28.4% for the second quarter, which represent the lowest ratio of any second quarter in the last five years. This represented an improvement from the 30.1% net charge off ratio in the first quarter and is well below the 40.0% net charge off ratio for the second quarter of 2020. Looking ahead, we expect net charge off ratios to approach historical levels in the low 40% range by the fourth quarter of the year. Second, change in fair value premium increased by $8.6 million from the previous quarter driven by a growth in ending receivables of $15.1 million, and an improvement in the fair value premium from 109.3% to 110.4% as the remaining life of the portfolio increase, driven by a younger portfolio, stemming from 44%, sequential origination growth. In addition, the company's weighted average interest rate in his portfolio, increased by 230 basis points from the previous quarter, as a result of change in state mix. The discount rate of 21.6% remained in line with the prior period. Versus the second quarter of last year, change in fair value premium increased by $23.8 million, driven by a $50.8, million receivables drop in the second quarter of last year, as demand was abnormally low during the early stages of the COVID 19 pandemic. Going forward, we expect the fair value mark to trend upwards, as we should see tailwinds in valuation inputs, including weighted average maturity due to origination growth and discount rate from becoming a publicly traded company. To summarize, the change in fair value of line items is benefiting from historically low net charge off ratios, and an increase in the fair value of the company's receivables portfolio, as a result of origination and receivables growth. Turning now to expenses. Total operating expenses for the second quarter, excluding interest expense and add backs and one-time items, were $37.5 million, or 48% of revenue compared to $32.1 million, or 38% of revenue last year, and $25.0 million, or 34% of revenue for the second quarter of 2020. This increase was primarily driven by an acceleration of originations in the second quarter and the corresponding impact on direct marketing and acquisition expenses. Marketing expenses increased to $11.4 million, or 15% of revenue for the second quarter from $7.9 million, or 9% of revenue last quarter, and from $5.2 million, or 7% of revenue for the second quarter of 2020, as demand accelerated and the higher percentage originations were from new customers. Percent of originations from new customers was 42% for the second quarter, up significantly from 34% last quarter and 32% from the second quarter of 2020. With the increased demand we are seeing from customers, we continue to see the mix of new originations increase and expect marketing expenses as a percentage of revenues to trend slightly above the mid teens as a percentage of revenue. This percentage fluctuates based on origination growth, relative to revenue growth, in periods such as our last one, where origination growth outpaced revenue growth, marketing expenses will be higher as a percentage of revenue, and should come down when growth steadies. Customer operations expenses for the second quarter totaled $9.9 million or 13% of revenue, compared to $9.6 million, or 11% of revenue last quarter, and $8.7 million, or 12% of revenue for the second quarter of 2020, sequential growth of 2.8% and 13.6% growth versus the second quarter of 2020, were well below origination growth over those periods, as the business continued driving efficiency and automation. As I mentioned earlier, the company's automatic approval rate increased to 51% for the second quarter versus 41% for the prior quarter and 19% for the second quarter of last year. This allowed us to hold customer center headcount study sequentially and year-over-year. Looking ahead, we expect customer operations expense percentage growth to be less than half of origination percentage growth sequentially, as we continue to gain scale on customer center costs. Technology, product and analytics expenses for the second quarter totaled $6.5 million, or 8% of revenue compared to $5.8 billion, or 7% of revenue last quarter and $4.7 million, or 6% of revenue for the second quarter of 2020. The company continues to invest in technology resources to support enhancements to our AI powered underwriting engine, as well as support the scaling of new products. G&A expenses, excluding one-time and add backs, for the second quarter total $9.6 million or 12% of revenue compared to $8.7 million or 10% of revenue last quarter and $6.4 million or 9% of revenue for the second quarter of 2020. The increase in G&A expenses was driven by investments in personnel and infrastructure to support the company's augmentation of internal controls, operational risk, and compliance functions as the company transitions to becoming a public entity. We expect G&A expenses as a percentage of revenues to remain consistent with the second quarter for the remainder of the year. Adjusted EBITDA was flat sequentially and increased 255% from a year ago to $32 million for the second quarter. Sequentially, lower revenues and increased expenses, primarily related to increase volumes were offset by an improvement in the change in fair value, driven by strong credit quality and origination. Versus the second quarter of 2020, adjusted EBITDA growth was driven by higher revenue and lower change in fair value as a result of a rebound in receivables growth this year. Our adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 41% compared to 38% last year and 12% for the second quarter of 2020. We expect adjusted EBITDA margins to normalize for the remainder of 2021 as net charge-offs returned to pre-COVID levels, coupled with increased marketing spend, in line with expected origination. Interest expenses, excluding debt amortization for the second quarter totaled $5.7 million or 7% of revenue compared to $4.1 million or 5% of revenue last year, and $4.9 million or 7% of revenue for the second quarter of 2020. The increase in interest expense versus the previous quarter was driven by a normalization of debt levels. We recognized adjusted net income of $17.9 million in the second quarter compared to $19.3 million the previous quarter and $1.6 million for the second quarter of 2020. Adjusted net income for the first half of the year was $37.1 million. Turning now to the balance sheet, our balance sheet continues to remain healthy, driven by strong free cash flow. With cash balances going to $121 million and a net debt to equity of less than one times. Equity grew by $78 million year to date to $177 million as a result of the $69 million one-time fair value adoption impact and $42 million of retained earnings excluding tax distributions, partially offset by tax distributions related to the 2020 tax year of $34 million. From a funding capacity standpoint, we have a diversified capital structure and over $500 million of funding capacity, which we believe will allow us to achieve our growth projections into 2022. I now want to turn to our 2021 guidance on our financials. As we mentioned in our first quarter earnings release, the company's original outlook for 2021 did not contemplate any 2021 government stimulus. However, now that we are seeing the effects of the 2021 stimulus, we're updating our guidance accordingly. We're updating our expected 2021 adjusted net income guidance by providing a range of $62 million to $66 million at the top end of the range in line with our previous expectations. We're also updating our outlook for adjusted EBITDA to a range of $120 million to $125 million. The midpoint implies an adjusted EBITDA margin of 34%, representing an improvement of 200 basis points versus our prior guidance. Our business is naturally hedge from a credit versus growth perspective. So, in periods of slower than expected growth, our credit losses have historically declined, driving higher profit. While demand has continued to increase substantially, as indicated by our sequential and year-over-year originations growth, we now believe the recovery timeline may be a bit extended due to the surge of the Delta variants on top of the multiple incremental government stimulus programs. After a strong second quarter and first half of July, we started to see an impact on the second half of July due to these factors. Given our disciplined approach to underwriting, which is driven stable credit losses across growth cycle, we will not chase volume at the cost of profitability. On the revenue side, we're updating our full year 2021 guidance to range of $350 million to $360 million given these timing related factors. This assumes ending receivables, they would approach 50% growth from second quarter levels. And providing this range, we’ve taking into account a downside growth scenario, which contemplates an adverse impact on consumer demand due to macroeconomic factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We see potential upsides to our guidance should the realized impact of these exogenous factors be less pronounced than we have assumed. We view these events is temporary in nature and do not believe that they will affect the long-term growth trajectory of our business. We also believe that the speed bump on the return to normalized consumer spending to a favorable impact on credit, as we saw in 2020 and the first half of 2021. We continue to remain very confident in the long-term prospects of our business, and the need for our products. As our second quarter Turn Up program data indicated that still less than 2% of customers who opt into our Turn Up program receivable and cost loan. This enhances our belief that we serve as the best available alternative for the Everyday Consumer who cannot access the traditional banking system. To conclude, we are very excited to have announced the completion of our business combination with FG New America Acquisition Corporation on July 20, 2021. We couldn't have found a better partner than the FGNA team led by Joe Moglia, Larry Swets and Kyle Cerminara. Upon the close of the transaction, the combined company had 84.5 million shares outstanding, excluding 25.5 million earn out units. The company also had 15.3 million warrants outstanding with exercise prices at $11.50 and $15 per share. Please refer to the share count slide in the company's earnings presentation for more detail. With that, we’d now like to turn the call over to the operator to the Q&A section of our call. Operator?