Evangelos Perros
Analyst · Citi
Thank you, Sanjiv. As always, I will cover our financial and operating results and provide updated guidance for Q3 and full year 2025. But first, I want to take a moment to highlight a pivotal milestone in our journey as a public company, our inaugural corporate credit rating and successful execution of our unsecured notes issuance. This marks a key step in the continued optimization and maturity of our capital structure and serves as a strong validation of our team's execution. Let's revisit the foundation we laid in early 2024 when we introduced our revised financial strategy. At that time, we committed to two core goals: achieving GAAP net income profitability and generating positive cash flow. Having delivered on both with continued momentum, we shift our focus towards fully leveraging our next-generation product-led financial platform, one that is resilient, increasingly capital efficient and built to support great scale. These attributes are what enable us to drive compounding value for our partners and shareholders, supported by disciplined underwriting, strategic capital deployment and structural operating leverage. To that end, the successful completion of our $500 million senior unsecured notes offering, supported by all three major credit rating agencies was a step toward that goal and the evolution of our long-term financial strategy. You can find the details in our shareholder letter, but I want to highlight some of those benefits. First and foremost, we have reduced our cost of debt from approximately 11% to approximately 9% without effectively altering net leverage. Second, we improved GAAP profitability with approximately $12 million in expected annualized interest savings. Third, we enhanced cash flow by an estimated $40 million annually, driven by both interest savings and the retirement of secured debt that would otherwise amortize. Fourth, we simplified our capital structure by eliminating legacy restrictive covenants, extending debt maturities to 2030 and releasing valuable liquid assets, improving both liquidity and flexibility. Finally, this transaction is an endorsement of our strategy and opens access to the deepest pockets of institutional capital. It elevates our positioning across all of our constituents from funding partners to lending institutions. I'm incredibly grateful for the trust placed in us by top-tier investors. Turning to our financial results. We reported record results across all our key metrics, each at or above the high end of our original second quarter guidance. Most importantly, our results underscore the consistency and profitability of our network volume growth. Network volume grew 14% year-over-year to $2.6 billion, above the high end of our guidance. Personal loans were the largest contributor of volume in the quarter, up 23% year-over-year. At the same time, our results are increasingly diversified with POS and auto volumes comprising 30% of total volumes versus 9% one year ago. In line with the past three years, our conversion of applications to funded loans was at approximately 1%. We expect this level to remain steady in the near term as our increasing flow of partner applications enable us to adhere to our stringent underwriting standards and through the cycle profitable growth. Total revenue and other income was a record $326 million this quarter, up 30% from a year ago levels, with revenue from fees growing by 31%. FRLPC reached a record $126 million, up 30% year-over-year, outpacing network volume growth. Our focus on profitable growth drove FRLPC as a percent of network volume up 61 basis points year-over-year to 4.8%. FRLPC contribution from lending partner fees continues to grow at 81% of total FRLPC in the quarter versus 69% in 2Q '24 and only 1% in 2022. Adjusted EBITDA reached a record $86 million, an increase of 72% from the second quarter of 2024, representing 6 points in margin improvement at 26.4%. This was due to a combination of strong top line growth and our unique operating leverage with core operating expenses as a percent of FRLPC near the lowest level since going public. In fact, incremental EBITDA margin as a percent of FRLPC topped 100% on a year-over-year basis. Core operating expenses have risen sequentially in the second quarter due to higher ABS issuance of $2.3 billion versus $1.4 billion last quarter and our inaugural POSH ABS. These excess issuance drove expenses higher, which we expect to normalize next quarter. Excluding ABS setup costs, comp and all other non-comp combined as a percent of FRLPC continued to decline, demonstrating the inherent operating leverage of our business. These same factors drove GAAP net income growth of $9 million sequentially and $91 million year-over-year to $17 million. This represents a 5% margin in our second consecutive quarter of GAAP net income profitability versus 3% last quarter and negative 30% a year ago. Credit-related fair value adjustments reported in our other expense net amounted to a loss of $11 million in the quarter versus $24 million in the prior quarter. In addition, there were $4 million in loan-related losses versus $6 million in the prior quarter. Interest expense was $23 million in the quarter, which is up approximately $2 million, but down nearly 16% from third quarter 2024 levels when we undertook a set of balance sheet optimization actions. We expect interest expense to decrease meaningfully going forward following the recent unsecured note issuance. Adjusted net income was $51 million, which excludes share-based compensation and other noncash items such as fair value adjustments. Credit performance remains strong and stable, consistent with the last two years. Starting with personal loans, second half 2023 and first half 2024 vintage cumulative net losses are trending approximately 30% to 40% lower than peak levels in the fourth quarter of 2021 at month on book 11 to 20. For auto loans, CNLs across second half 2023 and first half 2024 vintages are trending approximately 30% to 60% lower than levels during comparable 2022 periods at month on book 11 to 20. In terms of our funding, we continue to execute at scale, taking advantage of the strong momentum we are experiencing while remaining disciplined in our credit underwriting. During the second quarter, we issued $2.3 billion in our ABS program across 6 transactions. Our institutional funding network currently stands at 153 unique partners, up from 120 last year. We closed our first AAA-rated auto ABS transaction and maintained our AAA rating on our personal loan ABS. Additionally, we closed our inaugural $300 million AAA- rated point-of-sale ABS transaction. With its revolving feature, as loans are repaid, funds are redeployed into our new loans during the 18 months tenure of the facility, thus equating to over $1 billion in prospective funding capacity over the life, fueling significant growth potential in our POS business. We expect ABS net risk retention requirement levels to continue to range at 4% to 5% of the notional size of our personal loan ABS deals and may opportunistically increase retention levels to the extent it lowers our cost of funding and is accretive to our earnings. Following the quarter, we announced a new forward flow agreement with Castlelake, a testament to the success of our initial agreement in 2024. The new agreement represents a total of up to $2.5 billion in personal loan purchase commitments over 16 months, a notable change from the 2024 commitment of $1 billion over 12 months. We expect to continue to diversify our funding to favor capital-efficient structures and other strategic funding partnerships. Turning to our balance sheet. As of June 30, we held $242 million in total cash and cash equivalents and $870 million of investments in loans and securities. The quality and composition of our balance sheet was improved materially over the last 12 months, providing enhanced access to liquidity. We will continue to proactively evaluate our balance sheet for further optimization opportunities, particularly within the context of our recent success in the public debt markets and the broader environment. In the second quarter, the fair value adjustment of the overall investment portfolio and allowances, net of noncontrolling interest and prior to any new additions was $21 million versus $45 million last quarter. We also added $122 million of new investment loan and securities net of paydowns from prior investments, the majority of which was discretionary. This is part of our accretive deployment strategy, which drives our overall cost of funding lower and increases the buffer against any future losses. Turning to our outlook. Our full year and third quarter outlook reflect both the momentum and resilience in our business to-date. At the same time, we remain cautious due to the protracted uncertainty. We will continue focusing on driving profitable prudent growth, not chasing any growth at all costs, while monitoring the macro environment closely. Notable drivers include consistent levels of personal loan production and continued growth in auto and point-of-sale products. We expect FRLPC to continue growing as we focus on our most profitable and growing verticals. We continue to expect FRLPC as a percent of network volume to range between 4% and 5% for the year. Profitability trends will continue, reflecting our scale and operating leverage. We expect credit-related impairments, if any, to be in line with the scenarios laid out in our earnings supplement and already reflected in our guidance. Interest expense is projected to trend lower as a result of our recent refinancing of unsecured notes transactions. Our third quarter and full year GAAP net income guidance includes the impact of several onetime items, including approximately $24 million in costs associated with the issuance of our corporate bond and costs associated with the early retirement of existing credit lines. Partially offsetting this loss, we expect to record a onetime benefit associated with the resolution of certain tax-related matters. The combined impact of these items is expected to be a net loss of approximately $5 million to $10 million already reflected in our 3Q and full year net income guidance. With that in mind, for the third quarter of 2025, we expect network volume in the range of $2.75 billion to $2.95 billion, total revenue and other income in the range of $330 million to $350 million and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $90 million to $100 million. We expect GAAP net income in the range of $10 million to $20 million, reflecting the aforementioned one-time costs. For the full year, we are increasing our expected network volume range to $10.5 billion to $11.5 billion, total revenue and other income in the range of $1.25 billion to $1.325 billion and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $345 million to $370 million. We are increasing our GAAP net income for the year in the range of $55 million to $75 million. With that, let me turn it back to the operator for Q&A.