Rob Beck
Analyst · Jefferies
Thanks, Garrett, and welcome to our second quarter 2020 earnings call. I'm joined today by Mike Dymski, our Interim Chief Financial Officer. On behalf of Mike and everyone else at Regional Management, I hope that you and your families remain safe and healthy. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect our communities, I want to take a moment to thank the entire Region Management team for their exemplary efforts during the crisis. The focus, planning and execution of our crisis response team have been superb, and our frontline branch personnel continue to provide outstanding customer service and support during this unprecedented time. Thanks to our proven operating model, we experienced navigating multiple crises and support from our team members and customers. We remain well positioned to manage through the impacts of COVID-19. Despite the significant economic and public health challenges, our business has continued to prove resilient, and our balance sheet is strong. We generated $7.5 million of net income in the quarter or $0.68 of diluted EPS. Average net finance receivables increased by 10%, total revenue grew by 7%, and our operating expense ratio remained steady year-over-year. Credit performance was benign in the quarter, with a net credit loss rate of 10.6% compared to 10.4% from the prior year period. Our balance sheet now reflects a $33.4 million allowance for credit losses associated with COVID-19, following a $9.5 million incremental build in the second quarter. COVID-19 reserves have impacted our diluted EPS by $2.06 in 2020, including $0.56 in the second quarter alone. The credit quality of our loan portfolio has been our primary focus through the first half of the year. Our 30-day plus delinquency rate reached a historically low level of 4.8% as of June 30, down from 6.6% as of March 31 and 6.3% a year earlier. We proactively adjusted our underwriting criteria in March to adopt to the new environment and have continued to originate loans with appropriately tightened lending criteria. As we have progressed through the pandemic and acquired additional data, we have continuously updated and sharpened our underwriting standards and have paid close attention to certain geographies and industries that have been most affected by the virus and economic disruption. We have also specifically tailored our borrower assistance programs during the crisis to help our customers manage their debt obligations and maintain their creditworthiness. To qualify for our borrow system programs, we require that a customer remain engaged and active in repaying their loans, including requiring at least 1 loan payment in the prior 2 months to qualify for repayment deferral. In June, 2.3% of our customer accounts were renewed or deferred under borrower assistance programs, down from a peak of 5.8% in April and in line with the 12-month pre-pandemic average of 2.2%. In July, borrow assisted usage declined further to 2.1%. We're confident that these programs are having an intended effect and, in combination with government stimulus, have acted as an important bridge for our customers during the pandemic. Of those customers who entered our payment deferral program in April and May, our peak months, 80% made a subsequent payment through June. Additionally, 87% of our customer accounts as of June 30 had no payment deferrals in the past 12 months and 98% of customer accounts had 2 payment deferrals or less than the past 12 months. As of the end of July, our 30-plus day delinquency rate further improved to a new historical low of 4.5%, reflecting $46.3 million of delinquent accounts, down $20 million from July of last year. We attribute that sustaining low level of delinquencies to our new custom scorecards, successful borrower system programs and the government stimulus. As the economy continues to reopen and low demand rebounds, careful control of credit quality will remain paramount. As we reported in early June, we have experienced an improvement in loan applications in production from the low point in the second week of April. Our portfolio contracted by a record $41 million in April with portfolio liquidation slowed to $27 million in May and $12 million into June. In July, we were able to stem the portfolio liquidation entirely, returning to month-over-month ending net receivable growth for the first time since January. We've been able to reverse our loan portfolio liquidation, thanks to our omnichannel model, which is clearly enhancing the overall customer experience during the pandemic and ensuring that customers can continue to conduct business with us safely and effectively. To this end, we completed the rollout of a new remote loan closing process across our network in July. This new capability enables our customers to extend and expand the borrowing relationship with us from the comfort and convenience of their home, while allowing us to maintain the exact same underwriting standards as we utilize in our branches. We also restarted our direct mail and digital programs in late April and early May after reviewing our credit models and tightening our underwriting parameters where appropriate. As a result, we experienced a rebound in our direct mail and digital volumes in June and a larger increase in July. We ended July with 23 million of direct mail and digital originations, nearly double June results and returning to levels last seen in January. Our confidence in restarting our marketing program is based on our data-driven approach to managing our risk, which is essential particularly during periods of market volatility. We manage this risk through our customer and response scorecards, analysis of early payment activity and detailed geographic and customer segmentation to ensure that incremental direct mail loan volume is capable of absorbing credit losses at 2 to 3x our historical levels, while still providing positive contribution margin. As we originate new loans, we are also reserving for credit losses at the higher stress-reserve rate, which is also reflected in our risk-return models. As we look towards the latter half of 2020, we expect to increase our marketing spend, while maintaining our focus on risk-adjusted returns. We also have opportunities, even in the current environment, to invest in our digital capabilities and enhance our omnichannel experience to drive new revenue opportunities, while evolving our branch footprint to create future operating efficiencies. We expect expenses in the second half of the year to be flat compared to the first half of the year, excluding our marketing spend, part of which is a shift from the first half of the year when we paused our direct mail program. On the digital front, we are building end-to-end online and mobile origination capabilities for new and existing customers along with additional digital servicing functionality, including a mobile app. Combined with remote loan closings, we believe that these new omnichannel sales and service capabilities will expand the market reach of our branches, increase our average branch receivables and improve our revenues and operating efficiencies, while at the same time, increasing customer satisfaction. Among the benefits, these digital capabilities will also enable us to enter new markets in the future longer branch density. In support of these digital initiatives, we will begin transferring our primary and backup data centers to the cloud, a process that we expect to complete early next year. Our digital and cloud investments in the second half of the year will be self-funded through our ongoing cost management initiatives. While the path of COVID-19 remains highly unpredictable, we expect that these investments will drive loan growth as the economy gradually improves. These investments should also allow us to maintain our portfolio size through the balance of 2020, position us for a solid rebound in 2021 and set us up to generate significant bottom line growth in 2022. We're well positioned to fund the growth, thanks to our diversified funding sources and strong liquidity profile. As of July 31, we had $162 million of immediate liquidity comprised of unrestricted cash on hand and immediate availability to draw down cash from our revolving credit facilities. This represents a $52 million improvement in our liquidity position since the end of the first quarter. In addition, during the second quarter, we added $94 million of additional borrowing capacity and ended the quarter with $493 million of unused capacity on our various credit facilities. Our ample liquidity position is sufficient to carry us through all of 2021 without needing to access the securitization market. In short, we have substantial runway to fund our growth initiatives and to support the fundamental operations of our business. In addition to maintaining excess liquidity and borrowing capacity, we operate with a conservative leverage ratio and have substantial ability to absorb losses while still maintaining positive stockholders' equity. As of June 30, our funded debt-to-equity and funded debt-to-tangible equity ratios were 2.6 and 2.7 to 1, respectively. Our stockholders' equity as of June 30 was $260 million, up from $251 million at the end of the first quarter. And with $142 million in aggregate loan loss reserves on our balance sheet, we remain well positioned in the event of an extended downturn. Combining our stockholders' equity of $260 million and our allowance for credit losses of $142 million provides us with $402 million of capacity to absorb losses on our portfolio. This loss absorption capacity equates to 39% of our total loan portfolio as of June 30, up from 36% at the end of the first quarter. In addition, our business model generates ongoing profit margin to absorb further losses. In sum, we remain confident in the fundamentals of our business and are well equipped to navigate through these challenging times. As the economy rebounds, we are positioned to take advantage of existing and new opportunities to generate significant growth while maintaining control over credit risk. And while we are prudently focused on maintaining liquidity and credit quality at this time in light of the economic uncertainty, capital returns to our shareholders will remain top of mind and a focus for the Board and management team as we gain more clarity on the macro environment. I'll now turn the call over to Mike to provide additional color on our financials.