Earnings Labs

SLM Corporation (SLM)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 22, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Diana, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the 2015 Quarter Three Sallie Mae Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-session. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Brian Cronin, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Brian Cronin

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Sallie Mae’s third quarter 2015 earnings call. With me today is Ray Quinlan, our CEO; and Steve McGarry, our CFO. After the prepared remarks, we will open up the call for questions. Before we begin, keep in mind our discussion will contain predictions, expectations and forward-looking statements. Actual results in the future may be materially different than those discussed here. This could be due to a variety of factors. Listeners should refer to the discussion of those factors on the company’s Form 10-Q and other filings with the SEC. During this conference call, we will refer to non-GAAP measures we call our core earnings. A description of core earnings, a full reconciliation to GAAP measures and our GAAP results can be found in the Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2015. This is posted along with the earnings press release on the Investors page at salliemae.com. Thank you. I’ll now turn the call over to Ray.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Thanks, Brian. And thank you all for participating with us this morning. I will walk through several key items that are important to our business model. And they will include originations, NIM, credit profile, credit performance, operating expenses, asset sales, return on equity, earnings per share, and some comments about the industry. After that, Steve will have more detailed review of each one of these items plus several others. And after that we look forward to your questions. So in going to that list, originations, our full year guidance for originations is $4.3 billion, which is a 5% increase from the prior year. As we said, that after three quarters we are 7% over the prior year. We believe the market in which we operate the private student loan business has grown year-on-year between 1% and 2%, 7% growth clearly not only implies but necessitates the fact that we had a gain in market share. Extremely gratifying that we had a gain in market share for the second year in a row, as you all know we’ve been very preoccupied with our spin from the original company, but nonetheless for two years running, we have gained market share. And we believe this is a comment on our product, the effectiveness of our marketing and sales group, as well our improved service which we’ll talk about throughout the morning. So NIM, NIM in the third quarter is 5.36%, 5.36% a very good number by itself; 5.48% year-to-date. And we are forecasting for the rest of the year about that level so we expect the full year 2015 NIM to be 5.50%. It was 5.26% in 2014. As we look forward beyond the remaining quarter of 2015 to 2016 and 2017, we see no reason that the NIM will change from the…

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Thanks, Ray. Good morning everyone. I’ll be referencing the earnings call presentation that’s on our website during my remarks, as we drill down a little bit deeper into the details of our financial results for the quarter. Presentation begins I guess on Slide 4, so our private education loan portfolio of September 30, hold $10.8 billion [ph] this was up a strong 38% from the prior year quarter. Our owned and serviced private portfolio, which include loans sold, and we continue to service them was $11.5 million, up 47% from the [indiscernible] quarter. Net interest income for the third quarter was $175 million, which was $7 million or 4% higher than Q2 and $31 million, or 22% higher than the prior year quarter. The increase from the prior quarter is due to the higher average interest earning assets as a result of our successful peak season originations, and the increase from the prior year the result of our 19% increase in average assets. Ray talked about bank’s net interest margin, on interest earning asset, which came in at 5.36% in the second quarter compared to 5.49% in the prior quarter, and 5.25% in the prior year. The 13 basis points peak rates was result of high cash balances, which we held and they are in the negative [indiscernible] as we led up to our peak funding seasons, as well as private student loan yields. Many of you know, we except we build cash in the first and third quarters to prepare for our big origination season. The increase from the prior year due the increase in our private student loans has a percent of total portfolio. Ray mentioned that, we are confident that for the full year, our NIM will be at 5.5% compared to 5.25% in the prior year,…

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Operator, we’re ready to take some questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We’ll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Sanjay Sakhrani of KBW.

Sanjay Sakhrani

Analyst

Thank you. So, Steve, I had a question for you on the NIM. Just looking ahead, I know you gave for us the fourth quarter or full-year guidance, but when we look out to 2016, how should we think about the progression of the NIM? Do we have to worry about any basis-related issues where you’re pricing at prime and some of your liabilities are LIBOR associated?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

No, Sanjay, the very nice thing about our book is that virtually all of our private student loans are actually private and so they’re all indexed to one month LIBOR. And all of our funding that we swap and as a result of securitizations, are one month LIBOR. And the balances, we have $3 billion of money market deposits. And our view which I think is always pretty bang on is that if and when interest rates ever go up we can - if the money market deposit rate will track one month LIBOR pretty closely, then we raise our rates in [indiscernible] LIBOR without diminishing our margin. So we feel very good about the way we are funded.

Sanjay Sakhrani

Analyst

And when we think about the progression of the NIM looking out to next year, probably stable-ish?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

So, the impacts that we see in this quarter. So when we hold higher cash balances, it will tend to be suppressed. And when the cash balances are paid down, the run-rate - the spread is going to be somewhat higher. So, we’ll fluctuate around that 5.5%.

Sanjay Sakhrani

Analyst

Okay.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Within the quarter. And we do have a business that’s been highly skewed from a seasonality standpoint. And so, that won’t be with us forever. But so far as the overall for the year, we expect them this year at 5.50% and we expect next year to be 5.50%.

Sanjay Sakhrani

Analyst

Okay. Perfect. And then, just one final question on the gain on sale, were you guys surprised by the extent of the decline in the gain on sale or does it make sense given the depreciation of other student loan categories? I’m just trying to figure out how that gain on sale relates to what’s happening in the secondary market.

Steven McGarry

Analyst

So, look, I know that I was optimistic that 10.5% could be improved upon. I was very surprised by the extent of deterioration in the [indiscernible]. And basically what drives the gain on sale is competitive assets for the residual of - starting at the front. So as spreads go out on the bonds, in the front-end of the stack that reduces the cash that’s available to residual holders. And residual holders are looking at alternative investments such as high yield bonds, the equity tranches in commercial real estate investments and things of that nature. So as those spreads blew out significantly 100, 200, 300 basis points, it pushed out the yields on our ABS bonds, leading less cash for residual holders. So at the end of the day we’re not that surprised that the premium deteriorated from 10-plus-percent to the 8% ZIP code. But look, the market has been very difficult and there have been a lot of transactions that were pulled and unable to be completed. So we think that that speak volumes about how investors view the quality of the Smart Option Student Loan trust that we’re putting out for bid.

Sanjay Sakhrani

Analyst

And I assume, just go, looking ahead, I mean, the gain on sale or the decision to sell will be predicated on whatever the market conditions are at that time, right?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Look, we’re certainly not going to sell loans at a fire-sale discount. So we talked in the past about being opportunistic at 8% and above. And I think that that continues to be our position.

Sanjay Sakhrani

Analyst

Okay. Right.

Steven McGarry

Analyst

We would prefer to - we would prefer to hold as many of these student loans as we possibly can. And we have competing issues with our growth cap and capital levels and so on and so forth. But we think going forward we could certainly sell less than a $1.5 billion of our student loans and maintain acceptable growth rates and capital level. So we will toggle back and forth the amount of loans that we sell depending upon where premiums are in the marketplace.

Sanjay Sakhrani

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Tarkan of Compass Point.

Michael Tarkan

Analyst

Thanks for taking my question. Just back on the loan sales real quick. Do you have any leeway with your regulators to potentially retain more loans temporarily if the market remains unfavorable or gets a little bit worse so that temporarily you could trend above the 20% cap?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

So, look, I mean, if temporarily we’re bumping up the 20%, 21%, 22% spot, I don’t think that how a regulator will row a penalty flag. What we want to do is demonstrate that we can execute our business model, demonstrate the high quality of the assets that we have on our balance sheet, get through the upcoming D-Fast [ph] stress test that we have to submit in the summer of 2016. And then have the appropriate capital conversations with our regulators, is 14% right or is 12% right or 25% growth right or is 18% growth right. But we think that the way the business and the assets are performing that we can have meaningful conversations on those topics with our regulators as we move forward.

Michael Tarkan

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. And then, on the expenses, are the changes you’re making to improve customer service, have those been, I guess, prompted by some of the new guidance we have seen from the CFPB and Department of Education? And, I guess, as a follow-up to that, assuming the Student Loan Bill of Rights and some of the changes they are advocating for, assuming those go through, the changes you are making now, have those been largely consistent with that? And would we see any meaningful step up from here on the servicing expense side? Thanks.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Mike, if you look at the CFPB documents they have issued as far back as two years ago for Rohit Chopra, who has been the ombudsmen for student lending, their documents haven’t changed very much. It is the case that prior to the spin there was a consent order signed by both Navient, as well as ourselves with the DOJ, the FDIC and the CFPB. They said, they haven’t changed very much since 2014. And so, many of the things that are in that document are already in the consent order and we are in compliance with them. In fact, we have a consulting arrangement with PWC to audit our compliance with the consent order and we have received very good marks from them. So as we look at it, we believe we have a good customer service platform, good performance. The CFPB has suggestions. We don’t believe any of them would be significantly deleterious to it. I should point out that every day we deal with more than 1 million customers. And we have an open portal opportunity for any American to complain about us if needs be with the CFPB. And it is the case that over the first 365 days that that portal has been open, we’re dealing with 1 million customers during that period, actually 1.3 million every day. We received 273 complaints. Some were actually inquires at CFPB. So in our first 365 days of working with the CFPB we have received less than one complaint per day. For any notions that there are thousands of people complaining or anything along those lines, just doesn’t match the facts.

Michael Tarkan

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question come from the line of Moshe Orenbuch of Credit Suisse.

Moshe Orenbuch

Analyst

I guess, maybe kind of pulling up, you talked about the growth in the market kind of being a little bit lackluster. Any thoughts about what we could expect as we go forward like what are the kind of crosscurrents that you’re seeing kind of as you look out into the next year for that given some of the rhetoric about college costs and the like?

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Sure, first-off, we’re trying to make this an upbeat call. So I’d appreciate it, if you didn’t introduce vocabulary such as lackluster. Hence, where I’ll…

Moshe Orenbuch

Analyst

Well, apologies…

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Yes. I think the actual term that I would suggest is consistent. And so when we look at the college growth market or the market in which we operate, which is essentially the undergraduate gap funding business, it’s derivative of the entire expenditure by American for undergraduate education. And, in fact, that’s driven by clearly two items. One if the number of people who are buying that education. And second is, what they’re paying on average for that education. And the growth in that over the last three years has been very consistent at between 1% and 2%. As with that, our growth has consistently been more than double that, so we gained market share. We don’t see any volatility in that growth trajectory, because the demography is pretty well set. And colleges have come under a lot of criticism for managing their costs, but to date they have been more consistent with their past performance. They may have been reacting to anything that’s in the environment.

Moshe Orenbuch

Analyst

Okay. The other question that I had is, in the past you’ve talked about using the FFELP portfolio as kind of - not just liquidity, but sort of as a buffer against that 20% cap, is that still in place, something that you might consider using in - if premiums are on the low-end?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Moshe, is it something that we would consider doing. But candidly, I think everybody on this call does follow what’s going on in the FFELP loan sale market. And it would be hard for us to I think receive a premium with that portfolio at this point in time. So it is something that we will certainly consider as another level that we can pull. But we’re optimistic and I remain optimistic that we were able to get the loan sale off at a very nice premium at this time around.

Moshe Orenbuch

Analyst

Got it.

Steven McGarry

Analyst

I think that we will certainly be able to continue to execute that component of our business model going forward.

Moshe Orenbuch

Analyst

Got it. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We’ll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. The next question comes from the line of Mark DeVries of Barclays Capital.

Mark DeVries

Analyst

Yes, thanks. It sounds like you have high level of confidence in just the overall level of your yields with the guidance you’re providing on NIM out several years. But can you just talk about what if anything you’re seeing in terms of competition around pricing with some of these marketplace lenders trying to push their way into your business?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

So Mark, we made a point of mentioning that we were able to actually increase the yield on this portfolio, because I think it demonstrates a lack of competitive pressures that we are seeing out there, we were also able to put up big numbers on origination front. People talk about the various syntax getting into the student loan, this is quite frankly I don’t think we’re really seeing them. And the…

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

To the extent we are seeing them it’s in the post origination business really consolidation and all, things of that nature.

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Right. And they tend to be focusing one of the big pie of federal loans that they can consolidated as opposed to our, what we think is appropriately priced for just private credit portfolio. So we haven’t seen a very big impact.

Mark DeVries

Analyst

Okay. So you’re not seeing any kind of accelerated runoff in your already originated loans as a result?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

No. We are not seeing that at all.

Mark DeVries

Analyst

Okay. Great. And just one last question on the kind of trajectory of the loan sale, market, I mean presumably it’s firm, I would imagine it wouldn’t have been easy for you to price a deal if it was still kind of declining. Are you pretty comfortable that this could be like a sustainable level as we look out into the first half of next year?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Well. You’re asking the guide I thought 10.5% was sustainable, who thinks 8% is sustainable, as you all know better than I do the market can certainly do funny things, but I do thing that we have reached a level were yields make sense to investors and certainly sells bonds and residuals on a go forward basis. We do a lot of work with our investor base and we do a lot of investor cultivation, we like to keep them informed as how we’re running the business, how the assets are performing and things for that nature. Residual buyers I think are still pricing their residuals with - at cumulative charge-off rates that are substantially higher than what we think what actually going to see. So as time goes buy and portfolios continues to perform as expected that’s in area where we can see some pricing improvement. And if the bond market stays in reasonably good shape, we can certainly continue to execute that aspect of business model that’s a reasonable prices.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

And Mark, want to return to your point about runoff. And I just remind you that the way our business model is setup with over 90% of the loans having a cosigner at the point of origination and having FICO scores that are roughly 750 at origination. Many of the loans that people talk about in regards to consolidation of, students in particular get loans and their FICO scores are low, let’s call it under 700. They come back a couple of years later they have improved their FICO scores, they can now command a lower APR and as a window there an integral available for consolidation. Because our loans are granted at 750 level, and because they are variable in the rates, so when the rates go down people aren’t stuck with hype that 85% of our customers so take - we still have that variable rates. We are not a subject to being consolidated away from as many of the other lenders.

Mark DeVries

Analyst

Okay, that’s helpful. And just one last question, Steve. How did the demand for this last year, the price at the 8% compared to the prior deal, the one at 10.5%?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Candidly, the demand was somewhat softer this go around, it was a very difficult market. But we do have enough buyers out there that are interested in the smart options student loan product execute both the bond offering and the residual offering. As you know market is in very difficult shape and continues to be. A lot softer than it was just five short months ago.

Mark DeVries

Analyst

Okay. Thanks, guys.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Eric Beardsley of Goldman Sachs.

Eric Beardsley

Analyst

Hi. Thank you. Just a question on the asset growth, I guess if we were to look at what could be coming on the balance sheet next quarter, relatively low originations, probably some cash bill to fund the first quarter. So I guess, as we look at it, you’re probably getting well below 20% year-over-year asset growth. I guess, in that context, why the loan sale now?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

So look, when we look out over the next couple of quarters, we also have capital constraints and when you hit the big first quarter peak origination season. We see our loan growth increase substantially, through our capital levels decline below that 14% total risk-based capital level.

Eric Beardsley

Analyst

Got it. So we should view that 14% as more of a binding constraint and then necessarily the 20% year-over-year asset growth?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Yes. I mean, the two of them are absolutely important constraints that we’re operating on.

Eric Beardsley

Analyst

Okay. Great.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

We never went to cut our time period for execution on the sale. Sure, so that would be the victims of what could be a very draconian market conditions. So we just want to keep this is on a regular basis.

Eric Beardsley

Analyst

Okay. And then, I guess, in the past you’ve talked a little bit about potential for diversification. I’m just curious if you have any updates there and if any of your comments around the efficiency ratio trends incorporates any expenses for new initiatives?

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

As we turn to 2016 never we have the spin behind us, we will be thinking about potentially piloting a couple of products. And so we’re finalizing our 2016 plans as we speak, we will talk that of course in next call, and it will be the case that all the expenses associated with anything we will do already incorporated in the efficiency numbers that we talked about.

Eric Beardsley

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Thank you. Eric.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Hochstim of Buckingham Research.

David Hochstim

Analyst

Hi, good morning. Are there following up on that, are there other initiatives that you plan to use to improve marketing effectiveness and customer experience? You did some things earlier in the year, I know in terms of sales force and in terms of mobile apps?

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

It is a case that we expect to have constant improvements in our customer experience that, as far as moving as you know the goalposts that are passively receiving. It is a long-term game. It is our opinion and looking at the audience that we serve and those we would like to serve with even more products, it is the case that telephone is the winning instrument of choice. Mobile apps, mobile servicing are not an option in this business, and so we are both establishing that as well as improving it. And it is the case that there is a myriad of items so far as improved IVR experience, improved experience was that debt top information available to both our service personnel as well as our collections people. And so this will be a film that we are in the middle of and it will continue as long as we’re doing business.

David Hochstim

Analyst

Okay. And whatever you are planning is probably already incorporate in the expense guidance?

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Yes.

David Hochstim

Analyst

Okay. And then, the other question I had with just on loans entering repayment. Can you give us an idea of what - how much of the portfolio would be entering repayments next year?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

So the next big wave will be the [indiscernible] and that is basically a $1.5 billion loans that we’ll be entering, full principal and interest. And that will have another mini-wave that will probably around $600 million in the May, June timeframe. So basically six months post various graduation rates.

David Hochstim

Analyst

The $1.5 billion would be early in the year?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

The $1.5 billion will be November, December - that’s a big post May, June graduation, six months as a grace for P&I [indiscernible].

David Hochstim

Analyst

Okay. And then, in terms of reserving for those waves, how far ahead would you look in anticipating some increase in modest increased ability to charge-offs?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

So the expected increase in loans going to fall P&I is constantly being factored into our loans. We’re building it allowance to cover charge-offs for the next expected year.

David Hochstim

Analyst

Okay. All right. And then, I guess another question about the servicing of loans that you have securitized in sold, is it right to assume an average fee of about 75 basis points or could it be little higher?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Our servicing fee is 80 basis points. We’ll have $12 million as of close of this securitization of $12 million in annual run rate servicing fees in the money income state.

David Hochstim

Analyst

Okay. And then, just to be clear, the sale in the fourth quarter, that separate from the securitization you did midyear? And the residual value retained on that? Or is that…

Steven McGarry

Analyst

That’s correct. So, 15B that we announced in July was a funding securitization. We still own that residual. 15C is what we announced yesterday that is a securitization with the residual sale.

David Hochstim

Analyst

Okay. So, in theory you could sell that residual from 15B at some point if the market was really…

Steven McGarry

Analyst

We could sell the residual from 15B, there is a little bit of care on that transaction because we own 5% of the various trusts, of the various bonds or the risk retention and we own the C bond so, it’s not a cakewalk but it’s certainly something that can be done.

David Hochstim

Analyst

Okay. And selling that residual would then take those securitized loans off the balance sheet for the growth calculation?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Yes, that’s correct.

David Hochstim

Analyst

Okay. All right. So, thanks a lot.

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Welcome.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Sameer Gokhale of Janney Montgomery Scott.

Sameer Gokhale

Analyst

Hi, good morning. I have a couple of questions, firstly when you look at the gain on sale of 8%, I would say that at least based on the investors I have spoken to it seems like we fear was at the gain on sale would actually be lower than that. Given what we have seen in turmoil in the fixed income market. So, it seems like a relatively healthy gain on sale margin or premium all things considered. I remember we discussed this may be a few quarters ago in terms of looking at forward flow agreements, but given some of the uncertainty in the market at this point driven by what’s going on in the credit market, does it make sense for you to know perhaps more seriously try to consider entering forward flow agreements for future loan sales even if they might be slightly lower premiums. Again, I mean, the reason I asked it, is that it’s just not the uncertainty in the credit markets but it’s also from a regulatory standpoint it seems like your balance sheet growth is kind of constraint where regulators demand. So, I just wanted to get your update thoughts and forward flow agreements and locking in perhaps lower premiums relative to maybe what you generate so far?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

So, look Sameer, you make a very good point of forward flow agreement would be very helpful particularly as it gets us hedged away from these volatile market times. It will come with a significant discount and that is something as we probably should weigh, and we will have the capital market to look at what is available in terms of forward flow at this point in time, but it is a very difficult transaction to execute. Forward flow for the residual, one piece of the residual as we discussed here in this call and in the past is entirely dependent upon where you price the bonds that are in front of the residual. So it is a difficult transaction to execute, but it’s certainly something that we would look at. The gain on sale is our least favorite part of this business model and it is the fact that if we held these loans or the earnings for shareholders would be higher two years from now than if we did not. So we will look to minimize the amount of loans that we need to sell on a go forward basis. And we’ll take a look at all strategies, but I think number one, we want to wean ourselves of this reliance on gain on sale. And we will look to execute that in the future.

Sameer Gokhale

Analyst

Okay. And then, you keep referencing kind of residuals and securitization funding for these loans, but I mean I think your whole loan sales might also be a possibility, right. I think the [indiscernible] investors seem to prefer investing in the securitization bond and so - I mean, I kind of get that but it may be possible for you to also contemplate doing whole loan sales, correct? Again, bouncing it out with maybe a decline in lower premiums but locking in the forward flows or is there specific other reason why you just would prefer securitization as opposed to whole loan sales?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

The reason why we ended up going the securitization route for the loan sales is because as you may recall, we did a lot of work with various different investor groups leading up to our first month sale. We talked to regional banks, we talked to U.S. branches, the foreign banks, we talked to real money, buy-and-hold fixed income investor types and we looked at the residual market. The bid from buy-and-hold funding type banks was substantially lower than what we can realize in terms of economics by securitizing and selling the residual. And in fact, a lot of the real money fixed income investor buyers prefer the residual to the whole loan as well. So, it is something that we constantly revisit, we just haven’t had any whole loan buyers step up for at least part sale, no less for a forward flow agreement. And it is the case that all of the syntax type of operators that we see operating in the consolidation market and so on and so forth are relying on the residual market to offload loans from their balance sheet as well. So it is the main avenue for executing these things, but again the team continues to look at alternatives and we will.

Sameer Gokhale

Analyst

Okay. And so and then, maybe some perspective from both of you, but I was thinking about - I had a question about profitability of private student loans in your portfolio over the lifetime of that private student loan. And what we’re specifically trying to get at is you have a yield that’s quite attractive at origination, but given some of the stuff you hear from marketplace then there is the fact that there is stock of more refinancing, more seasoned loans, it would seem to make sense for you to want to retain those loans yourself. And so as you think of profitability over the loan cycle, I mean have you beaten any expectation of lower margins on those loans as you perhaps had to offer lower rates to retain those loans within your portfolio? Is that baked into your all-in pricing?

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

When we take a forecast - when we do a forecast for the portfolio, we have a modeled on the prepayments which would be the leading indicator for the phenomenal that you’re mentioning. And it is the case that we have as I said 750 average FICA score through the door and over 80% of our loans of variable rate. And so, for a person who is [indiscernible] who has a 750 and takes our loan, for a consolidator to lower that is very high, very difficult given the length of this asset and the fact that is unsecured. And so, we track prepayments quite carefully haven’t seen any significant movement in that either way up or down. And so, we don’t anticipate that we would have a midstream reduction in pricing in the portfolio, it doesn’t appear to be necessary and we have been [indiscernible] about this several commentators including yourself, but we don’t see it in numbers. And of course we want to maintain a relationship that we have with our customers. So we’re very attuned to this.

Sameer Gokhale

Analyst

Okay. And then, this is the last question on your yields on new originations. I think, you said, you were higher year-over-year but I think so the portfolio, the yield was lower year-over-year. So if you would just remind me kind of what happened between the years that extent the overall decline in the portfolio yield on year-over-year?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

So I can sum it up sort of along these lines. Over the last couple of years there was a step down in the yield of roughly 40 basis points and it’s looks like we have recovered some 25 cost compact. So there will be modest pressure on the overall student loan yield, but it is not going to have a significant impact.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

But the nature of those re-pricings was as we looked across the band of probably 600, 700 basis points, good price points, that a customer could experience, we wanted that to be as move incurs as possible, and we look at couple of years back and had a couple of step functions, which we thought were unintuitive of today customer. And so as we move that, Steve said, first we had a movement for the yields go down by 40 basis points. Than as we looked at it again, they were back by 25, so net-net we’re down about 15 basis points.

Sameer Gokhale

Analyst

Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Thank you.

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of [Jordan Haimowitz of Steel Financial] [ph].

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Good morning, Jordan.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Sorry. Thanks for taking my questions, guys. You said, the people that were buying the whole loans instead of the securitizations would be much lower. What is much lower? Is much lower half? Is much lower four points? I mean, what type of range are we talking?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

A couple of hundred basis points lower, Jordan.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

So like 200 or 300 points?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Yes, that’s a fair range.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

So what - could we also think that that would be the bottom so to speak if there was no gain on sale more like that the lowest the numbers would be - would be about a 6% gain?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

I mean, I don’t really want to speculate on where things will come out. Look, we feel very good about where we sold this most recent residual. And, just below the level that we sold this out, we think that there is substantial demand for this product. And again, as we go forward and the credit metrics prove themselves, we have a more substantial history. We think that there is definitely room to the upside for gain on sale.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

But the volatility that we’ve experienced over the course of 14 months. A year ago we were delighted to get 7.5%. And then, in April when we got 10.4%, it’s 50% higher. Now, we see a drop off of 20% to this point. And so we think in some sense the volatility outweighs the targeting that you’re referencing.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And the second question is, is there more and more buyers as you would pursue other whole loan sale markets, in other words, are you expanding the potentials buyers at?

Steven McGarry

Analyst

So, look, we do a lot of investor outreach with the buyers of things like subordinated bonds and residuals. So we are constantly looking to expand the investor base. To your question so if we sold at 108 today and we got off our transaction. At 107, 106.5, 107, if there’s substantial demand for these basis.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Got it. That’s exactly the question I was trying to get to. Thank you.

Raymond Quinlan

Analyst

Thank you.

Steven McGarry

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Mr. Brian Cronin for final remarks.

Brian Cronin

Analyst

Thank you, and thank you for your time and questions today. A replay of this call and the presentation will be available through November 4 on our Investor Relations website salliemae.com/investors. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me directly. This concludes today’s call.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for participating. You may disconnect at this time.