On Thursday, Jefferson Capital (NASDAQ:JCAP) discussed first-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.
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Summary
Jefferson Capital reported record collections of $310 million, a 19% increase from the previous year, and revenue of $176 million, up 14% year over year.
The company highlighted its strategic advantage in the auto finance sector, with a focus on portfolios affected by rising vehicle prices and interest rates.
Jefferson Capital's strategy includes a strong focus on legal channel collections, with significant improvements in process efficiency leading to increased suit volumes.
The company's cash efficiency ratio was 73%, driven by collections from the Bluestem and Conn's portfolio purchases, and it maintained a strong financial position with a leverage ratio of 1.79 times.
Management expressed confidence in future portfolio supply due to elevated consumer delinquencies and charge-offs, and highlighted a robust outlook for portfolio purchases.
A new amendment to the senior secured revolving credit facility increased committed capital to $1.15 billion, enhancing liquidity and strategic optionality.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good afternoon and welcome to Jefferson Capital's fourth quarter and full year 2025 conference call. With us today are David Burton, Founder and Chief Executive Officer and Christo Rylov, Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. This call may contain forward looking statements regarding the Company's plans and initiatives and strategies and the anticipated financial performance of the Company including but not limited to sales and profitability, expected benefits of the Bluestem acquisition, expectations on the market and macroeconomic factors and expected collections and growth in certain collections. Such statements are based upon management's current expectations, projections, estimates and assumptions. Words such as expect, believe, anticipate, think, outlook, hope and variations of such words and similar expressions identify such forward looking statements. Forward looking statements involve known risks and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties are further disclosed in the Company's most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Shareholders, potential investors and other readers are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward looking statements made herein and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update the forward looking statements except as required by law. Also, during this conference call, the Company will be presenting certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of the Company's historical non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures appear in today's earnings press release. And now I will turn the call over to David Burton. Please go ahead.
David Burton (Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you operator and thanks everyone for joining our investor call. Let's dive into our first quarter financial performance highlights. We again generated strong results for shareholders. We delivered record collections of 310 million up 19% versus the prior year period and we continue to perform well versus our underwriting expectations. Our estimated remaining collections grew 18% to 3.4 billion, driven by our continued deployment performance and attractive anticipated returns. Revenue for the quarter was a record 176 million up 4.14 percent versus the prior year period. We delivered a sector leading cash efficiency ratio of 73% driven in part by strong collections from the Bluestem and Conn's portfolio, purchases. We generated strong cash flow in the quarter which improved our leverage to 1.79 times a level which positions us well for future growth and creates significant strategic optionality adjusted EPS for the quarter was $0.73. Turning to the next slide, I'd like to offer a brief market update and cover some of the macroeconomic indicators to provide better context for why we remain confident in the investment opportunity for our business, delinquency trends remained elevated across all non mortgage consumer asset classes create favorable portfolio supply trends. An asset class we continue to watch closely is auto finance. Receivables have grown steadily to a record of 1.68 trillion with an average monthly new vehicle loan payment of $806, up 52 percent compared to pre pandemic. As a result of higher vehicle prices and elevated interest rates. In March of 2026, nearly one-third of used vehicle trade ins carried negative equity. In addition, 72-month loans accounted for 40.5% of all financed vehicle sales and 84-month loans accounted for 12.8%. Continued strain on the consumer and deteriorating credit quality for originators in some instances coupled with financing headwinds, all set the stage for increasing portfolio supply. We remain uniquely positioned to offer solutions across the spectrum of performing charged off and insolvency auto finance portfolios for both secured and unsecured accounts. The next important component to better understand the state of the consumer is the current level of personal savings. During the pandemic, consumers accumulated abnormally high savings as a result of the unprecedented levels of government stimulus which served as a financial cushion against life's unexpected events. By the end of 2022 the excess savings had been depleted and in fact the current level of personal savings at 857 billion is substantially lower than than the long term pre pandemic average from 2013 through 2019 of 1.1 trillion, a dynamic which is even more pronounced when adjusted for inflation. This suggests that consumers have a more limited ability to absorb unanticipated temporary financial hardships, which is an important driver for delinquency and charge off volumes. Next, regarding the insolvency market, we have seen a well pronounced increase in the number of insolvencies both in the United States and in Canada from the pandemic trough in 2021, which in turn has fueled the resurgence in supply of insolvency portfolios. Insolvency valuation and servicing requires highly specialized expertise, a robust data set to develop accurate forecasts and a technologically advanced servicing platform. And we remain one of the very few debt buyers in the US and by far the largest debt buyer in Canada that can capitalize on this market opportunity. Finally, this backdrop is also underpinned by a low level of unemployment which supports the expected liquidation rates on our existing portfolio and gives us confidence in underwriting new purchases. Our portfolio performance is less sensitive to changes in unemployment compared to an originator and despite the recent labor market headwinds, the overall employment level is still favorable for our business. All of these trends point in one direction elevated levels of consumer delinquencies and charge offs, which we're seeing across all consumer asset classes and which we believe create a long Runway for a robust portfolio portfolio supply over the coming quarters, coupled with continued strong collection performance on our existing book and on any future portfolio purchases. Moving on, I'd like to review in more detail some of the key performance trends for the quarter. Our collections, as I mentioned, were $310 million, up 19% year over year, driven by strong deployments. In 2024 and 2025, 54.5 million of collections for the quarter were attributable to the Bluestem portfolio purchase and 31 million were attributable to the Conn's portfolio, purchase. More broadly, our collection performance on the overall portfolio continues to reflect the accuracy of our underwriting models, and we did see the typical seasonal impact of tax refunds on consumer liquidity. In the United States, a key trend in collection performance has been the increase in Legal Channel collections. Jefferson Capital utilizes Legal Channel as a means of last resort in instances where we believe the account holder has the ability but not the willingness to engage or pay. We have achieved a number of important process improvements, specifically in the United States which which have significantly compressed the timing from placement of the account to filing of the lawsuit, which in turn has accelerated suit volumes. This inventory of suit eligible accounts has increased given the significant growth in deployments over the past three years, so over time we expect to see continued growth in legal collections. Our portfolio purchases for the quarter were 150 million compared to 175 million in in the first quarter of 2025. Returns remain attractive and we remain confident in the deployment landscape. I will note that our deployments in the year ago first quarter benefited from a $28.5 million insolvency back book purchase in Canada. More broadly, our business is subject to pronounced seasonality. The fourth quarter is typically the largest quarter for deployments as credit originators aim to dispose of nonperforming portfolios ahead of year. End deployments then tend to decelerate in the first quarter as portfolio sales activity declines as originators want to take advantage of consumer liquidity related to tax refunds in the US as of March 31st we had 353 million of deployments locked in through forward flows, which is an important building block of our deployment strategy for the coming quarters. Our estimated remaining collections as of March 31 were 3.4 billion, up 18% year over year, with ERC related to Bluestem and Conn's comprising 238 million and 105 million of us distressed, respectively. Our ERC is relatively short in duration due in part to the lower average balance accounts in our portfolio. With 52 percent of our ERC expected to be collected through 2027, we expect to collect 1.1 billion of our March 31 ERC balance during the next 12 months. Based on the average purchase price multiples recorded in the first quarter, we'd need to deploy approximately 563 million globally over the same time frame to replace this runoff and maintain current ERC levels. I would note that as of March 31st we had 216 million of deployments contracted via forward flows for the next 12 months. Lastly, I'd like to review in more detail another core pillar of our business model and a critical building block for our differentiated return profile. Our Best in Class Operating Efficiency we seek to own the high value added aspects of the purchasing and collection process, including portfolio and consumer payment performance data, extensive analytical and modeling capabilities, certain proprietary technological capabilities, and the collection processes and techniques that we believe create both a competitive advantage for the company as well as a significant barrier to entry. Conversely, we seek to outsource the aspects of the collections value chain that we view as commoditized or operationally intensive and do not produce a competitive advantage such as running large domestic call centers. We utilize Champion Challenger performance measures to allocate portfolio segments to the best servicers and our internal collection platform competes for market share against external collection service providers. Our mostly variable cost structure provides flexibility to scale deployments depending on market conditions. The benefits of our relentless pursuit of operating efficiency are evident in our efficiency metrics relative to the rest of the sector. As I mentioned, our cash efficiency ratio for the quarter was 73%. It was aided by collections on the Bluestem and Cons portfolios which which carry a lower cost to collect. Given the significant portion of paying accounts excluding Bluestem and Kahn's portfolio collections and expenses, the cash efficiency ratio would have been 68.1%, which is also materially higher than other public companies in the sector. Our leading operating efficiency is a powerful competitive advantage and coupled with the strong returns of our differentiated investment strategy supports consistent, attractive shareholder returns. With that, I'd now like to hand it over to Christo for a more detailed look at our financial results.
Christo Rylov (Chief Financial Officer)
Thank you David. Taking a closer look at the financial details for the first quarter, revenue was 176 million, up 14% year over year driven by continued strong deployments and higher net yields. Changes in recoveries were 7 million for the quarter reflecting collection over performance in the US related to the seasonal impact of tax refunds. Operating expenses were 96 million up 47% year over year with the increase due to the significant growth in collections. Expenses remain well controlled relative to the growth in collections. With our cash efficiency ratio at 73% for the quarter, core costs increased to 17.3 million or 86% year over year as a result of the trends in increased legal channel volumes that David reviewed in his comments. This is an upfront expense to support future collections through the legal channel and the accelerated time to suit put forward these expenses. We expect court costs to remain at approximately this level given the increased inventory of suit eligible accounts resulting from the significant overall portfolio growth over the past several years. Adjusted Pre tax income was $58 million for the quarter, resulting in an adjusted pre tax ROE of 50.8%. We realized a material level of collections on portfolios purchasing 24 and 25 including the Bluestem and Conn's portfolio purchases, which in turn drove adjusted cash EBITDA to $235 million for the quarter, up 12% year over year. Finally, for the first quarter Jefferson Capital recognized portfolio revenue of 15.3 million and net operating income of 7.9 million related to the Bluestem portfolio purchase. Separately, we recognized portfolio revenue of 11.2 million, servicing revenue of 1.2 million and net operating income of 7.7 million related to the cost portfolio purchase. Our credit profile remains strong and positions us well for future opportunities. As of March 31, our net debt to adjusted cash EBITDA improved to 1.79 times, a level which is significantly lower than our publicly traded peers. Over the long term. Our target leverage ratio is in the range of 2 to 2.5 times on a sustained basis. Our balance sheet is solid with ample liquidity to support growth, create strategic optionality and pay our quarterly dividend. On April 22 we completed an amendment of our senior secured revolving trade facility, increasing aggregate committed capital by 150 million to 1.15 billion. We added two new partners to the bank group, each committing 75 million. There were no material changes to terms. The facility had 254 million drawn at March 31 and we have earmarked 300 million of capacity to repay our 2026 bonds. Given the maturity was fully pre funded with the 500 million unsecured issuance in 2025 and at this point we're not taking on any market risk, we plan to keep the bonds outstanding as long as possible. Take advantage of the attractive 6% coupon. This strong liquidity profile is a critical component of our value proposition to sellers who value certainty of closing periods when portfolio activity increases, but the funding markets could be constrained or unavailable. With regard to our capital allocation priorities, our primary focus remains on deploying capital to purchase portfolios at attractive risk adjusted returns. Our board has declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.24 per share which represents at a 4.6% annualized yield as of April month end. The dividend offers an attractive component of shareholder return which is not available from other public companies in the sector and also reinforces long term discipline around investment returns. In conjunction with the follow-on equity offering in January, we also repurchased 3 million shares, or approximately 5% of the total legally issued shares for 59 million. This was a tactical share repurchase where the company used its capital to support the offering and to further reduce the sponsor overhang. We will evaluate open market share repurchases at the appropriate time while also aiming to maintain trading liquidity in the stock. Finally, we have a long history of success for ma, but we intend to remain disciplined and opportunistic. Now, we'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have Operator, please open up the lines.
OPERATOR
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question today is from David Scharf with Citizen Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
David Scharf (Equity Analyst)
Hey, good afternoon. Congrats on a strong start to the year. Thanks for taking my questions, David. Appreciate the kind of the macro commentary. t's clearly kind of consistent with what we've heard from lenders during this reporting season. 'm wondering though, as we think about the visibility of future forward flow arrangements, can you provide any commentary on, guess a In addition to just how much is under contract, whether you're seeing an expansion of the number of sellers that are entering into flow deals, and secondly, just based on your history and experience, if there is some increased macro pressure, whether through higher unemployment or whatnot, do you tend to see sellers enter into more flow deals or fewer? If you can just provide some context, maybe.
David Burton (Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks for the question, David. I'll first start by commenting that our forward flow, our committed forward flows, were up about 28% between 1231 and 331. And I think that reflects a number of factors including deepening our client relationships and in some markets that historically have been spot sale oriented, working with clients to convince them to be a more programmatic seller and the advantages associated with that. To your point about the dynamic that might occur with sellers going more toward a forward flow orientation versus spot sale as it relates to things like unemployment, my own experience has been that in an environment of rising prices, you tend to see sellers more interested in shorter term forward flows. And in an environment where prices decrease, especially when that's connected to rising unemployment, that's when you see sellers try to de risk future recoveries by locking in longer term forward flow. So I suppose that's probably a dynamic that you would imagine would happen. At this moment I don't think we're seeing any significant changes in people's appetite in sellers appetite to really modify percentage of their debt sales that are subject to a forward flow agreement versus spot sales. So I don't know that there's been a market change that at least I can discern.
David Scharf (Equity Analyst)
Got it. No, that's helpful context and I think the close to 30% increase in flow dollars year over year kind of speaks for itself. Maybe just one follow up question. Maybe it's more for Christo. As we think about sort of forecasting the efficiency ratio near term, if we kind of exclude cons and bluestem and think about that 68 low. 68 is sort of the benchmark today. Does the increasing mix of legal collections, does the outsized growth of the legal channel inherently put a little downward pressure on the cost to collect or I'm sorry, actually maybe downward pressure on that cash efficiency margin. I mean, as long as legal is growing as quickly as it should, should we be thinking about that 68.1 going up near term or is it best to sort of keep it flat?
Christo Rylov (Chief Financial Officer)
I'll think of this in two ways. Number one, the company has had the history of constantly improving that underlying cost to collect and in turn the cash efficiency ratio through a very sort of broad range of cost savings and efficiency initiatives. And we continue to do that day in and day out. The mix of legal channel collections would not have a material impact. Keep in mind that the 68%, 68.1% kind of adjusted cash efficiency ratio to exclude cons and boost them already includes the current level of court costs in and we believe, as I said in the prepared remarks, that those will remain relatively stable over the course of the year.
David Scharf (Equity Analyst)
Got it. Thank you very Much.
OPERATOR
The next question is from Robert Dodd with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Robert Dodd (Equity Analyst)
Hi guys. Congrats on the quarter. First, following up on the legal thing, to your point, Christo, I mean, you already indicated you expect the legal expenses to stay at kind of this level through the course of this year. I mean, just not asking about 20, 28, but when we think about how much how much portfolio has been acquired or ERC has been acquired, the increased amount of legal eligible accounts, et cetera, all the things you've outlined, I mean, is this year the elevated court costs enough to kind of run through the increase of the number of eligible accounts, or is there still, do you think, going to be a kind of a lack of a better word, a backlog even when you get to the the end of the year and these elevated expenses could stay there for some extended period of time beyond just the next call it nine months.
Christo Rylov (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah. So good question, Robert. I do it's a complicated question because what we don't know is what we're going to buy for the rest of this year and how much of that will be expected to be legal eligible legal profitable, where the timing would be optimized by having that litigated next year. So I think we're careful to not comment on things that are beyond a horizon which is harder for us to and anticipate. I do want to flag, though, that when we underwrite portfolios, we anticipate the volume and timing of accounts that are to be litigated and that cost is embedded in our in the, you know, our pricing and the net IRRs. And so, you know, we're deploying capital obviously at attractive returns and the timing for the incurrence of court costs matters on our P and L. What matters most to us, of course, is that we generate attractive cash on cash returns,
Robert Dodd (Equity Analyst)
and those are determined at the time of the purchase. Understood? Understood. Thank you. And then just on the purchase volume, I mean, obviously Q1, I mean, you mentioned Canada had a tough comp because you got a lot of purchase volume last year. The US didn't have a tough comp per se. Yes, it's seasonal. Understood. Right. Q4 to Q1 isn't necessarily right comp, but Q1 to Q1 last year, was there anything unusual about the volumes or the sellers this quarter? I mean, did people is there any slippage? I guess as I'm kind of asking, did things spill over into Q2 without asking for a number? But I mean just it did look a little in the US a little softer than I Expected one quarter is not a trend, but I just trying to get a feel on how that shook out.
David Burton (Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, thanks for the question. I will highlight that we've had good growth and deployments in a number of areas including Latam and the uk. But I also want to make sure that you don't derive any level of concern regarding the robustness of deployment opportunities in the US I would not discern from the first quarter and any kind of year over year comparison that we feel anything but confidence in the deployment opportunities in the US and so. You know, we've not been in a better position with more clients and more asset classes and more capabilities across performing charge off and insolvency portfolios that we feel. And the backdrop of the consumers being under increasing levels of pressure, that certainly provides a favorable backdrop as we think about deployments in the US this year.
Robert Dodd (Equity Analyst)
Got it, thank you.
OPERATOR
The next question is from Randy Benner with Texas Capital. Please go ahead.
Randy Benner (Equity Analyst)
Hey, I just have. This is super helpful disclosure. Appreciate it. On the Revolver, was it 250 that was drawn overall? Christo, I just didn't catch that part of your commentary.
Christo Rylov (Chief Financial Officer)
254 million was drawn. Yeah.
Randy Benner (Equity Analyst)
Okay, cool. And then yeah, I guess I'll kind of like try to ask the looking into the future question a little bit like higher level is just, you know, just with larger, like larger bulkier opportunities is that are there more, you know, with your commentary of the market and particularly with auto and opportunities that are coming in is, you know, can you, is it possible to just take a little bit more look or commentary into kind of larger potential deals that could be out there?
David Burton (Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Let's see how to answer that. Without making a forward looking statement. I would say that I guess I'll go back to the comments that I provided earlier about just the level of indebtedness in auto in particular and the delinquency trends which are more pronouncedly higher in auto than they are in other asset classes, but they're also elevated in other asset classes. So the backdrop is favorable whether that results in large, medium or small opportunities. I think all indicators point to all of the above. But any specific transactions and sizes they're not. They're done sort of one at a time. Our goal obviously is building client relationships so that we're in a position to add that value. But the dynamic is such that it's hard to know the timing and the size, you know, very far in advance of those opportunities being presented to us so or as we cultivate them. So I do realize that you Know, we do large transactions and frankly we like all transactions, whether the large, medium or small, as we cultivate stronger relationships with our clients and, and make ourselves and capital available whenever their needs arise as they seek to optimize their profitability. So I realize this is not really what you were hoping for, but I think it paints hopefully at least the perspective that we take in kind of continually expanding our pipeline of opportunities and deepening our client relationships so that as large opportunities or small opportunities become available that we're in the right position to execute and be aware of them.
Randy Benner (Equity Analyst)
I appreciate the response. And there's one other one, I guess on just your regular way business, the smaller, you know, the smaller accounts that come in is there. Do you all disclose like a D, like a transaction count per quarter? If I missed that, I apologize. But is it, are you, are you getting like a higher volume of like smaller deals or is it a lower volume of somewhat larger deals? Just kind of like the data, you know, the kind of the regular week in, week out transactions that you see.
Christo Rylov (Chief Financial Officer)
Look, we do not disclose any sort of transaction count. We have commented previously that we purchase 50 to 70 portfolios a month and then that the average transaction size tends to be kind of in the less than a million sort of area. Right. If that's helpful. And the other thing we've commented on is that historically, you know, over approximately 50% of our deployments are coming in through purchases. Right. So these 50 to 70 portfolios, about half of them are coming to forward flows and the rest is spot purchases. And that excludes the sort of the large episodic transactions that we did in 24 and 25.
Randy Benner (Equity Analyst)
All right, got it. Thanks. Thanks for the answers.
Christo Rylov (Chief Financial Officer)
Of course.
OPERATOR
The next question is from Unison with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Unison (Jefferies)
Hello. Thanks for taking my question. So we see from earlier competitors earnings announcement that there's some positive momentum in the overall space. Wanted to hear what you have seen about any interest from the competitors, any changes in dynamic and especially when it comes to changes in interest in non credit card space receivable. Thank you.
David Burton (Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, thanks for the question. I think I'll start off that answer by speaking about what we're seeing in terms of sort of the level of competition. And I would say that pricing has continued to be stable and attractive and that's really true across all asset classes and also insolvency and charge offs and then with respect to the various sectors that we play in, I think if there is a trend and it's that there are more sellers today than there were a year or two ago. And that includes auto and telecom and installment loan and even I would say credit card as well. So I think there's a broad trend of there being more comfort and understanding for the profit optimizing option that debt sales offer credit granters. Got it, thank you. And just going back to the investment in the legal channels. So with the upfront investments that you're making, would it make sense for you to expand your market to be looking into higher balance receivables down the line? Would that be kind of a consideration for you?
Unison (Jefferies)
Yes. Thanks for that question. And you're right, it is an important
David Burton (Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
capability to have both an effective voluntary channel as well as a legal channel to support, you know, really all balance ranges, but particularly higher balance ranges which often require greater percentage of a portfolio to result in the legal channel. We feel like we have that capability today. Oftentimes the higher balance prime originated credit card portfolios don't meet our return thresholds. So that is much less a function of like a capacity or capability and more a function of really market pricing mechanism. But we're completely capable and certainly interested in higher balance portfolios as well. I do suspect that over time it is possible that a higher percentage of our deployments in the future could be from higher balanced portfolios as that dynamic potentially changes.
Unison (Jefferies)
Great. Thank you so much.
OPERATOR
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to David Burton for any closing remarks.
David Burton (Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you very much. Looking forward. We're excited about the growth prospects of our business for the remainder of this year and beyond. We've built an outstanding platform over the past 23 years and we're in a great position to capitalize on opportunities as the market continues to evolve. Thank you all for joining us today and we look forward to providing another update on our second quarter earnings call.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
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