PRA Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRAA) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Bob Napoli : Thank you. The 2021 pool of US, Americas, is where you’ve taken the biggest write down. And I think you actually even had maybe a hair of a bit of improvement in the collections multiple there. Are you comfortable with that pool now? Because in the past, whenever you’ve had a pool in this industry, you generally get follow-up marks, but it seems like you actually took a little bit of a positive mark there. Is that pool, and is that pool shrinks that your return should go up. But any commentary on that pool specifically?

Vikram Atal : I think we’ve talked about that in the past, Bob. It’s a fair question, just given the issues we had with that vintage and been reported out in the first quarter. In terms of the performance on the call center that’s moving along to expectations. As we talked about, we have ramped up our legal activities against that vintage, and that just comes through with a slight lag in terms of when it starts taking effect. So at this point in time, we feel that we’re in pretty good shape with that vintage, and we’re tracking it. And these initiatives that we’ve got under way are cutting across every vintage of our business, and we should see that impacting the ‘21 vintage over time as we get through 2024 as well.

Rakesh Sehgal: Yes, and if I could just add to that, just to round it out, right? It’s revenue recognition. You’re asking about CECL right under those rules, it’s our best estimate with respect to our expectation for the cash flows, and what you’re going to see is variability quarter-to-quarter. But I think what encourages us is that over the long term, we have always experienced modest outperformance, versus where we originated, and as you can see that particular vintage quarter-to-date, we’re seeing some positives. So and then the second is also just around the initiatives that Vik mentioned. We’re starting to really focus in on that, and we should start seeing a better performance coming out of that vintage as these initiatives take hold.

Bob Napoli : Thank you. If I could just squeeze one last one in. You had mentioned last quarter, outsourcing, offshoring is part of your, Vik, strategies. Any updated commentary on offshoring or outsourcing?

Vikram Atal : Yes, so I think I have, a good question, Bob. Thank you. I look at outsourcing in two ways. One is leveraging local players in the US market to bolster and accelerate activities that we want to do. And that’s what we have actually expanded our sort of engagement levels with some third parties, particularly on the legal front, to bolster and accelerate our activities there. That’s US based. And then in offshoring, we piloted a couple of programs in the second quarter into the third quarter. And now in the fourth quarter, we’re rolling out programs with a couple of parties and we’re in pilot mode with other parties with regard to leveraging lower cost location. And I think the sense is that over the next six to nine months, we will validate, and at this point in time, we fully expect that there will be positive validation.

We will validate that these relationships are working to expectations, meeting our thresholds, and at that point in time, we will have a discussion internally as to whether we scale them up and at what level. So, based on the last three, four months of activity, we are very encouraged by what we’ve accomplished. And as you might recognize, we’ve been moving at rapid fire speed on the staff to get it done so quickly.

Operator: The next question is a follow-up from David Scharf of JMP Securities.

David Scharf: Great. Thanks for squeezing me in again. Maybe just a couple to end here. Hey, Rakesh, just a quick maybe update on status of kind of loan covenants. I’m assuming there is nothing to report, but I know there was kind of a unique situation in Q1 where the company had to seek a one-off covenant relief on the operating income thing. Is there anything else in your bank facilities, whether it’s restricted payments or coverage ratios or definitional changes that we ought to be aware of, or is everything pretty much status quo since that Q1 event?