Classified in: Science and technology, Business, Covid-19 virus
Subjects: EARNINGS, Merger/Acquisition, Conference Call, Webcast, Divestiture

CURO Group Holdings Corp. Announces Third Quarter 2022 Financial Results

CURO Group Holdings Corp. (NYSE: CURO) ("CURO" or the "Company"), a tech-enabled, omni-channel consumer finance company serving a full spectrum of non-prime and prime consumers in the U.S. and Canada, today announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2022.

"With our strategic transformations completed, we are very pleased to end the third quarter with close to $1.9 billion of gross loans receivable across our three lines of business. These loans, which are more than double the same period last year, are longer duration, better credit quality and more resilient than our legacy portfolios," said Don Gayhardt, CURO's Chief Executive Officer. "Excluding the loans associated with our purchase of First Heritage and the sale of our legacy business, we grew our gross loans receivables by 10% sequentially in constant currency."

"Macroeconomic headwinds have continued to pressure our results on three fonts ? benchmark interest rate increases, Canadian to U.S. dollar weakening and credit trends normalizing to pre-pandemic levels. We have begun taking actions ? primarily to reduce ongoing operating expenses ? that we expect will yield meaningful results beginning in the fourth quarter of 2022 and throughout 2023 to counterbalance these macroeconomic factors."

Consolidated Summary Results

We reported Net income of $25.7 million ($0.63 earnings per share) and Adjusted net loss of $11.9 million ($0.29 adjusted loss per share) on total revenue of $214.1 million for the three months ended September 30, 2022, compared with Net loss of $42.0 million ($1.02 per share) and Adjusted net income of $6.4 million ($0.15 adjusted diluted earnings per share) on total revenue of $209.3 million for the three months ended September 30, 2021.

On July 8, 2022, the Company completed the sale of our Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business to Community Choice Financial for $345.0 million, resulting in a gain on sale of business of $68.4 million recorded in the third quarter of 2022. On July 13, 2022, we completed the acquisition of First Heritage Credit, LLC ("First Heritage"), a consumer lender that provides near-prime installment loans along with customary opt-in insurance and other financial products, for $140.0 million in cash. On December 27, 2021, we closed the acquisition of Heights Finance, a consumer finance company that provides Installment loans and offers customary opt-in insurance and other financial products or a total purchase price of $360.0 million ($335.0 million in cash plus $25.0 million in stock). The completion of these transactions completed our strategic transition into longer term, higher balance and lower rate credit products.

The improvement in Net income in the third quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021 was primarily driven by (i) the $68.4 million Gain on sale of business recorded in the third quarter resulting from the completion of the divestiture of our Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business in July 2022, (ii) a $11.4 million adjustment to the fair value of contingent consideration recorded in connection with our acquisition of Flexiti, and (iii) in the third quarter of 2021, a $40.2 million loss on the extinguishment and refinancing of our former senior notes ("8.25% Senior Secured Notes"), partially offset by a year-over-year $24.3 million increase in interest expense in the third quarter of 2022. The increase in interest expense in the third quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021 was driven by (i) an increase in benchmark rates on variable rate debt, (ii) Senior Notes issued to fund in part our Heights Finance acquisition, and (iii) increased non-recourse asset-backed lending (ABL) borrowing to support organic loan growth and acquired portfolios.

Below are additional highlights of our performance this year:

• Revenue and Net Revenue
  • Revenue increased $4.8 million, or 2.3%, year over year, primarily driven by revenue growth in Canada POS Lending and Canada Direct Lending of 142.7% and 19.3%, respectively, and revenue related to the Heights Finance and First Heritage acquisitions. U.S. revenue declined 18.4% primarily as a result of the July 2022 divestiture of our Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business. The strategic mix shift from the divested Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business' high-cost, short-term lending to the longer-duration, lower risk consumer finance acquisitions, also affected the relationship between loan growth and revenue growth.
  • Sequentially, revenue decreased $90.3 million, or 29.7%, driven by the July 2022 divestiture of our Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business.
  • For the three months ended September 30, 2022, net revenue decreased $2.8 million, or 2.1%, year over year, and $39.1 million, or 22.4%, sequentially primarily driven by lower revenue attributable to our strategic change in product mix and the additional provision for loan losses driven by loan growth.
    
    
• Loans Receivable
  • Year-over-year growth in Gross loans receivable of $1,012.1 million, or 114.7%, was primarily driven by an increase of $549.9 million due to the acquisitions of Heights Finance and First Heritage offset by the sale of the Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business, as well as increases of $387.9 million for Canada POS Lending and $74.2 million for Canada Direct Lending.
  • Sequential loan growth in Gross loans receivable of $113.6 million, or 6.4% was primarily due to growth in Canada POS Lending of $63.1 million, or 10.1%, and growth in U.S. Lending of $53.0 million, or 7.7%, primarily due to the acquisition of First Heritage offset by the sale of the Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business.
    
    
• NCOs and Delinquency Metrics
  • Consolidated quarterly NCO rates improved by 396 bps, and consolidated 31+ past due rates decreased 332 bps year over year, respectively, primarily attributable to mix shift from (i) the relative growth of Canada POS Lending, (ii) the acquisition of Heights Finance and First Heritage, and (iii) the sale of the Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business, all of which shifts our loan portfolio mix to lower loss-rate products.
  • Sequentially, consolidated quarterly NCO rates improved by 266 bps, and consolidated 31+ past-due rates decreased by 592 bps, respectively, largely driven by loan growth in (i) U.S. Direct Lending and Canada POS Lending, which have lower NCO rates, in addition to the sale of Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business, which was a higher expected loss-rate product.
    
    
• Other Highlights
  • on July 13, 2022, concurrently with the closing of the First Heritage acquisition, we entered into a new $225.0 million non-recourse revolving warehouse facility to replace First Heritage's incumbent lender's facility and to finance future loans originated by First Heritage.
  • On July 15, 2022, we entered into a new $425.0 million non-recourse revolving warehouse facility to replace the incumbent lender's facility and finance future loans originated by Heights Finance.
  • On September 29, 2022, we amended the existing Flexiti credit facility to increase the borrowing capacity from C$500 million to C$535 million and extended its maturity to September 29, 2025.

Results of Consolidated Operations

Beginning January 1, 2022, we began reporting "Interest and fees revenue," "Insurance premiums and commissions" and "Other revenue" in place of our previously reported "Revenue" on our Statements of Operations. Prior period presentations have been revised to conform to the current period presentation.

Segment Analysis

The following tables provide a summary of segment operating (loss) income and portfolio performance for the segment and period indicated.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to the financial information prepared in conformity with U.S. GAAP, we provide certain "non-GAAP financial measures," including:

• Adjusted Net Income ("ANI") and Adjusted Earnings Per Share, or the Adjusted Earnings Measures (net income plus or minus certain legal and other costs, income or loss from equity method investment, goodwill and intangible asset impairments, transaction-related costs, restructuring costs, loss on extinguishment of debt, adjustments related to acquisition accounting, share-based compensation, intangible asset amortization, gain on sale of business, changes in fair value of contingent consideration, certain tax adjustments and cumulative tax effect of applicable adjustments, on a total and per share basis);

• EBITDA (earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization);

• Adjusted EBITDA (EBITDA plus or minus certain non-cash and other adjusting items); and

• Gross Combined Loans Receivable (includes loans originated by third-party lenders through CSO programs which are not included in the Consolidated Financial Statements). As a result of the sale of the Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business, we no longer guarantee loans originated by third-party lenders through CSO programs.

We believe that presentation of non-GAAP financial information is meaningful and useful in understanding the activities and business metrics of the Company's operations. We believe that these non-GAAP financial measures reflect an additional way of viewing aspects of the business that, when viewed with the Company's U.S. GAAP results, provide a more complete understanding of factors and trends affecting the business.

We believe that investors regularly rely on non-GAAP financial measures to assess operating performance and that such measures may highlight trends in the business that may not otherwise be apparent when relying on financial measures calculated in accordance with U.S. GAAP. In addition, we believe that the adjustments shown above are useful to investors to allow them to compare our financial results during the periods shown without the effect of each of these income or expense items. In addition, we believe that these non-GAAP financial measures are frequently used by securities analysts, investors and other interested parties in the evaluation of public companies in our industry, many of which present non-GAAP financial measures when reporting their results.

In addition to reporting loans receivable information in accordance with U.S. GAAP, we provide Gross Combined Loans Receivable consisting of owned loans receivable plus loans originated by third-party lenders through the CSO programs, which we guaranteed but do not include in the Consolidated Financial Statements. Management believes this analysis provides investors with important information needed to evaluate overall lending performance. As noted above, the Company no longer provides these guarantees to third-party lenders as a result of the sale of the Legacy U.S. Direct Lending business.

Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as alternatives to income, segment operating income, or any other performance measure derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP, or as an alternative to cash flows from operating activities or any other liquidity measure derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Readers should consider the information in addition to, but not instead of or superior to, the financial statements prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. This non-GAAP financial information may be determined or calculated differently by other companies, limiting the usefulness of those measures for comparative purposes.

Description and Reconciliations of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Non-GAAP financial measures have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider these measures in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our income or cash flows as reported under U.S. GAAP. Some of these limitations are:

• they do not include cash expenditures or future requirements for capital expenditures or contractual commitments;

• they do not include changes in, or cash requirements for, working capital needs;

• they do not include the interest expense, or the cash requirements necessary to service interest or principal payments on debt;

• depreciation and amortization are non-cash expense items reported in the statements of cash flows; and

• other companies in our industry may calculate these measures differently, limiting their usefulness as comparative measures.

We calculate Adjusted Earnings per Share utilizing diluted shares outstanding at quarter-end. If we record a loss under U.S. GAAP, shares outstanding utilized to calculate Diluted Loss per Share are equivalent to basic shares outstanding. Shares outstanding utilized to calculate Adjusted Earnings per Share reflect the number of diluted shares we would have reported if reporting net income under U.S. GAAP. If we record an Adjusted Loss per Share, shares outstanding utilized to calculate Diluted Loss per Share are equivalent to basic shares outstanding.

We believe investors use the non-GAAP measures we present to analyze operating performance and to evaluate our ability to incur and service debt and the capacity for making capital expenditures. Adjusted EBITDA is also useful to investors to help assess our estimated enterprise value.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include projections, estimates and assumptions about various matters, such as future financial and operational performance, including reduction in operating expenses, and our belief in the usefulness of the various non-GAAP financial measures used in this release. In addition, words such as "guidance," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe," "forecast," "step," "plan," "predict," "focused," "project," "is likely," "expect," "intend," "should," "will," "confident," variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Our ability to achieve these forward-looking statements is based on certain assumptions, judgments and other factors, both within and outside of our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, including: errors in our internal forecasts or those of companies in which we invest; the effects of competition on our business or on those companies in which we invest; our ability to attract and retain customers; market, financial, political and legal conditions; actions of regulators and the negative impact of those actions on our business; the continuing impact of COVID-19 pandemic or any other similar wide-spread event on our business and the global economy; our dependence on third-party lenders to provide the cash we need to fund our loans and our ability to affordably access third-party financing; our level of indebtedness; our ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses; our ability to protect our proprietary technology and analytics and keep up with that of our competitors; disruption of our information technology systems that adversely affect our business operations; ineffective pricing of the credit risk of our prospective or existing customers; inaccurate information supplied by customers or third parties that could lead to errors in judging customers' qualifications to receive loans; improper disclosure of customer personal data; failure of third parties who provide products, services or support to us; any failure of third-party lenders upon whom we rely to conduct business in certain states; disruption to our relationships with banks and other third-party electronic payment solutions providers as well as other factors discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These projections, estimates and assumptions may prove to be inaccurate in the future. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict with regard to timing, extent, likelihood and degree of occurrence. There may be additional risks that CURO presently does not know or that it currently believes are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Given these risks and uncertainties, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual future results. We undertake no obligation to update, amend or clarify any forward-looking statement for any reason.

All product names, logos, brands, trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

About CURO

CURO Group Holdings Corp. (NYSE: CURO) is a full-spectrum consumer credit lender serving U.S. and Canadian customers for over 25 years. Our roots in the consumer finance market run deep. We've worked diligently to provide customers a variety of convenient, easily accessible financial services. Our decades of alternative data power a hard-to-replicate underwriting and scoring engine, mitigating risk across the full spectrum of credit products. We operate a number of brands including Cash Money®, LendDirect®, Flexiti®, Opt+®, Revolve Finance®, Heights Finance, Southern Finance, Covington Credit, Quick Credit, First Phase, and First Heritage Credit.

Conference Call

CURO will host a conference call to discuss these results at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, November 2, 2022. The live webcast of the call can be accessed at the CURO Investor Relations website at http://ir.curo.com/.

You may access the call at 1-833-953-2430 (1-412-317-5759 for international callers). Please ask to join the CURO Group Holdings call. A replay of the conference call will be available until November 9, 2022, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. An archived version of the webcast will be available on the CURO Investors website for 90 days. You may access the conference call replay at 1-877-344-7529 (1-412-317-0088 for international callers). The replay access code is 3181575.

Final Results

The financial results presented and discussed herein are on a preliminary and unaudited basis; final unaudited data will be included in the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022.

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News published on 2 november 2022 at 16:55 and distributed by: