PRAA
#Well, folks, I know we had 2 extra callers in queue.
15 years of being public, this has not happened to me before.
So I guess, unfortunately, we'll end the call here.
And unless you have questions for us, we can pick them up and answer them off-line, but ---+ oh, wait.
We've got people popping in.
Thank goodness.
No, they're gone again.
Folks, bear with us.
We're going to get this figured out, looks like.
(technical difficulty)
Yes, so last quarter, I provided a pie chart.
And off the top of my head, it was about 38% tenure over, call it, 13 months on.
I didn't provide it this quarter because it's a short period of time and we added so many people.
It didn't materially change.
From my perspective ---+ again, I don't have the chart in front of me.
I think we're up in the 65% range or higher.
We might even got higher than that back in the 2016 time frame.
So ---+ and I also believe from memory that the productivity of say, a 3-month rep versus a 13-month rep is like 6x.
Five or 6x, yes.
So I am ---+ and in addition to that, they're also significantly more compliant because they're used to dealing in this environment.
So I am, again, to be a broken record, dedicated to increasing tenure and figuring out ways ---+ and this is what I tell folks when I talk to them.
I'm trying to figure out ways to let people's lives happen and let them have this job and be reproductive and ---+ because that's a win for everybody, from the customers to the company, investors and just ---+ and of course, regulators when they hear our call.
So I would say my target would be to at least meet or exceed historical peaks.
Yes, I mean, it varies, obviously, case-by-case.
But in general terms, 6 to 9 months probably is a good benchmark to anticipate sort of return on those investments.
Yes.
<UNK>, this is Chris.
I'll say that I think generally the sellers continue to become more and more selective of the companies to which they sell.
And we've seen that materialize recently where we talk a lot about our differentiation in the industry in terms of our risk profile and how we go about doing business and obeying the law and our operating structure.
And we're seeing that, I think, really resonate where sellers think about who they're awarding business to.
And I think over time, this regulatory environment has played to our advantage and will continue to do so.
But the sellers are as careful as they've ever been about the quality of the accounts that they sell in terms of data quality and also to make sure that their accounts land in the hands of good operators, too.
So again, I think that's the trend that we expect to do nothing but strengthen over time.
Yes, I'll flag that down as best I can.
Yes, it was mid-last summer when we heard that.
Again, I think that ---+ as I always say, we never talk about who we buy from.
We never comment on specifically headlines, and that's important for us.
It always has been for the past 15 years.
It's always possible for a headline to pop up.
The value proposition ---+ and maybe I'll talk about that, that we provide is that we've been doing this ---+ PRA is to celebrate its 22nd anniversary.
Steve Fredrickson and I are probably celebrating our close to 25th year.
I lost track how long we've been working together.
We've got, what, nearly 15 million accounts in the U.S. We're aggregators.
We are, again, I think super-efficient collectors.
And I would say our competitors in the U.S. are also very efficient collectors.
We have a great competitive market here.
We all know what these portfolios are worth, and I think we drive greater value for the sellers.
And a seller may choose to test that out, and that's probably not a terrible idea for them, but hopefully, we will prove and our competitors will prove that ---+ United States, certainly, that we will drive a better NPV than their other solutions.
Yes.
The Q will be out.
I don't have the exact number off the top of my head.
But over the last probably year to 18 months, the trends have been towards fresher and fresher paper.
I think that component of fresh as a portion of the U.S. Core for the first quarter is probably north of 50%.
And I think that's probably relatively consistent with where we were in the fourth quarter.
So I expect that based on everything that we've talked about, we expect that, that's probably a level that we'll stay at for some period of time.
Yes, this is Chris.
I would say that there's a pretty good difference on average between those 2 placement levels and vintages, but I think generally, things have been pretty stable from a pricing standpoint.
Yes, I think the decision on individual legal investment within the quarter is really based as an output of the scoring models.
And so as the accounts are worked, those that meet the criteria for going into the legal channel will go into some sort of separate group that works in pre-litigation and we apply that strategy.
So the investment that gets made is really more around how does that individual account score and what's the return on investment.
Once that investment's made in any particular quarter, as I said in response to, I believe, it was <UNK>'s question earlier, it's kind of a 6- to 9-month time frame roughly of when we'll start to see cash collections coming in related to those investments.
Yes.
No, it's continuing to build.
The mix of accounts we bought over the back half of the year are working their way through the process, and we're starting to see that ---+ if you will, that pre-litigation portfolio start to build.
And <UNK>, this is <UNK>.
For the sake of other people in the phone, just in case they don't know what you're talking about.
There was a time when we were buying smaller balanced accounts.
It was ---+ they tend not to qualify as easily at the legal channel.
And it was in the back half of '17, we started to buy larger balance accounts.
So that's the source of <UNK>'s question.
So I'll let Tiku jump in if I say this wrong, but you're probably reading too much into it.
But Tiku, do you have any other color on that.
Nothing more than I think just reading too much into that.
I think you just ---+ you have just slightly different statistics that you've given, kind of.
That's all.
I don't think we can comment if it got worse or it got better.
I just think it's competitive at the moment.
Yes.
I kind of indicated in my script that CCB, which is really the bulk of what remains thereafter selling government service and PLS last year, they had a pretty sizable quarter for them.
So I wouldn't take this one and run rate it on a go-forward basis, but yes, it was a little higher than what we would expect on a run-rate basis.
No.
Obviously, we're just really anxious to turn the dialers back on.
It's been so long since they've been on.
It's hard to even remember the day, but I don't have any updated data.
It hopefully should be ---+ as I said, they're in the breadbox.
But we're doing a good job penetrating portfolio.
I think the reps are excited.
And in fact ---+ like I said earlier, I talked to our great top collectors today, and I read them part of the script that I read to you about the request for declaratory ruling that's called for the FCC, asking them to define that a dialer actually has to actually use random or sequential dialing.
And I think they were really excited to hear that.
So we'll see how it goes.
And we'll let you know, and you'll be able to watch the press in there yourselves as well.
Yes, the NFR at the end of the period, $149.2 million.
Yes, cash collections on those pools was $17.5 million in the quarter.
Yes, I don't think we've given that disclosure out before, so I don't have it on top of my head.
I think in terms of yield increases in the quarter, we had obviously a super quarter for the U.S. Core business.
You can see from the tables in the supplemental disclosures that there was a concentration in some of the newer vintages.
And we did let cash in, increasing our estimated remaining collections on the owned portfolio during the quarter.
Roughly half of that increase for the quarter was focused on the '15, '16, '17 portfolios in the U.S. And that's what allowed us to increase yields so significantly in the quarter.
Now on a go-forward basis, again, as I said in my prepared remarks, I wouldn't expect that level of deviation from our sort of base revenue estimate, but overall performance of cash collections against expectation is ---+ sustained performance is what's going to give us confidence to raise yields again.
Well, thank you, everyone, for listening to our call this afternoon, and we look forward to speaking to you again next quarter.
Operator, you may disconnect.
