Atlanticus Q4 2025 Earnings Report

Atlanticus EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.75
• Consensus EPS: $1.65
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.10
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Atlanticus Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $734.39 million
• Expected Revenue: $691.81 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$42.58 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Atlanticus Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 3/12/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, March 12, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Atlanticus (NASDAQ:ATLC) is a financial technology company that provides credit and related financial services to consumers, particularly those who may have limited access to traditional lending products. The company works with merchants, financial institutions and other business partners to offer financing options at the point of sale and through direct-to-consumer channels.

Its consumer finance activities include retail credit programs, private-label and general-purpose credit cards, personal lending products and other installment financing. Atlanticus also provides financing for purchases in areas such as home improvement, healthcare, automotive and other retail categories. Through its auto finance operations, the company supports vehicle financing originated through dealer relationships.

Atlanticus was formerly known as CompuCredit and adopted the Atlanticus name in 2012. Its business primarily serves consumers in the United States through lending platforms, merchant relationships and financial-services brands, including Fortiva. The company also provides technology, servicing and other support capabilities connected with its credit products.

Atlanticus Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: The acquisition of Mercury effectively doubled Atlanticus's balance sheet to approximately $7 billion, added ~1.3 million customers, and management expects meaningful long-term earnings accretion from portfolio optimization, cost savings and origination growth with integration ahead of plan and expected accretion of roughly $2–$4 per share in 2027.
• Positive Sentiment: Atlanticus reported strong 2025 results — Q4 diluted EPS up ~23% YoY, full-year EPS up ~25% YoY — with record receivables, originations and accounts served and return on average equity above 20% while holding over $600 million of unrestricted cash.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management disclosed a modest decline in the fair value mark after onboarding Mercury and adding many newly originated receivables (loss expectations are front‑loaded), but expects fair value marks to improve as those portfolios season and pricing/policy changes roll through.
• Positive Sentiment: Funding and liquidity appear robust and diversified across banks, term securitizations, life insurers, sovereign wealth funds and private credit, with roughly $1 billion of committed undrawn warehouse lines and continued access to securitization and corporate debt markets to support growth.
• Negative Sentiment: Near-term risks include heightened competitive solicitations that have softened response rates and marketing efficiency, expected sequential paydowns from a robust tax‑refund season (which may slow Q1 growth), and the fact that some integration and synergy realization is longer‑tailed into 2027–2028.

Presentation

[Operator]

-day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Atlanticus Holdings Corporation Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Dan Mock of Atlanticus. Please go ahead.

[Dan Mock, Investor Relations at Atlanticus]

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Atlanticus released results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025, ended December 31, 2025 this afternoon after market close. If you did not receive a copy of our earnings press release, you may obtain it from the investor relations section of our website at investors.atlanticus.com. We have also posted an updated investor presentation. With me on today's call are Jeff Howard, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bill McCamey, Chief Financial Officer. This call is being webcast and will be archived on the investor relations section of our website. Today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements that reflect the company's current views with respect to, among other things, the benefits of the acquisition of Mercury, including expected synergies and future financial and operating results.

[Dan Mock, Investor Relations at Atlanticus]

These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those included in the forward-looking statements. Please review our earnings release and the risk factors discussed in our SEC filings. The forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made. Except to the extent required by federal securities laws, the company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which the statement is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. In addition, during this call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release and investor presentation for important disclosure regarding such measures, including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Thanks, Dan. Again, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Atlanticus' first public earnings call. To state the obvious, 2025 was a transformative year for our company. Not only do we deliver sustained above-market growth across our core businesses, but we also completed the acquisition of Mercury Financial, the transaction that meaningfully enhanced the scale, capabilities, and long-term earnings power of our company. With the Mercury acquisition, we effectively doubled the size of our balance sheet to approximately $7 billion. We added more than 1.3 million customers that we serve, and we deepened and strengthened our data, analytics, and product capabilities in the near-prime space. Most importantly, we added significant human resource talent. Strategically, this acquisition expands the markets we can serve and accelerates efficiencies gained from scale.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

It also provides us a $3 billion portfolio to optimize with our portfolio management expertise gained from our numerous portfolio acquisitions throughout our history. As a result, we anticipate significant long-term earnings accretion driven by disciplined portfolio management, cost savings, and incremental origination growth in the near-prime space. The integration of Mercury has progressed well ahead of plan. Our team has done an exceptional job in integrating the organizations and bringing about the realization of the many value-creating opportunities that will be derived from the acquisition. Our first priority is portfolio management, undertaking actions to properly position the Mercury portfolio. Phase one of those actions has been completed and is performing better than modeled. Additional phases will continue throughout 2026. At the same time, we are already realizing meaningful operating cost efficiencies across the combined company.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

We expect these revenue enhancements and cost benefits to contribute increasingly to earnings growth in 2027 and 2028. During the quarter, we also acquired a $165 million retail credit portfolio from a competitor, further solidifying our leadership position in the second look point-of-sale market. Turning to our financial performance, we once again delivered strong results in the fourth quarter and for the full year. For the fourth quarter, diluted earnings per share grew 23% year-over-year, and for the full year grew 25% year-over-year. We also continue to deliver strong returns to our shareholders with return on average equity above 20%, even while maintaining more than $600 million of unrestricted cash at year-end. While I've highlighted the Mercury acquisition, it was our historical business that drove results in 2025.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Excluding Mercury, managed receivables increased 37% year-over-year. New account originations increased 73% to more than 2.2 million for the year, and were up 56% in the fourth quarter compared to the prior year period. Purchase volume increased 54% for the quarter over last year and 32% for the year. Revenue increased 27% for the full year and 35% in the fourth quarter year-over-year. As a result, we finished 2025 with record levels of receivables, record originations, and record accounts served while exceeding our earnings growth and return on capital goals. On the consumer front, our data indicates that the consumers we serve remain stable. We're seeing consistent payment performance, steady purchase activity, and stable delinquency trends. While much has been made about a K-shaped economy, we continue to see rational consumer behavior.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Purchasing decisions may be shifting, but consumers are still maintaining their credit. For those newer to our story, we have seen through multiple cycles the utility provided by our offerings is one of the most valuable financial tools in a consumer's wallet. As a result, when given time to adjust to the macro landscape, open-ended consumer credit products like ours show less variability during downturns. We see nothing today that suggests our consumers are not managing their finances prudently. On a different note, the competitive landscape remains robust, and we are seeing record solicitations in our space, leading to some softening in response rates and marketing efficiency. Nonetheless, given our diversified product offerings, our broad consumer reach, and multiple origination channels, we are highly confident in our long-term positioning. As we look ahead, it serves us well to look at how far we've come.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Five years ago, we had $1.1 billion in managed receivables. Today, we have $7 billion, a compounded annual growth rate of 45%. Five years ago, we had $560 million in revenue. In 2025, we generated just under $2 billion in revenue, a 28% annual growth rate. Our customers served have grown from 1.2 million to approximately 6 million, a 38% annual growth rate. Importantly, we achieved our return on equity targets of greater than 20% each year, even with the inflationary bubble in 2022 and 2023. Over the next five years, our long-term objectives remain unchanged.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

While the addition of Mercury naturally moderates our asset growth rates due to the larger base, we are targeting long-term earnings growth of 20% or more annually while delivering returns on average equity of 20% or greater. We have a talented and experienced team, scalable technology, a proven platform, and ample capital. We have a diversified product offering and marketing capability allowing us to meet customers where they are. We operate at scale in an underserved market where we offer highly valued services to consumers on fair terms. Consumers are experiencing modest but real wage growth, stable employment, and tax policies have been enacted that favor the middle class. We are well-positioned to empower better financial outcomes for even more everyday Americans and provide for durable, profitable growth and long-term value creation for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bill.

[Bill McCamey, CFO at Atlanticus]

Awesome. Thanks, Jeff, and thanks everybody for joining us. I'll begin my section with revenue. For the fourth quarter, total operating revenue and other income increased 107% year-over-year to $734 million. This growth was primarily driven by the acquisition of Mercury, continued expansion of our managed receivables, and increased merchant fee recognition associated with higher origination volumes. Our fair value mark declined modestly as we onboarded the Mercury portfolio as well as added meaningful new receivables to our existing general purpose card asset. Newly originated and newly acquired receivables typically carry lower initial fair values because lifetime loss expectations are front-loaded until the accounts season beyond peak charge-off periods. The Mercury receivables were initially recorded at fair values below our legacy general purpose credit portfolio, reflecting both mix and acquisition accounting.

[Bill McCamey, CFO at Atlanticus]

As these portfolios season and as product policy and pricing adjustments Jeff referenced earlier are implemented, we expect fair value marks to improve over time. Our year-over-year improvement in delinquency and charge-offs continued through the fourth quarter and was amplified with the addition of the Mercury assets. We expect to see the positive impact of the current tax season on delinquencies and subsequent charge-offs. Interest expense increased consistent with receivable growth and higher funding costs reflected expanded warehouse capacity, term securitizations, and the issuance of senior notes to support our ongoing growth. Total operating expenses increased 67% year-over-year, primarily driven by increased servicing costs associated with portfolio growth, the addition of Mercury personnel and operating infrastructure, and higher marketing investment. As we integrate Mercury and scale the combined platform, we continue to identify and realize operating efficiencies.

[Bill McCamey, CFO at Atlanticus]

Net income attributable to common shareholders increased approximately 25% year-over-year to $32.8 million in the fourth quarter or $1.75 per diluted share. We ended the year with ample capital and continue to maintain substantial borrowing capacity across our warehouse facilities and term securitization platforms. Our funding input model remains diversified across bank partners, term securitizations, and corporate debt markets. We believe we are well-positioned to support continued receivable growth while maintaining disciplined return thresholds. For the quarter, we generated a return on average equity of approximately 22%. Our focus remains clear. Empower the more than 5 million customers we serve by prudently deploying capital into at or above targeted return receivables, manage credit conservatively, and drive long-term earnings growth while maintaining balance sheet strength.

[Bill McCamey, CFO at Atlanticus]

In summary, the quarter reflects strong top-line growth, disciplined credit management, improving portfolio seasoning dynamics, and continued operating leverage as we scale the combined platform. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. The first question will come from Vincent Caintic with BTIG. Your line is now open.

[Vincent Caintic, Managing Director and Specialty Finance Analyst at BTIG]

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on your first earnings call. First wanted to talk about the integration in Mercury. It's nice to hear that it's moving ahead of schedule. Maybe if you can go into the more detail, where we're at, what's been achieved so far, and what's left to do, and how long it might take. I saw in the press release, there was discussions about the product policy and pricing changes. I'm sort of curious about what higher yields we should be expecting once all of that is said and done. Thank you.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Yeah. Thank you, Vincent. I appreciate the question. You know, as we said, the integration of Mercury is well ahead of plan. You know, fortunately, we had ample time to plan, post-acquisition for that integration, given the length of time we were in negotiation with our counterparty before that acquisition. That integration entails a number of different things. One, as I mentioned earlier, was the repricing and repositioning of the portfolio. You know, we started that process on day one, literally after the closing of the transaction, and undertook a significant change in terms on the portfolio that was effective back in December. That was obviously a very accelerated timeline that, you know, kudos to our team, to really undertake what was a heavy lift to get that change in terms out in market.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

That change in terms entailed a lot of different actions across the portfolio. Again, we've done this seven or eight other times in our history. We've got a lot of experience in doing this, and we leverage that experience as well as our sort of more recent portfolio management actions undertaken in 2022 and 2023 to have a high degree of certainty in those actions. In some instances, we, you know, added fees. In some instances, we increased APRs. In some instances, we lowered APRs and increased credit lines. It really was a risk segment by risk segment undertaking across the entire portfolio to better position the portfolio for longer-term profitable balance build. That was effective, as I said, beginning in December.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

We've had a number of operational efficiencies that we're starting to realize. The integration of the two organizations starts with a system of record integration, which will be undertaken later this year. That will help align all of our systems and continue the cost savings and help us further along the process of gaining the benefits of scale. In that process, we are getting the benefits from scale from many of our third-party service providers throughout the entire ecosystem of our business. We're starting to realize those efficiencies already. I think the entirety of our integration plan was around 18 months. You know, into the early part of 2027, we feel like we'll have the integration, excuse me, pretty much under our belt.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

The realization of a lot of that integration and synergy and portfolio repositioning, will continue to accrue into 2027 and even 2028. The way that a lot of the change in terms is undertaken post Card Act is you can only affect new balances with new APRs. It takes some time for the older protected balances to run off and to be replaced with the newer, higher-yielding balances, which is why we see what I would consider a longer-tailed realization of a lot of this change in terms.

[Vincent Caintic, Managing Director and Specialty Finance Analyst at BTIG]

Okay, great. Thanks. Thanks very much for that detail. Second part I wanted to talk about was the funding structure of Atlanticus. I think we've heard maybe some just broader macro concerns about funding availability out there, such as with, you know, private credit and so forth. If you could touch on that. Another thing we've seen among many of the fintechs out there, as well as some fintechs exploring becoming a bank, and so wanted to get your thoughts on that as part of your funding structure as well. Thank you.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Yeah. Vincent, happy to address that. We've got great funding partners, really all over the world, and they remain very supportive. We continue to access the securitization market routinely, have seen no deterioration or widening of our spreads, as we approach those markets. We have a diversified funding sources that include banks and life insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds and lots of different pools of capital, including private credit. We have not seen any lack of enthusiasm when we go to market. We've done a number of things with the Mercury asset that we've acquired. I think we announced at least one of those in December. That's very well received. We've got good partners, in the whole program. We don't sense that there's any softening there or support for our business.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

We also tap the corporate debt markets, and have other places where we source capital. I think we have almost $1 billion of committed and undrawn bank warehouse lines across the whole business. We've got good capital support for our growth. Then with regards to your question about a bank, you know, we obviously observe others that are applying for bank acquisitions or seeking new charters. You know, we're studying that ourselves and, you know, that's an interesting element for that industry more broadly and something that we're considering.

[Vincent Caintic, Managing Director and Specialty Finance Analyst at BTIG]

Okay, great. Very helpful. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question will come from Alex Howell with Stephens. Your line's open.

[Alex Howell, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Stephens]

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on the quarter. Quick question, and some of this was touched on during the opening remarks. Curious, also what you guys are thinking about or how you're rather thinking about, you know, this particular tax refund season, and the implications to the portfolio and just growth of receivables over the, I guess, the start of this new year.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Yeah. Look, our expectation is that this is gonna be a fairly robust tax season. We've not seen anything to dissuade us of that view up to this date. You know, we obviously recognize a number of tax policies that were enacted that we believe will benefit our consumers. We expect to see the pay down accordingly, which will obviously hurt balances a little bit, and slow our growth in the quarter, not necessarily year-over-year, but certainly in sequential quarters. Also has the longer term benefit of reducing delinquencies. We feel very good about the way our portfolio is positioned. Like I said, the data that we're seeing suggests that, you know, tax season is in line with expectations.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

You know, it will follow its normal seasonal trends as our expectation and consumer behavior throughout the rest of the year. You know, our consumers will typically pay down with their tax dollars and tax refunds, and then reborrow over the course of the year and rebuild those balances, you know, throughout the remainder of the year. We don't expect anything different at this point.

[Alex Howell, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Stephens]

Okay. If I could just also sneak another one in. In your filings, you guys talk about customer concentration. Just curious if you could provide a little bit more context on your particular relationship with your largest partner and you know how that relationship has evolved and what you're doing to manage concentration risk.

[Bill McCamey, CFO at Atlanticus]

Yeah, thanks for the question, Alex. You know, we have a number of, well, frankly, thousands of merchants that we work with in our retail point-of-sale channel. Some of them have bigger concentrations than others. Obviously, you see the table in our 10-K. We haven't disclosed who those individual partners are, but I think the scale and the way that that's grown is reflective of how we approach that whole market. It's very technology-driven. The integration with each of our merchant partners is very sophisticated, very API-driven, maybe very mobile-first. And that really enables us to make great underwriting decisions in partnership with our account-owner banks at the point-of-sale, and it gives us a lot of defensive moat in that operating structure. I say all that as an example.

[Bill McCamey, CFO at Atlanticus]

That relationship has scaled because, you know, for at least six or seven years, we've been adding great value to that partner, as we think we do with all our partners. We've been winning more and more market share with them and others. That's been a good growth story for us. It's not a concern from our perspective, from a concentration perspective, because, you know, obviously that one partnership is a part of a bigger portfolio, which in turn is a part of a bigger balance sheet. We've got good underwriting of the individual consumers affected there or that we support there, and good counterparty risk with that merchant as well. It's not an area that we're concerned about.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

In fact, I think it's the continuation of an ongoing strategy for us to become more strategically important to fewer, more enterprise-level clients, so that we can, you know, get the full benefit of our custom solutions, our technology integrations, the breadth of underwriting, and create something that's really customized to each of those enterprise-level relationships. That's what you see, as our portfolio has matured.

[Alex Howell, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Stephens]

All right. Thanks for taking my question, guys. I'll hop back in the queue.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. The next question will come from David Scharf with Citizens Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Zach Oster, Managing Director at Citizens Capital Markets]

Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. This is Zach on for David. Thanks for taking our questions. I wanted to dig in a little bit on the macro side of things. Obviously, you know, there's a lot going on with oil prices right now. I wanted to see if we can kind of get some more commentary on that. Also, you know, obviously, that it's a large part of your average customer's budget. You know, there was a lot of similar dynamics in 2022. I wanted to see if it's a little bit too early to kind of read into what's going on right now versus then or, you know, if we can kind of draw other parallels.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Yeah, great question. Thank you. You know, we, like you, sort of draw the same parallel to 2022. We are not forecasting or pretending that we know how to forecast what gas prices are gonna do in the coming weeks or months. But we are watching it very, very closely, and we'll react to any change in behavior that we see with our consumer, just like we did in 2022. You guys may recall that we were very early to identify a change in behavior coming out of tax season in April of 2022 and change pretty meaningfully our underwriting, our approach to market, our pricing strategy, our origination tempo, even our existing back book pricing.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Undertook a meaningful change in terms and repositioning of our own portfolio because of what we saw very early on based on our, you know, at that point in time, 25 years worth of data aggregation to identify deviations from expected payment performance. When we saw that, we changed very, very quickly. That allowed us to continue to serve our customers in a way that we felt were representative of the risk and getting an appropriate return on that capital. As you look back at our financial performance, still enabled us to hit our target return on capital of 20+% . We feel we're in sort of the same position today.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Obviously, this inflation bubble might be more limited to gas prices at least short-term than what we experienced in April and May and June of 2022. We're gonna watch the data, and as soon as we see a change in behavior, we're gonna react accordingly. We obviously have a pretty deep toolbox available to us and a lot of experience on how to make changes once we see changes in that behavior, to respond to it appropriately. Feel like our portfolio is very well-positioned to absorb that as well. You know, we don't wait on changes in behavior to start pricing for that behavior. We've been doing this long enough to know that you have to price your asset for through the cycle performance.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Meaning in the good times, you have to build some buffer for when there is some stress. We feel like we've done that and been planning for events like this. Now when we actually observe it taking place, we'll take further action based on the tool set that we've developed over our now 30 years of operating history.

[Zach Oster, Managing Director at Citizens Capital Markets]

Got it. Thanks for the color. Wanted to also ask a little bit on the fair value mark, to see if we can kind of drill down a little bit and get a little bit more insight into it, particularly around mix versus other impacts in the number.

[Bill McCamey, CFO at Atlanticus]

Yeah, happy to talk about that. We, as I think I mentioned in my comments earlier, we took the mark down a little bit because of the Mercury portfolio is a little different asset than the one that we had traditionally acquired or through our normal organic originations. And then we did a lot of organic originations in the third and fourth quarter too. I think as I mentioned in my comments earlier, newer receivables are new to their seasoning and their life cycle, so we have a little bit more conservative. Actually, we've had a very conservative approach to our fair value underwriting since we adopted fair value, and I think that's really what you see in this number. I think the number is some 60 basis points or so below where we were last quarter.

[Bill McCamey, CFO at Atlanticus]

It's really a very conservative approach to how we think about the asset itself. I think as we also mentioned, as our improvements to the Mercury book and our continuing origination and tempo advances through 2026, we anticipate seeing that fair value mark improving.

[Zach Oster, Managing Director at Citizens Capital Markets]

Got it. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question will come from Hal Goetsch with B. Riley Securities. Your line is open.

[Hal Goetsch, Senior Managing Director and Head of FinTech & Financials at B. Riley Securities]

Hey, thank you. Thanks for the call. Got one question on integration costs and one on maybe revenue, a revenue question. You mentioned maybe an 18-month timeline to get everything on a similar systems of record integration. You know, from start to finish, you know, what kind of overall maybe dollar savings of being on a common system of record bring the company over the next year versus where we're at today?

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Yeah, good question. We don't disclose the specifics of those synergies. I think as you saw when we announced the transaction, we anticipated, you know, somewhere between $2 and $4 a share in accretion, on a go-forward basis. Suffice it to say, there are meaningful savings to be garnered from the full integration of what were two, you know, close to scale platforms, and getting, you know, one significantly scaled platform in place. That extends well beyond just a system of record into, you know, servicing and marketing, internal costs, et cetera. We feel like there's a lot of leverage for us to pull to continue to gain efficiencies through that scale and through that integration.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Again, would refer back to our initial transaction disclosures where we said we felt like we'd get $2-$4 a share of accretion in 2027.

[Hal Goetsch, Senior Managing Director and Head of FinTech & Financials at B. Riley Securities]

Okay. The next question is, you know, it's not like you have a chance to, you know, reprice some customers. As you mentioned, the CARD Act and some protected balances are gonna run off. You know, what kind of maybe increase in overall yield might that be for some of those accounts that might be able to be repriced a little higher or better unit economics if the balances do run off? What is that? What would that be?

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Yeah, a great question. As you can imagine, given the sophistication of our data and analytics and the experience we have in both near-prime and subprime, the impact varies widely depending on where you sit in the risk spectrum. It's hard to sort of say at the portfolio level what that might mean. We haven't disclosed that. You know, we felt like from day one, we could get, you know, 300-350 basis points of ROA improvement on this portfolio.

[Hal Goetsch, Senior Managing Director and Head of FinTech & Financials at B. Riley Securities]

Okay. If I could ask one follow-up. It leads to the tuck-in acquisition of the Vive portfolio from PROG Holdings. You know, that was a subscale kind of operation for PROG, and it wasn't that profitable. I'm just curious, what can Atlanticus do with its, you know, expertise in card programs to improve the unit economics of that program that was not very large?

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Yeah. You know, another good question. Thank you. One of the things that we did was buy it properly, and therefore create a little bit more yield for the asset based on the purchase price. Two is our servicing costs are substantially less than the sellers, just because of the scale that you referenced. And then thirdly, we also had the opportunity to get more organic originations through the partnerships that we inherited at prices that we were then able to determine worked for us. We felt like the combination of those three things got us a return profile for that acquisition that we deemed attractive.

[Hal Goetsch, Senior Managing Director and Head of FinTech & Financials at B. Riley Securities]

All right. Terrific. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question will come from Alex Howell with Stephens. Your line is open.

[Alex Howell, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Stephens]

Hey again, guys. Quick question on the private label receivables, the delinquency rates. You guys call out that you don't include certain receivables from the private label card business. Just curious, if you could help me understand, you know, the thinking behind that and perhaps just for comparability's sake, help me understand what the delinquency metrics might look like if they were included.

[Bill McCamey, CFO at Atlanticus]

Yeah, happy to speak to that. We make that reference because some of our merchant relationships have support from the merchant with regards to asset performance. In some cases, the merchant will reimburse us for principal losses in that program. Because there's no loss experience, no expected loss experience, nor any actual loss experience with those particular receivables, we don't include them in those ratios. We're trying to here present what we think is an accurate description of how the assets are performing. Including those receivables here, that would be, I think, confusing with regards to how the asset is actually performing. Those assets we don't include in that table. I don't know how.

[Bill McCamey, CFO at Atlanticus]

We haven't broken them out in terms of size or impact, so I don't know if I can directly answer your question with regards to what would they look like, if they were included. They would be because there's no losses there, so I guess it would be a different ratio, but that's how we think about it.

[Alex Howell, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Stephens]

Okay. Thank you, guys.

[Operator]

This does conclude today's question and answer session. I would now like to turn it back to Jeff Howard for closing remarks.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you all for your interest and support in our company. We're obviously very pleased with the quarter we posted and obviously the year as well. A lot took place in 2025 in terms of both organic opportunities and the transformational acquisition that we spent a good deal talking about. As much as there was to talk about in 2025, we're even more excited about what lies ahead, and the opportunities for our business and the earnings power that we've created this platform over the course of the last five years, as we referenced in some of our prepared comments. We look forward to sharing the results of those opportunities in the coming quarters.

[Jeff Howard, President and CEO at Atlanticus]

Thank you all again, and thank you for your interest, and we look forward to talking to you again in the next quarter.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Bill McCamey, CFO
• Dan Mock, Investor Relations
• Jeff Howard, President and CEO

Analysts

• Alex Howell, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Stephens
• Hal Goetsch, Senior Managing Director and Head of FinTech & Financials at B. Riley Securities
• Vincent Caintic, Managing Director and Specialty Finance Analyst at BTIG
• Zach Oster, Managing Director at Citizens Capital Markets