Atlanticus Holdings Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Atlanticus second quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dan Malk.

Thank you operator and good afternoon everyone. Atlanticus release results for the second quarter ended June 30th, 2026 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, earnings growth, returns on equity, portfolio performance, the sufficiency of available capital, delinquency and charge-off rates, and future financial and operating results. 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 and except to the extent required by federal securities laws, the company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statement. In addition, during this call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release for important disclosures regarding such measures, including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff.

Thanks, Dan. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Let me open by saying this month marks Atlanticus' 30th anniversary. Over that history, we have funded over $53 billion in receivables, raised over $20 billion in capital, and we have weathered numerous economic cycles, regulatory changes, and competitive pressures. Most importantly, we have served over 23 million consumers and played a vital role in meeting their families' daily financial needs, often at times when others would not. What gives us the greatest sense of accomplishment, however, is the culture we have built and the many colleagues with whom we have had the privilege of working over the course of our careers. Together, through both our successes and the challenges from which we have learned, we have created a culture grounded in shared achievement and an uncompromising commitment to our purpose, empowering better financial outcomes for everyday Americans. It is our team and its collective experiences built over those 30 years that makes Atlanticus an industry leader. to all of our current and former team members, thank you, and happy 30th anniversary. I'll now turn to our second quarter specifics. During the quarter, we continued to drive growth in the legacy platform, advance the Mercury integration, and maintain favorable credit performance. We delivered record profits for the quarter, demonstrating the strength of one Atlanticus and the benefits of the scale we have added over the past year. The record profits were driven by record revenue, record new customers served, and record total number of customers served, all while exceeding our 20% return on equity target. On the operations front, our mercury acquisition continues to perform better than modeled. Our portfolio management activities, portfolio performance, new originations, synergy realization and operational and technical integration are all on or ahead of plan. Growth outside of mercury remained a major driver as well. Excluding Mercury, managed receivables increased 26% from the prior year period. We continue to add customers across both legacy general purpose and private label programs, and the number of active accounts increased by more than 1 million year over year, excluding Mercury. Credit metrics show year over year improvement, largely driven by the Mercury acquisition and continued consumer stability. Within our portfolios, we see credit performance in line with our models. Next quarter will be the first where we have year-over-year comparisons that include the mercury acquisition, and we expect to see slightly higher delinquency and charge-off rates due to having only a partial quarter of mercury performance in 2025, as well as intentional mix shifts as our legacy portfolios continue to be faster growing. Across our observable metrics, we continue to see prudent spending and stable credit behaviors from the consumers we serve. While we are mindful of above-target inflation, and once again, volatile gas prices. We also note that the unemployment rate remains relatively unchanged and well below historical averages. Jobless claims were recently at 50-year lows, real wages continue to grow and real wage growth for lower income consumers since 2019 has outpaced all other segments. Additionally, household debt service ratios, credit card debt to household income and credit card debt to GDP all remained below pre-COVID levels. As we've said before, we will continue to let the actual data guide our decision making and leverage our now 30 years of data aggregation to identify real changes in consumer behavior and then act accordingly. As we mentioned last quarter, the competitive environment for general purpose credit cards remains robust and high solicitation volumes continue to impact response rates. At the same time, our expanded product set, proprietary analytics, multiple origination channels, and greater scale are enabling us to deploy capital at attractive risk-adjusted returns. As a result, we were able to add a record 790,000 new customers served in the quarter. We will, however, continue to prioritize unit economics over volume and adjust our marketing and underwriting as conditions warrant. For the quarter, net income attributable to common shareholders was 47.4 million, a 67% increase over prior year, or $2.50 per diluted share, Return on average equity was 28.1%, reflecting the continued strength and earnings power of our business. In conclusion, our priorities are clear. Continue to integrate and optimize the Mercury portfolio, support profitable growth across our portfolios, maintain disciplined credit management, and preserve the funding flexibility needed to capitalize on attractive opportunities. Based on the performance of the business and the opportunities in front of us, we continue to expect earnings growth and returns on equity at or above our long-term targets of 20%. And as we celebrate our 30 years in business, I believe Atlanticus has never been better positioned for the future. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bill.