Encore Capital Group Inc

And thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Encore Capital Group's Q4 2021 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 that session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. The vibe at today's conference is being recorded, and if you require any assistance during the call, please press star 0. I would like to hand over to your speaker today, Mr. Bruce Thomas, Vice President of Global Investor Relations. Mr. Thomas, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, and welcome to Encore Capital Group's fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. Joining me on the call today are Ashish Massey, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Jonathan Clark, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Ryan Bell, President of Midland Credit Management, and Craig Buick, CEO of Cabot Credit Management. Ashish and John will make prepared remarks today, and then we will be happy to take your questions. Unless otherwise noted, comparisons made on this conference call will be between the fourth quarter of 2021 and the fourth quarter of 2020, or between the full year 2021 and the full year 2020. In addition, Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Please refer to our SEC filings for a detailed discussion of potential risks and uncertainties. During this call, we will use rounding and abbreviations for the sake of brevity. We will also be discussing non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings presentation which was filed on Form 8K earlier today. As a reminder, this conference call will also be made available for replay on the investor section of our website, where we will also post our prepared remarks following the conclusion of this call. Please note that at the conclusion of today's call, we will post our annual report to our website, which includes, among other items, a letter to shareholders and a copy of our Form 10K. With that, let me turn the call over to Ashish Massey, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Thanks, Bruce, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. On today's call, I will start with a high-level recap of 2021, including a few key achievements. Then I'll review our strategy and financial priorities, as well as key measures that are important indicators of the strength of our business. Then John will review our financial results, after which I'll comment on our outlook for 2022 and beyond. Importantly, At the conclusion of today's call, we will also post to our website our annual report. It includes, among other items, my letter to shareholders. We will begin with a look back at our performance in 2021. In a year of challenges across the globe related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to execute on our strategy and delivered exceptional performance in 2021. We maintained a disciplined, consistent approach to our business that drives shareholder value and positions the company for long-term success. Let me point to a number of highlights in 2021 that illustrate the success. To begin, our financial performance was driven primarily by our strong collections, particularly within our MCM business. Overall, we achieved new all-time highs for collections, returns, and earnings. On a global basis, Our portfolio purchases were $665 million in 2021, slightly exceeding on-course purchase total from a year ago when we deployed $660 million. Our weighted average purchase price multiple for the year remained attractive at 2.4 times. Our focus on returns, as well as continuous improvements in our collections operation, allowed us to mitigate portfolio pricing that was somewhat higher in 2021 than in 2020. Although banks continue to sell portfolios throughout 2021, markets in the US and the UK have been impacted by lower supply as a result of fewer charge-offs. However, we are beginning to see indications that credit normalization has begun. I'll expand upon this a bit later in our presentation. Throughout 2021, our business performed extremely well, delivering strong returns and cash flows. As a result, our balance sheet has continued to strengthen as we improved our leverage ratio to 1.9 times by the end of the year. We also refinanced the last of legacy Cabot bonds in 2021, further reducing our cost of capital. A strong cash generation in balance sheet combined with a low level of portfolio purchasing opportunities allowed us to return a meaningful amount of capital to shareholders in 2021. In total, including open market purchases throughout the year and our tender offer in the fourth quarter, we repurchased 23% of Encore's outstanding shares for $390 million. We play a critical role in the consumer credit ecosystem by assisting in the resolution of unpaid debts, which are an expected outcome of the lending business model. Our mission is to help consumers resolve their debts so they can regain the freedom to focus on what is important to them. And we do that by engaging in honest, empathetic, and respectful conversations. As part of our business model, we continue to purchase portfolios of non-performing loans at attractive returns, using funding with the lowest cost available to us. For each portfolio that we own, we strive to exceed our collection expectations. while both maintaining an efficient cost structure as well as ensuring the highest level of compliance and consumer focus. We achieve these objectives through our three-pillar strategy. This strategy enables us to consistently deliver outstanding financial performance, positions us well to capitalize on future opportunities, and is instrumental in building long-term shareholder value. The first pillar of our strategy, market focus, concentrates our efforts in the markets where we can achieve the highest risk adjusted returns. Consistent with this strategy, we sold our portfolios in Colombia and Peru during 2021. Changes in consumer behavior and government support of the economy led to lower credit card balances and below average charge-offs, which resulted in lower portfolio sales by banks in 2020 and 2021. However, it is now clear that credit card balances are rising again in the U.S. and the U.K., and we expect a continued normalization toward pre-COVID levels during 2022. We anticipate that this increased lending will translate into more charge-offs and lead to higher levels of portfolio sales in due course. Despite quarter-to-quarter variability that often characterizes market supply in our industry, our portfolio purchasing volumes over the past two years I've generally followed the trend of credit card balances within our primary markets. Even though our level of deployment was nearly the same in both 2020 and 2021, we believe the underlying volume trends clearly support our belief that the bottom of the supply environment is now behind us, and we expect our deployments for the year to grow in both our MCM and Cabot businesses. Importantly, While being mindful of lower market supply, we maintained our focus on returns, which we believe will enable us to deliver a stronger OIC through the credit cycle. Turning now to our largest and most valuable market in the U.S. In 2021, the ongoing effects of the pandemic caused a greater number of consumers to reassess the financial circumstances. Many consumers chose to improve the financial standing by reducing or eliminating the credit card debt and resolving the charged-off accounts. We were well-positioned to react to this change in consumer behavior and play our part in the credit ecosystem, providing hardship relief when appropriate and also providing solutions for a large number of consumers who were able to pay off their debts. Our MCM business in the U.S. delivered exceptional performance in 2021 as collections grew 7% to an all-time high of $1.6 billion. The continuous improvement in collections operations, the scale effect of higher collections, and the change in consumer behavior during the pandemic led to a lower cost to collect for MCM in 2021 compared to 2020. We successfully implemented the CFPB's new industry rules in November. We are pleased to see the completion of this multi-year process, which resolved uncertainty and finally leveled the playing field for participants in our industry. The new rules help modernize communications with consumers and allow us to engage with them using methods consumers prefer. For the year, MCTM deployed $409 million to purchase portfolios at an average purchase price multiple of 2.4 times in a market where supply was limited by the impacts of the pandemic. Even though we encountered somewhat higher pricing in the fourth quarter, we continue to deploy capital at the best returns in the industry. Our superior returns are the culmination of years of consistently applying a business strategy. Our disciplined purchasing and superior collections effectiveness enable us to purchase portfolios at strong purchase price multiples. Then over time, our continuous collection improvement efforts have enabled us to collect substantially more from both current and historical portfolio vintages, which raises our current multiple for each vintage even higher and helps drive our differentiated returns. Turning to a business in Europe, our collections recovered in 2021, growing 16% compared to the prior year and reaching a new all-time high after considerable COVID-related volatility in 2020. Our collections mix in 2021 led to a higher cost to collect for Cabot compared to the prior year. Deployments in 2021 of $256 million more than doubled compared to the prior year, as our markets in the UK and Europe began to recover from the impacts of the pandemic. Portfolio pricing in 2021 was somewhat higher within a European footprint, while purchasing activity has also begun to pick up more recently in the region. All the while, we maintain returns-focused discipline in purchasing portfolios. The second pillar of our strategy focuses on enhancing our competitive advantages. Our competitive platform enables us to consistently generate significant cash flow. Our cash generation in 2021 increased 14% compared to last year, reflecting the steady improvement in our business, the efficiency of our operations, and the resilience of our portfolios. Our growth in cash generation has contributed to our reduced borrowings and the deleveraging of our balance sheet. A strong cash generation also provides us with additional flexibility when we consider our capital allocation priorities, including the return of capital to shareholders through steady open market repurchases and a tender offer in the fourth quarter of 2021. Our competitive advantages also allow us to deliver differentiated returns In addition to cash generation, another important measure of our business is our return on invested capital, which takes into account both the performance of our collection operation as well as our ability to price risk appropriately when investing our capital. Accordingly, one of our fundamental financial priorities is that underlying business delivers strong long-term returns and that we maintain these strong returns through the credit cycle. Our ROIC performance in 2021 and our performance over time are solid indicators of how we execute in comparison to our peers. In simple terms, we deliver the highest return per invested dollar in the industry. The third pillar of our strategy makes the strength of our balance sheet a constant priority. Our strong operating performance and focused capital deployment have driven higher levels of cash flow and contributed to a lower level of debt. which in turn have reduced our leverage substantially over time. By the end of 2021, we had reduced our leverage ratio to 1.9 times, down from 2.4 times a year ago, and near the lowest in the industry even after the repurchase of $390 million of our shares during the year. As a reminder, our financial priorities include objectives for our balance sheet, as well as a clear capital allocation framework, all underpinned by a long-term focus on delivering strong returns through the credit cycle. We have made tremendous progress in developing a strong and financially flexible balance sheet. The previously mentioned leverage of 1.9 times at year-end is now just below our target range of 2 to 3 times, and we have maintained strong BB debt ratings. A consistent capital allocation framework is critical to success in our business, and our priorities are clear. Our business is fueled by our ability to purchase portfolios and attractive returns, and we have demonstrated our discipline in this area by delivering the best returns in our industry. In keeping with our capital allocation priorities, we began repurchasing OnCore shares in 2021 to return capital to shareholders. A strong cash generation and balance sheet, combined with a lower level of portfolio purchasing opportunities, allowed us to return a meaningful amount of capital to shareholders in 2021, culminating in a highly successful tender offer in the fourth quarter. As a result of our actions during the year, we repurchased approximately 23% of OnCore's outstanding shares for $390 million. These share repurchases were consistent with our capital allocation priorities and fully aligned with the balance sheet objectives to preserve financial flexibility and maintain prudent average. Even after repurchasing more than 7 million on-course shares in 2021, the majority of our multi-year share repurchase authorization, which we expanded last May, remained available at the end of the year. I'd now like to hand over the call to John for a more detailed look at our financial results.

Thank you, Ashish. In 2021, strong collections drove higher revenue, net income, and returns. The resulting strong cash generation combined with lower purchase volume led to a further reduction in our leverage ratio and lower ERC. In the fourth quarter...

Pardon me. Could we ask you to please leave the line? The conference will resume shortly.

So, operator?

Oh, yes.

Yes. One moment, please. I'll bring him back. Okay.

So operator, I will take over if you don't mind. This is Ashish.

I will... Go ahead, Ashish. Let's pick up the... with John's section.

Yes, I will start with John's section. Again, apologies to everyone. They appear to have been a technical difficulty. So let me take over for John. I'm on slide 17, Bruce. So in 2021, strong collections drove higher revenue, net income, and returns. The resulting strong cash generation combined with lower purchase volume led to a further reduction in our leverage ratio and lower ERC. In the fourth quarter, collections declined 3% compared to Q4 of last year, the result of lower portfolio purchasing in 2020 and 2021. However, portfolio purchases totaled $183 million in Q4, up 44% compared to Q4 of 2020. Our effective tax rate for Q4 was lower than normal at 11% as a result of a favorable tax benefit related to the release of valuation allowances in certain foreign subsidiaries. Looking forward, we expect our tax rate for 2022 to be in the low to mid-20s on a percentage basis. Collections were a record $2.3 billion in 2021, up 9% compared to the prior year. MCM collections grew 7% in 2021 to a record $1.6 billion. Cabot's collections through our debt purchasing business in Europe were a record $645 million in 2021, up 16% compared to the prior year. OnCore's global collections in 2021 for all portfolios owned at the end of 2020 was 116% of our ERC forecast for the year. Revenues in 2021 were up 8% to $1.6 billion compared to the prior year. In the U.S., revenues were up 12% to $1.1 billion in 2021. In Europe, 2021 revenues were flat when compared to the prior year. Our global funding structure provides many benefits to Encore, including lower funding costs and extended maturities. Accordingly, in mid-2021, we further strengthened our diversified funding structure by refinancing the last of the legacy Cabot bonds with new senior notes at a significantly lower coupon. Available capacity under a global RCF was $643 million at the end of 2021, and we concluded the year with $160 million of non-client cash on the balance sheet. With a strong balance sheet of financial flexibility, and access to a variety of capital sources, we funded portfolio purchases and share buybacks throughout 2021, as well as the tender offer in Q4. Looking forward, we plan to settle our 2022 convertible notes with cash when they mature in mid-March, and we have ample liquidity and sufficient capacity to fund the opportunities that lie ahead. Aligned with our three core values, we care, we find a better way, and we are inclusive and collaborative. ONCOR is committed to high standards and transparency around our environmental, social, and governance priorities. In 2021, we further expanded our organization's commitment to this area by formalizing our internal ESG governance and oversight. publishing new disclosures, aligning our priorities against well-established frameworks, and ensuring this is all underpinned by our five ESG pillars, consumer, people, environment, community, and operating responsibly. We are proud of the progress we have made to date, and we are looking forward to advancing our ESG program in 2022 by further increasing our disclosures, formalizing our environmental reporting, and issuing our first ESG annual report. Looking back at the last two years, I'm amazed and gratified how OnCourse employees all over the world came together to support our consumers and each other during these unprecedented times. While doing so, we have enhanced OnCourse's position as a vibrant, consumer-focused operator and a thoughtful, disciplined allocator of capital. We have clear financial objectives, a solid balance sheet, and the best returns in the industry. I am pleased with our market position and excited about our future prospects. We all look forward to 2022 and beyond in anticipation that all of our lives, the lives of our consumers, our colleagues, and the world at large will finally return to normal. In terms of market supply, we anticipate that the credit markets in the U.S. and Europe will continue to normalize as revolving credit and credit card balances are on the rise. As a result, we expect that both MCM and Cabot will grow portfolio purchase volumes in 2022 In addition, we expect the collections environment to normalize compared to the exceptional level we saw in 2021. And we project our ERC to start growing again in 2022. Consistent with a long-term view, we believe our strategy will continue to be instrumental in driving strong results and enhancing shareholder value. Now, we'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Operator, please open up the lines for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Stand by as we compile the Q&A roster, and please limit yourself to just two questions at a time. And our first question shall come from David Scharf of JMP Securities. Line is open.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions today. First off, I apologize for kicking off with an accounting question, but... I'm wondering as I look at the magnitude of the change in recoveries line, roughly 22 million, which I assume is once again sort of a pull forward of future collections. Given that that's a considerably lower figure than what we've seen throughout the course of 2021, is it fair to assume that a lot of the maybe excess conservatism or caution in collections forecasting during the pandemic is kind of winding down and, you know, sort of run its course. Is that a figure that we should, well, you can never, you know, forecast precisely just from a conservatism standpoint, you know, should we, for all intents and purposes, you know, assume that that's going to be a negligible amount going forward?

Hello, David. Thanks for your question. We've had a series of technical issues. My apologies. Thanks for your question, David. Let me take a stab and then I will let John chime in as well. You had quite a few things embedded in there. As you know, the last two years has been a period of just unusual consumer behavior and difficult to predict at times, given using historical experience and large data set that we maintain. And last year in particular, given how consumers were saving money and the government support, particularly early part of the year, the collections were much higher. As we look ahead, the world seems to be starting to normalize in terms of consumer behavior as well. People are spending more. The credit card spending is rising. We do our best, and I will let John chime in, but our forecasts are the best forecasts that we use for every quarter when we prepare our financials. That is our best estimate right now, and we'll continue to observe any changes in consumer behavior or any macro environment. The world's still evolving with inflation and other things around the corner, and adjust as the best we can, knowing that the world continues to be quite volatile and uncertain quarter to quarter. John, do you want to chime in?

Yeah, thank you, David. Let's face it, the last couple of years have been very challenging to forecast. I just want to reiterate something that Ashish said. There is no safe harboring gap for conservatism, so we don't try to be conservative. We try to put forward the best curve we have. And you could maybe assume that after a couple of years we're getting better at it, or you could assume that consumer behavior is starting to change a bit, and that's why things are starting to converge. But but we do put forward every quarter our best guess.

Got it. Understood. And maybe just as my follow-up, you know, as you've noted, the low supply environment, which looks like we finally have the trough in the rearview mirror, but, you know, that combined with the existing portfolio, collecting on it, your leverage ratio is below the low end of your target. Is it fair to assume that the company will continue to have a sort of aggressive approach to capital actions, capital returns, until we see that meaningful inflection in purchase volumes?

David, so we've been very clear as we started a year ago with our shareholder letter and annual report. We laid out a balance sheet priorities. So balance sheet needs to be strong. Liquidity needs to be strong. We have a leverage range between two and three. So that's the starting point. And then based on that, our business is about buying portfolios. So that's what we expect to continue doing. And given where consumer lending is growing and what we're hearing from banks, I think portfolio purchases, as we said, as I said, should be higher in 2022 than 2021. So we will look at a balance sheet where things are at and then allocate capital accordingly. We continue to believe Share repurchases are the appropriate way to return capital, but all of that is subject to a strong balance sheet, liquidity position, and continuation of strong financial performance.

Got it. Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Hughes of Truist. Your line is open.

Yeah. Thank you very much. Um, just getting out the, uh, your point about collections normalizing. Um, I think you've talked in the past about your collections relative to expectations. Um, is there any way to say the kind of the, the exceptional level last year was what, and the normal would be, um, would be what, uh, what level, uh, just, uh, Again, looking at the 2021 actuals versus the longer-term norms.

Mark, great question. Tough to parse it along those two. What I would say is that every quarter we have our best estimate of what the future collections are going to be and any of the excess recoveries or excess collections that show up on the first line So that's within the quarter, and then we keep readjusting forecasts with the best information we have at that time. So that's the best indication I can give you. We put out our best estimate, and if you overperform, and yet every time we have to make a decision around, for each pool and vintage, how much is pulled forward versus abutment. So that's how that goes. So I would say that's your best indicator, but beyond that, it can be tough to parse.

Anything you can say about the cost to collect in 2022? You've given some good directional thoughts on a lot of categories. How about cost to collect?

So one thing you should note, and I'm sure you have, cost to collect is a function of kind of the underlying cost structure, but also collections. So given some of the exceptional collections we saw, particularly in U.S., there's a scale effect, a math effect that happens in terms of cost to collect being somewhat lower because of that. So that is starting to normalize and go away. Now, that said, we are very focused on overall cost structure, but also each channel's cost structure and lowering each channel's cost to collect. And at times, actually increasing cost to collect is better to drive higher returns. For example, investing in direct mail or call center staff and whatnot or legal collections. So it depends on the portfolio, where we are at in the timing. Often we will increase investments and costs to drive longer-term collections and therefore higher returns. And that said, there's a few other factors that go into the cost to collect a lot that I've indicated before, which is the type of accounts we buy. It could be low-balance versus high-balance. Low-balance accounts have higher cost to collect. paying versus non-paying, which is very common in the UK, secured versus unsecured, and so forth, or fresh versus older accounts. So while we are focused on cost to collect, it's a thing we watch. It is not kind of a singular focus. It can be impacted by a whole range of other drivers, particularly the mix of collections and accounts that we're working on.

Very good. If I might sneak in one more, the Jonathan, the interest expense, still pretty modest in the quarter. What should we think about kind of a run rate from here?

Well, we don't, you know, we clearly stay away from giving guidance and full run rate. But, you know, in terms of interest, You know, you saw it in Q4 as being kind of mid to high 30s, 38. So that's probably, depending on what happens, a whole host of factors, a reasonable way to look at it going forward. Great.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike of Northland Security. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks, guys, and congratulations on 2021. You know, my first question is just trying to go maybe one level deeper in the purchase environment you're seeing. I think we're all seeing sort of slightly higher credit card balances in I guess I'm curious, after you see those and then kind of collectively talk to your customers, do you feel better about the purchase environment and supply, or do you feel a little bit more cautious after you actually talk to your customers?

As we look at the data, every bank is reporting higher spending and very more aggressive marketing, new card openings, activations are up, and a whole range of things. Then if you look at the credit card balances and the chart that we showed in our presentation, the bottom is behind us. So they're rising, and even if the delinquency rates are stable, you will see higher dollar charge-offs. And actually, delinquency rates, not comparing a year ago, but if you look at a quarter ago, two quarters ago, three quarters ago, many of the U.S. issuers and even some of the U.K. ones are starting to show a turn. So I feel good. I feel more certain today than, let's say, a couple of quarters ago that charge-off volume is starting to rise And it's going to be a steady, slow rise. And some banks actually went as far as saying, hey, they expect the charge-offs to peak early or mid-2023, and they think delinquencies might peak late this year, one of them said. So I feel good that the bottom is definitely behind us and volumes will start rising as we talk to our bank clients but also observing the data.

Got it. And then maybe secondly, just as you look at your operating expense structure, do you feel like 22 you have investments to make, anything out of the ordinary, or are those operating expense, that structure, pretty much in place and it's kind of going to depend on what purchases you put on top of it?

There's always investments going on. So we continue to invest in digital technologies. We continue to invest in some of our infrastructure technology that's underlying collection systems, particularly in Europe and some of the countries where we are pushing to increase our scale and presence. So there might be some incremental expenses there, but I would say over time they all normalize and some of those are capital expense. So I think we have our expense structure pretty much there. Now, COVID did cause certain expenses to be below average, like travel and just being in office expenses and relatively expensive. speaking, all of those will start normalizing again as we go into 2022 and beyond. So I would say some pressure upwards on those expenses will definitely be there.

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you. Next we have on the line Robert Dodd of Raymond James. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. I mean, this may be related to Mark's question, but in your preparing, Mark, you talked about pricing in the U.S. and the U.K. had started to move a little higher. Can you give us any kind of – do you feel that's related to competition? Because obviously there's scarce buy. Or is it a factor that, you know, is the mix of the accounts – coming to market right now a little different than it was before. I mean, basically, is that a price increase or is it really just a change in mix of what's available for you to buy?

Let me take a stab at it and I'll let Ryan chime in as well. He manages our MCM business. So it is a price increase. I don't think the mix of portfolios has changed much. And when we say price increase, we look at it by type of account. So if it's a 12-month-old portfolio, we are making a commentary on our like-for-like portfolios or a fresh portfolio on our like-for-likes. So Q4, we saw pricing up a bit. I don't think there are any new competitors or players. It's just price. It's a result of supply-demand dynamic that's out there.

Brian, you have anything to add on that? No, I think you summarized it well, Ashish. It's a supply-demand dynamic there that we're seeing as supply dropped a bit throughout the year. We saw price rise for like accounts. So nothing in terms of a new type of mix or a different type of mix being brought to the market. It's just like for like we saw a slight increase in price.

Got it. Got it. Thank you. And then... One – well, maybe two if I can get away with it, just on the financials. Tax rate in the fourth quarter was down a little bit. I mean, about 20% for the year. Is that 20% number a good one going forward? Obviously, it's a little lower in Q4 than it had been in the first three quarters.

Yeah, the – Robert, I think the tax rate to assume going forward is kind of mid to low 20s. I think, candidly, I think a 20% number would be a little tight. If I was modeling, I wouldn't model it that low.

Got it. Got it. Thank you. And then just on the interest expense question, following up on an earlier one, if you use the new global senior facility to repay the converse, etc., and your own call floating rate note, what proportion, I can probably calculate this through the queue, I'm being lazy to be fair, what proportion of your outstanding debt is floating rate versus fixed rate?

Well, I'll tell you what it is, was at the end of the year, right, which is certainly the way I would look at it. And by the way, when I talk about the way I look at it, I look at it from the perspective of not just what's fixed and what's floating, but also what we do behind the scenes to hedge it, right? We've got a at face value We've got, I think it's roughly 93% now. I'm sorry. When I look at it as it hedged, roughly 93% is fixed. It's a, I'm sorry, today it's more like 87%. It dropped a little bit because of what's been going on. So fixed is 87% the way I look at it. And of that, if you break it into the two component parts, FACE is fixed at 56%, and what's hedged is 31%. So roughly a little over half of our funding is at FACE looks fixed, but we hedge 31% to get up to 87% fixed. So we believe that our underlying assets are inherently long-duration fixed rate, and so we try to minimize our interest rate exposure, if that makes sense to you. Got it.

That does. That's perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. And again, to ask a question, you need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Again, that you please limit yourself to just two questions. Our next question comes from Bob Napoli of William Blair. Your line is open.

Hi, this is Spencer James on for Bob. Can you guys hear me okay?

Yes, Spencer.

Hi. I wanted to ask how servicing, the third-party servicing, is a strategic asset for Encore and any expectations around investing in that business.

Spencer, this is Ashish. Let me take a stab and then I'll let Craig chime in. So servicing, which is collecting as a third party for a fee – It depends on the market structure. In the U.S., the market is kind of the debt buyers, pure play debt buyers, and that's where the issuers and the banks have preferred, or at least that's where the industry structure has evolved. And so that's what we do in the U.S. Now, in Europe, in the U.K. and other countries, it is very common for the same players to provide both services on a client relationship basis. It's very important. So we are one of the largest servicers in UK, for example, and also have presence in other countries like France and Spain. So it's much more part of an integrated strategy. But Craig, you want to chime in with your view on that, especially for Europe?

Yeah, thanks, Ashish. Hi, Spencer. Thanks for the question. I think when we think about servicing, particularly in the UK, as Ashish mentioned, we seek to provide to our clients sort of a full range of credit management products, everything from potentially outsourcing of their collections and recoveries operations through the placement through a debt collection agency or sale. And that business continues to thrive in the current market. Delinquencies are down in the UK, and we see that more broadly across the financial services sector. But the strength of the relationships and the reputation with our servicing business with our clients remains very strong. and we continue to engage. In terms of your question on investing, we are, as Ashish mentioned earlier, continuing to invest in these businesses to ensure we remain flexible and nimble to be able to continually meet our clients' needs, which are evolving over time. So, yes, it remains a really important part of our overall business model.

That's helpful. Thank you. And one follow-up. Given that we've had an unusual past couple of years, are you expecting a relatively normal growth tax season and anything you can share on how that's trending in the first quarter and how the first quarter will look seasonally in light of tax season?

So that's a U.S. question, given the tax season is very U.S.-focused. So I'll let Ryan chime in in a second. But we are watching it carefully because all different parts of the government are experiencing whatever it's called – labor impact issues or labor issues or some delays. So we are carefully watching where that's going to come out, if there are any delays on that or not. But, Brian, do you have any initial data or any read on that front?

No, I mean, from a tax seasonality standpoint, we're very, in the U.S., very early in that curve, so we're just at the beginning of it. So we've seen nothing yet in our data that would indicate anything off the normal seasonality, but obviously we'll keep track of that. If we see any changes later during the tax season, we'll make those adjustments as needed. But nothing as of yet.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Truist. Your line is open.

Yeah, thank you. I'm not sure if you mentioned this, but the collections multiple at Cabot, When we look at the full year number versus nine months, I'm sure it's in the K, but I'm likewise being lazy and wonder if you have it there.

So the collections multiple for the 21 was 2.2 in Europe for us.

And then what was that through nine months? Is that similar?

2.3 or so, I believe. You'll have to go check to be 100% sure, but it was slightly higher.

Is that pricing or mix, would you say?

Craig, do you want to jump in on that?

Yeah. Hi, Mark. It's Craig here. It's going to be driven by mix. We haven't really seen any fundamental change in sort of pricing dynamic quarter to quarter. But as you're aware, within Europe, there's a number of different geographies. We work within a number of different asset classes. So it's more down to mix.

And, uh, Jonathan, the, uh, the overperformance in the quarter, I think in times past, you've given us a number, the, uh, collections upside, um, in total, and then how much, uh, you recognized in terms of change in expected current and future recovery. So the 23 million was the expected change. Was there a overperformance in total number that you can share? Yeah, for Q4, the overperformance was 48 million.

48 million.

Okay. Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And we have a question from the line of John Rowan. Johnny, your line is open.

Good evening. Jonathan, the $48 million over collection, there was a net number against that, correct? Can you just let us know what the net number was to bring it down to the gain that you reported?

If you start at... 48, and let's say you end at 22, then the delta can be 26, right? So it would be 26 negative, if you will, to get to the net number.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure, because I think you usually put that in the release. And then Can you give us an idea of where you ended the quarter from a diluted share count? Given the repurchases didn't go down quite as much as I anticipated, I'm trying to figure out if that was just a timing issue and kind of where we start one cue from a diluted share outstanding.

Yeah, the diluted share count for the quarter was a little over 30. It was 30-0-4-0. Okay. So there's some dynamics here that are important to understand. You know, when you think about how this is viewed for a year or even a quarter, the majority of the shares we repurchased in Q4 were associated with a tender which closed in December. So as a result, the impact of the shares repurchased through the tender had a reduced impact on the weighted average share count. And then in addition to that, the diluted share count was also impacted by roughly a million and a half shares related to the diluted effect to the convertible notes. So we took out a number of shares, but it's going to take a while for the full effect of that to be seen because of the way you have to do your averaging. and we had some increased dilution from our convertible notes because of a significant rise in our stock price.

Okay, so where would you say 1Q diluted share count is?

I don't have that number off the top of my head. Maybe I'd say 27 to – Let's call it 27 and a half.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further questions in the queue? I will turn the call back over to Ashish Mathia for closing comments.

Thank you. So as we close the call today, I'd like to reiterate a couple of key points. Our strategy of focusing on the right markets, executing effectively to deliver strong returns on our portfolios, and maintaining a strong balance sheet are key drivers of our best-in-class performance. As credit continues to normalize and supply starts rising again, we stand ready to increase our portfolio purchases to drive Encore's continued success. Thanks for taking the time to join us, and we look forward to providing your first quarter results in May.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect, and have a pleasant day.