World Acceptance Corporation

Good morning and welcome to World Acceptance Corporation's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. This call is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed on listen-only mode. Before we begin, the Corporation has requested that I make the following announcement. The comments made during this conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that represent the corporation's expectations and beliefs concerning future events. Such forward-looking statements are about matters that are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties. Statements other than those of historical fact as well as those identified by the words anticipate, estimate, intend, expect, believe, may, will, and should, or any variation of the foregoing and similar expressions are forward-looking statements. Additional information regarding forward-looking statements and any factors that could cause actual results or performance to differ from the expectations expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements are included in the paragraph discussing forward-looking statements, today's earnings press release, and in the risk factor section of the corporation's most recent form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, and subsequent reports filed with or furnished to the SEC from time to time. The corporation does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements it makes. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Chad Prashad, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our fiscal 2026 first quarter earnings call. Before we open up to questions, we've had a few major updates this week to share along with highlights from the first quarter. We recently completed a new credit agreement increasing commitments to $640 million, allowing for stock repurchases up to 100% of net income, which is an increase from 50% of net income in the prior agreement, and a $100 million upfront repurchase allowance in addition to 100% of net income beginning January 1st, 2025. The net income is around $45 million since January 1st, 2025. In addition, we're in the process of redeeming the remaining bonds that were issued in 2021. If you recall, we issued $300 million in high yield notes with a five-year maturity in the fall of 2021 and have been repurchasing them in the market over the last few quarters. We currently have around $170 million outstanding that we'll redeem by the end of August. This removes the constraint to allow for more accelerated stock repurchases. That capacity may be over $200 million for share repurchases over the next 12 months, which is approximately 23 to 25% of outstanding shares at this morning's stock price. As a reminder, our earnings are quite seasonal. Historically, the first quarter is our lowest quarter for earnings, as we rebound from growth and provision from the tax season runoff. Over the prior three years, first quarter net income has made up an average of only 5.6% of our total annual net income, and it's peaked at a high of only 12% of annual net income. We're excited about the current portfolio and its trajectory, which includes substantial customer-based expansion, strong loan growth, improved loan approval rates while maintaining credit quality, growth in yields, and stable to improving late-stage delinquency. On growth, refinance volume increased 10% this quarter over the first quarter last year. To really underscore the overall growth we're seeing in the current lending environment, the number of new originations this quarter increased 12.6% over last year's first quarter. This is the highest volume of new originations in our first quarter since fiscal year 2020. In terms of dollars lent in new originations, we increased 12.8% year over year. and are in line with fiscal years 2019 and 2020, both of which were some of the highest non-refinanced growth years on record. Our customer base increased by 4% this quarter compared to the first quarter of last year. This is our first positive customer base growth we've experienced during the first quarter in three years. And we've also returned to the largest customer base we've had since the first quarter of 2023. All this growth has put us on track to rapidly close the year-over-year ledger gap We began the year on April 1st with a ledger that was down around 4% year-over-year, or approximately $50 million. We've grown around $40 million in this quarter to end the quarter down about 80 basis points, which is approximately $10 million year-over-year. Even with this substantial growth, both new originations and the overall portfolio have stable first-pay default rates and improving delinquency, as well as And quite importantly, gross yields have increased over 230 basis points year over year. These results and other operational and capital improvements increase our confidence in a portfolio that will continue to have moderate growth with low cost of acquisitions, strong credit performance, improving yields, increased revenue, declining share count, and ultimately returning enhanced value to our shareholders through strong EPS growth. One short note on the new World Finance Smile credit card. We completed the first phase of internal testing and have moved on to live testing with customers. To reiterate, our main goals are to use this product slowly and wisely. We want to better align yield with risk, especially in rate cap states, help customers manage both installment and revolving credit, lower our overall cost of acquisition and service, improve customer retention, and expand our markets. Our approach is to be prudent in our efforts to serve the one in three Americans with minimal to no mainstream access to responsible and affordable credit. Finally, we have an absolutely amazing team at World, and I'm very grateful for their commitment to their customers as well as to each other. They are helping our customers every day to establish and rebuild credit while also meeting immediate financial needs. At this time, Johnny Calmes, our Chief Financial and Strategy Officer, and I would like to open up to any questions you have.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. On your phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Kyle Joseph of Stevens. Go ahead, please.