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Date

May 14, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET

Call participants

• Chief Executive Officer — David Burton
• Chief Financial Officer — Christo Realov
• Operator

Takeaways

• Total collections -- $310 million, rising 19% year over year, with major contributions from Bluestem ($54.5 million) and Conn's ($31 million) purchases.
• Estimated remaining collections (ERC) -- $3.4 billion, increasing 18% and reflecting growth in portfolio deployments; $238 million and $105 million of ERC tied to Bluestem and Conn's, respectively.
• Revenue -- $176 million, an all-time high, up 14% due to strong deployments and yield improvements.
• Adjusted EPS -- $0.73 for the quarter, as explicitly cited without providing a prior-year comparator.
• Cash efficiency ratio -- 73%, sector-leading and bolstered by Bluestem and Conn's; excluding them, the ratio would have been 68.1%.
• Portfolio purchases -- $115 million, down from $175 million in the same quarter last year, with the prior year including a one-time $28.5 million Canadian insolvency package.
• Operating expenses -- $96 million, up 47%, attributed to higher collections volume.
• Core costs -- $17.3 million, an 86% year-over-year increase driven by expanded legal channel activity.
• Adjusted pretax income -- $58 million, producing an adjusted pretax ROE of 50.8%.
• Adjusted cash EBITDA -- $235 million, representing 12% year-over-year growth.
• Debt leverage -- Net debt to adjusted cash EBITDA ratio improved to 1.79x as of March 31.
• Forward flow agreements -- $353 million of locked-in deployments; CFO stated the committed flows increased about 28% from December 31 to March 31.
• Senior secured revolving credit facility -- Amended to expand committed capital by $150 million, now totaling $1.15 billion with $254 million drawn as of quarter-end.
• Dividend declaration -- $0.24 per share, equating to a 4.6% annualized yield at April month end.
• Share repurchase -- 3 million shares (about 5% of total outstanding) bought back for $59 million in conjunction with January's follow-on equity offering.
• Collections from legal channel -- Increased materially this quarter due to process improvements that reduced timeline from account placement to filing; core costs expected “to remain at approximately this level.”
• Bluestem portfolio financials -- $15.3 million in portfolio revenue and $7.9 million in net operating income recognized this quarter.
• Conn's portfolio financials -- $11.2 million in portfolio revenue, $1.2 million in servicing revenue, and $7.7 million in net operating income recognized this quarter.
• Proportion of ERC duration -- 52% of ERC expected to be collected through 2027; $1.1 billion of ERC to be collected in the next 12 months.
• Expected replacement needs -- To maintain ERC, $563 million in global deployment would be needed over the coming year; $216 million of deployments already contracted through forward flows for the next 12 months.
• Capital allocation priority -- Management stated the focus remains on deploying capital into portfolios offering “attractive risk-adjusted returns.”

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Risks

• Core costs rose 86% year over year due to greater legal channel activity, and management stated, We expect core costs to remain at approximately this level given the increased inventory of suit eligible accounts.
• Portfolio purchases declined to $115 million from $175 million last year, with CEO Burton noting the prior period’s boost from a large, nonrecurring Canadian insolvency acquisition.
• CEO Burton stated, consumers have a more limited ability to absorb unanticipated temporary financial hardships, which is an important driver for delinquency and charge-off volumes.

Summary

Jefferson Capital (JCAP 3.56%) reported record revenue and collections, expanded forward flow agreements, and a major increase in legal channel activity during the quarter. Management amended the senior secured revolving credit facility, boosting aggregate committed capital by $150 million and earmarking significant capacity to refinance 2026 bonds. The company repurchased 3 million shares and reaffirmed its focus on capital deployment and maintaining a low leverage profile as strategic priorities.

• Management disclosed that pricing remained stable and attractive across all asset classes, and noted expanded opportunities among non-card debt sellers.
• CFO Realov emphasized that the cash efficiency ratio excluding Bluestem and Conn's collections was 68.1%, and further improvements are targeted through ongoing cost initiatives.
• CEO Burton described competitive advantages in operating efficiency and technological capabilities, while confirming that around half of portfolio purchases (on a transaction count basis) are via forward flows.
• Bluestem and Conn's portfolios together contributed $26.5 million in portfolio revenue and $15.6 million in net operating income for the quarter.

Industry glossary

• ERC (Estimated remaining collections): Projected cash recoverable from purchased debt portfolios over their lifetimes, as modeled by the company.
• Forward flow: Contractual agreement to purchase receivables portfolios at a predetermined schedule and price over a future period.
• Cash efficiency ratio: Measure of cash collections relative to operating expenses, indicating efficiency in collections operations within the debt purchasing sector.
• Legal channel: Method using litigation to collect debt when voluntary repayment is not achieved, generally applied to accounts showing capacity but unwillingness to pay.

Full Conference Call Transcript

David Burton: Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for joining our investor call. Let's dive into our first quarter financial performance highlights. We again generated strong results for shareholders. We delivered record collections of $310 million, up 19% versus the prior year period, and we continue to perform well versus our underwriting expectations. Our estimated remaining collections grew 18% to $3.4 billion, driven by our continued deployment performance and attractive anticipated returns. Revenue for the quarter was a record $176 million, up 14% versus the prior year period. We delivered a sector-leading cash efficiency ratio of 73%, driven in part by strong collections from the Bluestem and Conn's portfolio purchases.

We generated strong cash flow in the quarter, which improved our leverage to 1.79x, a level which positions us well for future growth and creates significant strategic optionality. Adjusted EPS for the quarter was $0.73. Turning to the next slide, I'd like to offer a brief market update and cover some of the macroeconomic indicators to provide better context for why we remain confident in the investment opportunity for our business. Delinquency trends remained elevated across all non-mortgage consumer asset classes and create favorable portfolio supply trends. An asset class we continue to watch closely is auto finance.

Receivables have grown steadily to a record of $1.68 trillion with an average monthly new vehicle loan payment of $806, up 52% compared to pre-pandemic as a result of higher vehicle prices and elevated interest rates. In March of 2026, nearly 1/3 of used vehicle trade-ins carried negative equity. In addition, 72-month loans accounted for 40.5% of all financed vehicle sales and 84-month loans accounted for 12.8%. Continued strain on the consumer and deteriorating credit quality for originators in some instances, coupled with financing headwinds, all set the stage for increasing portfolio supply. We remain uniquely positioned to offer solutions across the spectrum of performing, charged-off and insolvency auto finance portfolios for both secured and unsecured accounts.

The next important component to better understand the state of the consumer is the current level of personal savings. During the pandemic, consumers accumulated abnormally high savings as a result of the unprecedented levels of government stimulus, which served as a financial cushion against life's unexpected events. By the end of 2022, the excess savings had been depleted. And in fact, the current level of personal savings at $857 billion is substantially lower than the long-term pre-pandemic average from 2013 through 2019 of $1.1 trillion, a dynamic which is even more pronounced when adjusted for inflation.

This suggests that consumers have a more limited ability to absorb unanticipated temporary financial hardships, which is an important driver for delinquency and charge-off volumes. Next, regarding the insolvency market, we have seen a well-pronounced increase in the number of insolvencies, both in the United States and in Canada from the pandemic trough in 2021, which in turn has fueled the resurgence in supply of insolvency portfolios. Insolvency valuation and servicing requires highly specialized expertise, a robust data set to develop accurate forecasts and a technologically advanced servicing platform, and we remain one of the very few debt buyers in the U.S. and by far, the largest debt buyer in Canada that can capitalize on this market opportunity.

Finally, this backdrop is also underpinned by a low level of unemployment, which supports the expected liquidation rates on our existing portfolio and gives us confidence in underwriting new purchases. Our portfolio performance is less sensitive to changes in unemployment compared to an originator. And despite the recent labor market headwinds, the overall employment level is still favorable for our business. All of these trends point in one direction, elevated levels of consumer delinquencies and charge-offs, which we're seeing across all consumer asset classes and which we believe create a long runway for a robust portfolio supply over the coming quarters, coupled with continued strong collection performance on our existing book and on any future portfolio purchases.

Moving on, I'd like to review in more detail some of the key performance trends for the quarter. Our collections, as I mentioned, were $310 million, up 19% year-over-year, driven by strong deployments in 2024 and 2025. $54.5 million of collections for the quarter were attributable to the Bluestem portfolio purchase and $31 million were attributable to the Conn's portfolio purchase. More broadly, our collection performance on the overall portfolio continues to reflect the accuracy of our underwriting models, and we did see the typical seasonal impact of tax refunds on consumer liquidity in the United States. A key trend in collection performance has been the increase in legal channel collections.

Jefferson Capital utilizes legal channel as a means of last resort in instances where we believe the account holder has the ability, but not the willingness to engage or pay. We have achieved a number of important process improvements, specifically in the United States, which have significantly compressed the timing from placement of the account to filing of the lawsuit. -- which in turn has accelerated suit volumes. This inventory of suit eligible accounts has increased given the significant growth in deployments over the past 3 years. So over time, we expect to see continued growth in legal collections. Our portfolio purchases for the quarter were $115 million compared to $175 million in the first quarter of 2025.

Returns remain attractive, and we remain confident in the deployment landscape. I will note that our deployments in the year ago first quarter benefited from a $28.5 million insolvency back book purchase in Canada. More broadly, our business is subject to pronounced seasonality. The fourth quarter is typically the largest quarter for deployments as credit originators aim to dispose of nonperforming portfolios ahead of year-end. Deployments then tend to decelerate in the first quarter as portfolio sales activity declines as originators want to take advantage of consumer liquidity related to tax refunds in the U.S.

As of March 31, we had $353 million of deployments locked in through forward flows, which is an important building block of our deployment strategy for the coming quarters. Our estimated remaining collections as of March 31 were $3.4 billion, up 18% year-over-year with ERC related to Bluestem and Conn's comprising $238 million and $105 million of U.S. distressed, respectively. Our ERC is relatively short in duration due in part to the lower average balance accounts in our portfolio with 52% of our ERC expected to be collected through 2027. We expect to collect $1.1 billion of our March 31 ERC balance during the next 12 months.

Based on the average purchase price multiples recorded in the first quarter, we'd need to deploy approximately $563 million globally over the same time frame to replace this runoff and maintain current ERC levels. I would note that as of March 31, we had $216 million of deployments contracted via forward flows for the next 12 months. Lastly, I'd like to review in more detail another core pillar of our business model and a critical building block for our differentiated return profile, our best-in-class operating efficiency.

We seek to own the high value-added aspects of the purchasing and collection process, including portfolio and consumer payment performance data, extensive analytical and modeling capabilities, certain proprietary technological capabilities and the collection processes and techniques that we believe create both a competitive advantage for the company as well as a significant barrier to entry. Conversely, we seek to outsource the aspects of the collections value chain that we view as commoditized or operationally intensive and do not produce a competitive advantage, such as running large domestic call centers. We utilize champion challenger performance measures to allocate portfolio segments to the best servicers and our internal collection platform competes for market share against external collection service providers.

Our mostly variable cost structure provides flexibility to scale deployments depending on market conditions. The benefits of our relentless pursuit of operating efficiency are evident in our efficiency metrics relative to the rest of the sector. As I mentioned, our cash efficiency ratio for the quarter was 73%. It was aided by collections on the Bluestem and Conn's portfolios, which carry a lower cost to collect given the significant portion of paying accounts. Excluding Bluestem and Conn's portfolio collections and expenses, the cash efficiency ratio would have been 68.1%, which is also materially higher than other public companies in the sector.

Our leading operating efficiency is a powerful competitive advantage and coupled with the strong returns of our differentiated investment strategy supports consistent, attractive shareholder returns. With that, I'd now like to hand it over to Christo for a more detailed look at our financial results.

Christo Realov: Thank you, David. Taking a closer look at the financial details for the first quarter, revenue was $176 million, up 14% year-over-year, driven by continued strong deployments and higher net yields. Changes in recoveries were $7 million for the quarter, reflecting collection overperformance in the U.S. related to the seasonal impact of tax refunds. Operating expenses were $96 million, up 47% year-over-year, with the increase due to the significant growth in collections. Expenses remain well controlled relative to the growth in collections with our cash efficiency ratio at 73% for the quarter. Core costs increased to $17.3 million or 86% year-over-year as a result of the trends in increased legal channel volumes that David reviewed in his comments.

This is an upfront expense to support future collections through the legal channel and the accelerated time to suit put forward these expenses. We expect core costs to remain at approximately this level given the increased inventory of suit eligible accounts, resulting from the significant overall portfolio growth over the past several years. Adjusted pretax income was $58 million for the quarter, resulting in an adjusted pretax ROE of 50.8%. We realized a material level of collections on portfolios purchased in '24 and '25, including the Bluestem and C portfolio purchases, which in turn drove adjusted cash EBITDA to $235 million for the quarter, up 12% year-over-year.

Finally, for the first quarter, Jefferson Capital recognized portfolio revenue of $15.3 million and net operating income of $7.9 million related to the Bluestem portfolio purchase. Separately, we recognized portfolio revenue of $11.2 million, servicing revenue of $1.2 million and net operating income of $7.7 million related to the CS portfolio purchase. Our credit profile remains strong and positions us well for future opportunities. As of March 31, our net debt to adjusted cash EBITDA improved to 1.79x, a level which is significantly lower than our publicly traded peers. Over the long term, our target leverage ratio is in the range of 2 to 2.5x on a sustained basis.

Our balance sheet is solid with ample liquidity to support growth, create strategic optionality and pay our quarterly dividend. On April 22, we completed an amendment of our senior secured revolving credit facility, increasing aggregate committed capital by $150 million to $1.15 billion. We added two new partners to the bank group, each committing $75 million. There were no material changes to terms. The facility had $254 million drawn at March 31, and we have earmarked $300 million of capacity to repay our 2026 bonds. Given the maturity was fully prefunded with the $500 million unsecured issuance in 2025. And at this point, we're not taking on any market risk.

We plan to keep the bonds outstanding as long as possible to take advantage of the attractive 6% coupon. This strong liquidity profile is a critical component of our value proposition to sellers who value certainty of close in periods when portfolio activity increases, but the funding markets could be constrained or unavailable. With regard to our capital allocation priorities, our primary focus remains on deploying capital to purchase portfolios at attractive risk-adjusted returns. Our Board has declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.24 per share, which represented a 4.6% annualized yield as of April month end.

The dividend offers an attractive component of shareholder return, which is not available from other public companies in this sector and also reinforces long-term discipline around investment returns. In conjunction with the follow-on equity offering in January, we also repurchased 3 million shares or approximately 5% of the total legally issued shares for $59 million. This was a tactical share repurchase where the company used its capital to support the offering and to further reduce the sponsor overhang. We will evaluate open market share repurchases at the appropriate time while also aiming to maintain trading liquidity in the stock. Finally, we have a long history of successful M&A, but we intend to remain disciplined and opportunistic.

Now we'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Operator, please open up the lines.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question today is from David Scharf with Citizen Capital Markets.

David Scharf: On a strong start to the year. David, I appreciate the kind of the macro commentary. It's clearly kind of consistent with what we've heard from lenders during this reporting season. I'm wondering, though, as we think about the visibility of future forward flow arrangements, can you provide any commentary on, I guess, a, in addition to just how much is under contract, whether you're seeing an expansion of the number of sellers that are entering into flow deals? And secondly, just based on your history and experience, if there is some increased macro pressure, whether through higher unemployment or whatnot, do you tend to see sellers enter into more flow deals or fewer?

If you can just provide some context maybe.

David Burton: Thanks for the question, David. I'll first start by commenting that our forward flow -- our committed forward flows were up about 28% between 12/31 and 3/31. And I think that reflects a number of factors, including deepening our client relationships. And in some markets that historically have been spot sale oriented, working with clients to convince them to be a more programmatic seller and the advantages associated with that.

To your point about the dynamic that might occur with sellers going more toward a forward flow orientation versus spot sale as it relates to things like unemployment, my own experience has been that in an environment of rising prices, you tend to see sellers more interested in shorter-term forward flows. And in an environment where prices decrease, especially when that's connected to rising unemployment, that's when you see sellers try to derisk future recoveries by locking in longer-term forward flows. So I suppose that's probably a dynamic that you would imagine would happen.

At this moment, I don't think we're seeing any significant changes in people's -- in sellers' appetite to really modify their -- the percentage of their debt sales that are subject to a forward flow agreement versus spot sales. So I don't know that there has been a market change that at least I can discern.

David Scharf: Got it. No, that's helpful context. And I think the close to 30% increase in flow dollars year-over-year kind of speaks for itself. Maybe just one follow-up question. Maybe it's more for Christo. As we think about sort of forecasting the efficiency ratio sort of near term, if we kind of exclude Conn's and Bluestem and think about that 68 -- low 68% as sort of the benchmark today. Does the increasing mix of legal collections, does the outsized growth of the legal channel inherently put a little downward pressure on the cost to collect -- or I'm sorry, actually maybe downward pressure on that cash efficiency margin.

I mean as long as Legal is growing as quickly as it should, should we be thinking about that 68.1% going up near term? Or is it best to sort of keep it flat?

Christo Realov: I'll think of this in two ways. Number one, the company has had a history of constantly improving that underlying cost to collect and in turn, the cash efficiency ratio through a very sort of broad range of cost savings and efficiency initiatives, and we continue to do that day in and day out. The mix of legal channel collections would not have a material impact. Keep in mind that the 68.1% kind of adjusted cash efficiency ratio to exclude Cons and Bem already includes the current level of core costs. And we believe, as I said in the prepared remarks, that those will remain relatively stable over the course of the year.

Operator: The next question is from Robert Dodd with Raymond James.

Robert Dodd: Congrats on the quarter. First, following up on kind of the legal thing, to your point, Chris, I mean, you already indicated you expect the legal expenses to stay at kind of this level through the course of this year. I mean just not asking about 2028, but when we think about how much portfolio has been acquired or ERC has been acquired, the increased amount of legal eligible accounts, et cetera, all the things you've outlined. I mean, is this year the elevated court costs enough to kind of run through the increase of the number of eligible accounts?

Or is there still, do you think, going to be a kind of a lack of a better word, a backlog even when you get to the end of the year and these elevated expenses could stay there for some extended period of time beyond just the next, call it, 9 months?

David Burton: Yes. So good question, Robert. I do -- it's a complicated question because what we don't know is what we're going to buy for the rest of this year and how much of that will be expected to be legal, eligible legal profitable that would -- where the timing would be optimized by having that litigated next year. So I think we're careful to not comment on things that are beyond the horizon, which is harder for us to anticipate. I do want to flag though that when we underwrite portfolios, we anticipate the volume and timing of accounts that are to be litigated, and that cost is embedded in the -- our pricing and the net IRRs.

And so we're deploying capital, obviously, at attractive returns. and the timing for the incurrence of court costs matters on our P&L. What matters most to us, of course, is that we generate attractive cash-on-cash returns, and those are determined at the time of the purchase.

Robert Dodd: Understood. And then just on the purchase volume. I mean, obviously, Q1, I mean, you mentioned Canada had a tough comp because you got a lot of purchase volume last year. The U.S. didn't have a tough comp per se. Yes, it's seasonal. I understood like Q4 to Q1 isn't necessarily right comp, but Q1 to Q1 last year. Was there anything unusual about the volumes of the sellers this quarter? I mean, did people -- is there any slippage, I guess, as I'm kind of asking like did things spill over into Q2 without asking for a number. But I mean, just -- it did look a little in the U.S., a little softer than I expected.

One quarter is not a trend, but I'm just trying to get a feel on how that shook out.

David Burton: Yes. Thanks for the question. I will highlight that we've had good growth in deployments in a number of areas, including Latam and the U.K. But I also want to make sure that you don't derive any level of concern regarding the robustness of deployment opportunities in the U.S. I would not discern from the first quarter and any kind of year-over-year comparison that we feel anything but confidence in the deployment opportunities in the U.S.

And so we've not been in a better position with more clients and more asset classes and more capabilities across performing charge-off and insolvency portfolios that we feel -- and the backdrop of the consumers being under increasing levels of pressure that certainly provides a favorable backdrop as we think about deployments in the U.S. this year.

Operator: The next question is from Randy Binner with Texas Capital.

Randy Binner: I have this is super helpful disclosure. I appreciate it. On the revolver, was it $250 million that was drawn overall, Christo, I just didn't catch that part of your commentary.

Christo Realov: $254 million was drawn.

Randy Binner: Yes. Okay. Cool. And then, I guess I'll kind of like try to ask the looking into the future question a little bit like higher level is just with larger -- like larger bulkier opportunities, is that -- are there more -- with your commentary of the market and particularly with auto and opportunities that are coming in, can you -- is it possible to just take a little bit more look or commentary into kind of larger potential deals that could be out there?

David Burton: Let's see how to answer that without making a forward-looking statement. I would say that -- I guess I'll go back to the comments that I provided early about just the level of indebtedness in auto in particular, and the delinquency trends, which are more pronouncedly higher in auto than they are in other asset classes, but they're also elevated in other asset classes. So the backdrop is favorable. Whether that results in large, medium or small opportunities, I think all indicators point to all of the above. But any specific transactions and sizes, they're not they're done sort of one at a time.

Our goal, obviously, is building client relationships to -- so that we're in a position to add that value. And -- but as the dynamic is such that it's hard to know the timing and the size very far in advance of those opportunities being presented to us -- or as we cultivate them. So I do realize that we do large transactions. And frankly, we like all transactions, whether the large, medium or small as we cultivate stronger relationships with our clients and make ourselves and capital available whenever their needs arise or as they seek to optimize their profitability.

So I realize this is not really what you were hoping for, but I think it paints hopefully, at least the perspective that we take in kind of continually expanding our pipeline of opportunities and deepening our client relationships so that as large opportunities or small opportunities become available that we're in the right position to execute and be aware of them.

Randy Binner: I appreciate the response. And there's one other one, I guess, on just your regular way business, the smaller accounts that come in. Is there -- do you all disclose like a transaction count per quarter? If I missed that, I apologize. But is it -- are you getting like a higher volume of like smaller deals? Or is it a lower volume of somewhat just kind of like the data -- the kind of the regular week in, week out transactions that you see?

Christo Realov: Yes. Look, we do not disclose any sort of transaction count. We have commented previously that we purchased 50 to 70 portfolios a month and then the average transaction size tends to be kind of in the less than $1 million sort of area, right, if that's helpful. And the other thing we have commented on is that historically, over -- approximately 50% of our deployments are coming in through forward purchases, right? So the 50 to 70 portfolios, about half of them are coming into forward flows and the rest is spot purchases. And that excludes the sort of the large episodic transactions that we did in '24...

Operator: The next question is from Yuna Son with Jefferies.

Unknown Analyst: So we see from earlier competitors' earnings announcement that there's some positive momentum in the overall space. I wanted to hear what you have seen about any interest from the competitors, any changes in dynamic and especially when it comes to changes in interest in non-credit card space receivable?

David Burton: Yes. Thanks for the question. I think I'll start off that answer by speaking about what we're seeing in terms of sort of the level of competition. And I would say that pricing has continued to be stable and attractive. And that's really true across all asset classes and also insolvency and charge-offs. And then with respect to the various sectors that we play in, I think it's -- I think if there is a trend, and it's that there are more sellers today than there were a year or 2 ago, and that includes auto and telecom and installment loan and even, I would say, credit card as well.

So I think there's a broad trend of there being more comfort and understanding for the profit optimizing option that debt sales offer credit granters.

Unknown Analyst: Got it. And just going back to the investment in the legal channels. So with the upfront investments that you're making, would it make sense for you to expand your market to be looking into higher balance receivables down the line? Would that be kind of a consideration for you?

David Burton: Yes. Thanks for that question. And you're right, it is an important capability to have both an effective voluntary channel as well as a legal channel to support really all balance ranges, but particularly higher balance ranges, which often require a greater percentage of a portfolio to result in the legal channel. We feel like we have that capability today. Oftentimes, the higher balance prime originated credit card portfolios don't meet our return thresholds. So that is much less a function of like a capacity or capability and more a function of really market pricing mechanism. But we're completely capable and certainly interested in higher balance portfolios as well.

I do suspect that over time, it is possible that a higher percentage of our deployments in the future could be from higher balance portfolios as that dynamic potentially changes.

Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to David Burton for any closing remarks.

David Burton: Thank you very much. Looking forward, we're excited about the growth prospects of our business for the remainder of this year and beyond. We've built an outstanding platform over the past 23 years, and we're in a great position to capitalize on opportunities as the market continues to evolve. Thank you all for joining us today, and we look forward to providing another update on our second quarter earnings call.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.