Encore Capital Group yesterday released its earnings and financial report for the fourth quarter of 2017 as well as its full-year results.
For the fourth quarter the company announced net income of $12.7 million during the fourth quarter of 2017, down from $22 million a year earlier. For all of 2017, net income was $83.4 million, up from $78.9 million in 2016.
The company had about $7 billion of collectible receivables at the end of 2017, the most it has ever had.
“In the fourth quarter, Encore continued to benefit from the growing supply of charged-off credit card receivables in the U.S. market, with solid deployments at favorable prices driving higher expected returns than a year ago,” said Ashish Masih, Encore’s president and chief executive officer, in a statement. “In the United States and in Europe, our consumer-centric liquidation programs are also driving better results and have contributed to substantial growth in our Estimated Remaining Collections, resulting in a new all-time high for Encore.”
Masih said he expects sales of charged-off credit card receivables to continue to grow in 2018, after growing by more than 20% last year from a year earlier.