ECN Capital Corp

TSX:ECN

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q2

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the ECN Capital Second Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I'd now like to turn the conference over to Mr. John Wimsatt. Please go ahead, Mr. Wimsatt.

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Thanks, Kaylene. Good afternoon, everyone. First off, I want to thank everyone for joining this call. Joining us today from the company are Steven Hudson, Chief Executive Officer; and Michael Lepore, Chief Financial Officer. A news release summarizing these results was issued this afternoon and the financial statements and MD&A for the 3-month period ended June 30, 2022, have been filed with SEDAR. These documents are available on our website at www.ecncapitalcorp.com. Presentation slides to be referenced during the call are accessible in the webcast as well as in PDF format under the Presentations section of the company's website.

Before we begin, I want to remind our listeners that some of the information we are sharing with you today includes forward-looking statements. These statements are based on assumptions that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. I'll refer you to the cautionary statement section of the MD&A for a description of such risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in these statements are reasonable, we can obviously give no assurance that the expectations of any forward-looking statements will prove to be correct.

You should note that the company's earnings release, financial statements, MD&A and today's call include references to a number of non-IFRS measures, which we believe help to present the company and its operations in ways that are useful to investors. A reconciliation of these non-IFRS measures to IFRS measures can be found in the MD&A. All figures presented in U.S. dollars, unless explicitly noted. And with these introductory remarks complete, I'll now turn the call over to Steven Hudson.

[Steven Hudson, executive]

Thanks, John. John is about to review an exciting growth opportunity with you, Intercoastal Finance Group. I'd like to make just 2 comments before John walks you through this. Intercoastal is consistent with our business model of originating and managing both superprime and prime credit assets for our funding partners. And second, it utilizes our proven systems, processes and strategies of Triad. With that, John, over to you.

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Thanks, Steve. So I'll start on Page 6. As you guys all know, we've been pursuing a tuck-in strategy, and we're thrilled to announce ECN's second tuck-in investment in Intercoastal Financial Group or IFG. IFG was founded in 1987 by Hans Kraaz, a proven industry-leading entrepreneur and is headquartered in Fort Pierce, Florida. IFG is a premier marine and RV finance company with more than 30 salespeople nationwide, driving more than $550 million in expected originations in 2022. Combined with Source One, ECN's marine and RV vertical, it will now produce more than $1.1 billion of originations for our lending partners. We expect IFG to earn between $12 million to $14 million of adjusted operating income in 2023, and ECN paid a total consideration of $75 million with $55 million paid at close and $20 million to be paid over a couple of years. So on 2023 earnings at the midpoint, ECN paid around 6 times 2023.

On Page 7, this is sort of a format you guys have seen before, it's just some highlights. As you can see, this is really superprime production with an average FICO score of 785 and a down payment of around 25%. Ticket size is a bit bigger than Source One at $120,000, and 100% of production is sold through to 15 long-term lending partners without recourse. On Page 8, we've included a list of the senior management team, led by Hans Kraaz and Nikki Bates, President of IFG. Page 9 highlights the footprint compared to ECN's footprint with only Source One. As you can see, we are now nationwide with loans generated in all of the lower 48 states.

Page 10 expands on that footprint, highlighting the expanded coverage in key states. We significantly expanded our presence in the top 5 states for marine and RV lending. California, Florida and New York are added to Texas in the top 5. Florida becomes our #1 state from having limited presence with Source One. Finally, 75% of combined originations now come from the top 15 states. On Page 11, we go through some of the loan characteristics of IFG compared to Source One. Highlights include a bit larger ticket size combined with higher FICOs and down payments. In addition, very low chargebacks of just 5 basis points with only a 6-month look back.

Page 12 looks at originations. Page 13, weighted average FICO. Page 14 is the distribution of FICOs, and I'd just like to highlight that more than 50% of originations boasted 800 or higher FICO score. Page 15 runs through your average down payments. Page 16 is product mix. As you can see, IFG primarily focuses on marine finance, only about 12% in RVs. Finally on 17, there is very little dealer concentration with the top 10 dealers making up just 13% of originations. As with all of our transactions, we have identified numerous growth opportunities. And on Page 19, we believe, just like Source One, there's a low-risk path to 3 to 4 times earnings at IFG over several years.

As we said before on an earlier slide, we expect $12 million to $14 million in adjusted operating income in 2023, which has grown at a CAGR of almost 16% since 2018. You've seen this slide or something like it before, we believe that all of these things -- sorry, on Page 20, we outlined the ECN playbook, which highlights some of the opportunity we discussed with Source One. We will pursue all of these opportunities with IFG as well, including floorplan, servicing and licensing, improving and adding funding partners, enhancing processes and systems and building our expanded loan menus. There's an opportunity to enhance IFG capabilities geographically as well. While they're currently national in scope, certain areas such as the Midwest and Northwest -- Midwest or Northwest could be augmented to improve volumes.

Finally, on Page 21, we lay out some of the programs that will be additive. Some of this nomenclature we used before, specifically progress pay and complimentary flow. We see opportunity to build these new programs, which can significantly enhance retail flow; whether floorplan or any of these programs, we believe they will contribute meaningfully to growth in the coming years.

With that, I'll turn it to Steve to run through the quarter.

[Steven Hudson, executive]

Great. Thanks, John. Turning to Slide 23, a small recap on the tuck-in strategy that John has spoken about in the past. In addition, today's important IFG announcement, the company is pursuing a number of modest tuck-ins of both superprime and prime credit originators. 4 things I'd like to highlight for you on Slide 23. First, we have 4 additional platforms that are currently under executed LOIs with several others in early stage. In terms of operating scope, these smaller tuck-ins will fit as part of Source One and IFG.

Second, these transactions are consistent with ECN's proven business model and we set the criteria for that. Third, all of these opportunities leverage Triad's extensive funding partner network, successful platforms such as floorplan and servicing, as well as its very successful, take share and make share strategies. And finally, the current environment is presenting prime credit origination platforms at attractive valuations and attractive structures to ECN.

Turning to Slide 25 on the second quarter. A few highlights, $0.09, which is the high end of Investor Day guidance of $0.08 to $0.09. Quite proud of that. Our '22 guidance remains at $0.29 to $0.31 with higher Triad and Source One and slightly lower KG. Specifically on Triad, Q2 originations up 45%, approvals up almost 30%. We are raising guidance for '22 to $70 million to $75 million. And third, under Triad, the housing affordability crisis is driving record shipments, both at Triad and through the full industry. On Source One, originations are up 33%, approvals up a very significant 83%, which bodes very well for H2 and into '23. We're raising guidance on Source One to $13 million to $15 million, and we're quite proud that we've added 4 new funding partners, including M&T Bank, which we have a significant relationship with.

On Kessler, we're lowering our guidance primarily due to slower credit card investment management activity. The KG pipeline remains robust and is expected to track well in the latter part of -- early part of '23. We're reducing our income guidance from 46 -- to $46 million to $52 million from $55 million to $60 million.

Turning to Triad. I challenged the management team to think that their eagles here and they've surpassed our expectations with income for the quarter, up 19%, a 45% increase year-over-year, originations up by a similar 45%. Floorplan assets at $280 million. As you remember, we've talked about this in the past, but our floorplan dealers have 3 times the growth at our retail originations and nonfloor plan, the $280 million bodes very well for originations for the latter part of '22 and into '23. And I mentioned earlier, guidance up.

Turning to Page 28. A couple of observations on program updates. That fourth bullet on the page that we've added up 530 new communities in year-to-date. That's significant. That's a 30% growth in communities that can now access our full menu of products. It's a strong indication of what's going to occur in late '22 and into '23. And as I mentioned to you, floorplan at $280 million with a yield of 9%, most floorplan dealers will have 3x the growth at our core retail business than nonfloorplan. Turning to the affordability crisis, it's a combination of the impact of rising costs and prices on traditional site-built homes combined with the higher interest rates, which had created this unprecedented demand for manufactured housing.

You see it on the left-hand side of this page with year-to-date manufactured housing industry shipments up 14% and both May and June up over 20%. That compares favorably to existing traditional home sales, which are down 15% year-to-date. And then finally, on the latter part of the slide, in '22 shipments are up 16% year-over-year, the fastest shipping rate growth since 1994. Some industry commentary, all of which is robust, but on Skyline, recent call from Skyline CEO. It's a combination of rising rental rates combined with higher interest rates and inflationary pressures have created this unprecedented demand for affordable housing, and we see no abatement of that. Turning to Cavco, manufactured housing is now an option not considered by traditional site-built homes. People are now electing manufactured homes over site-built simply because it's affordable and it lasts -- longer life of the asset.

Turning to Page 31. Our managed credit portfolios. Our strong credit performance continues, both in delinquency and in losses. 32, our originations I spoke to earlier and give you the monthly and quarterly breakdown, strong and robust. And on Page 33, we're reiterating our origination guidance of $1.6 -- sorry, $1.4 billion to 1.6 billion. Originations are projected to grow at 44% at the midpoint of that range. We've increased our floorplan balance as part of our take-share strategy in the marketplace. That floorplan balances do not include the rollout of inventory or floorplan finance in the marine and RV business. We've raised guidance to $70 million to $75 million, and EBITDA margins have improved to 54% due to better mix, i.e., more core loans.

With that, John, I'll pass it back to you.

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Thanks, Steve. On Page 34, we'll review Q2 for Source One. Adjusted operating income of $5.3 million for the quarter was ahead of budget on origination growth of 37%, which compares to 35% for the first 6 months since we acquired the business. We continued to add new lending partners and have had strong progress on growth initiatives such as floorplan, licensing and servicing. After a solid first half, we are raising our '22 origination guidance to $550 million to $625 million and our adjusted operating income before tax guidance to $13 million to $15 million.

On Page 35, we give a program update. As you can see, momentum is strong with approvals up 76% and originations up 37% in Q2. Page 36, we update some of our progress on our growth initiatives. In addition to new reps that we added in Florida and Southwest earlier in the year, we've now added a rep in the Northwest in Q2. We expect to have a Northeast rep here before the end of the year, and we should have full coverage across the entire United States before year end, which was one of our goals early in the year.

Our servicing project is on track to be completed here in Q3, and licensing is moving forward and will make substantial progress before year end. We've launched our marine and RV floorplan initiative with several Source One dealers and continue to add underwriting and process personnel to handle growth. As with last quarter, we added some industry comment from Brunswick, OneWater and Thor on Page 37. As you can see, retail demand remains strong. Marine inventory is still a challenge, but RV inventory has basically returned to normal. In addition, fuel prices still do not appear to have much of an effect on customer behavior.

Page 38 reviews originations, just like with Triad. And finally, on Page 39, we are raising our guidance from Investor Day after a fantastic first half. Originations are now expected to be $550 million to $625 million and are more than 15% ahead of plan through June. Adjusted operating income is now expected to be $13 million to $15 million, up from original guidance of $12 million to $14 million, and EBITDA margins are an exceptional 66%.

On Page 40, we move to the Kessler Group. Q2 adjusted operating income before tax was $12.9 million, which is down a modest 4% year-over-year and, frankly, a bit below budget. Revenues were up 28% year-to-year, primarily as a result from increased pay-for-performance marketing. Partnership Services were largely in line with forecast and up 23% year-to-year. CCIM, however, had lower revenues from portfolio runoff of legacy portfolios and delayed transaction closings due to current market environments.

On Page 41, we discuss CCIM a bit more. We've seen the timing of transactions delayed in the current environment. Our current expectation is a deferral of portfolio closings largely into 2023, but -- and not lost opportunity. Performance of existing portfolios remains exceptional and is driving strong investor demand. And as the environment calms down over the coming quarters, we expect activity to pick back up.

On Page 42, we look at '22 guidance. And as a result of the delay in CCIM revenues primarily, we are lowering our KG guidance from $55 million to $60 million to $46 million to $52 million for 2022. If you look at the various segments of KG, the Partnership Services business is largely on track to hit guidance for the year. The marketing business, while a bit behind guidance in the first half, saw a material pickup in the second quarter, as you would expect, given activity you might have read about in terms of credit card and marketing. We feel really good on that for the year. It's just the CCIM business and closing those portfolio transactions. To date, we're going to have to see how it comes together in the back half of the year, but we're really looking for '23 for resume pickup in that business.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Michael to run through the consolidated financial summary.

[Michael Lepore, executive]

Thank you, John. Now turning to Page 44. Q2 was another solid quarter for each of our operating businesses. Total originations in our secured consumer loan segment were $613 million compared to $262 million in the same prior year quarter. This includes $232 million in originations from Source One. The growth in originations drove adjusted EBITDA to $38.9 million from $23.4 million and adjusted operating income before tax to $28.5 million from $16.4 million in the prior year quarter.

Turning to Page 45. Key balance sheet highlights are an increase in total assets of over $160 million compared to Q1, primarily driven by an increase in floorplan loans and held-for-trading finance assets at Triad. Debt was up over $450 million from Q1, reflecting the increase in finance assets at Triad, the funding of the IFG acquisition and the payment of the accrued tax liability from the gain on the sale of Service Finance. Subsequent to quarter end, we increased our capacity and our senior revolver to $900 million from $700 million previously.

Turning to Page 46. Key income statement highlights are Q2 adjusted EPS was $0.09 per share, at the higher end of our Investor Day guidance range and in line with consensus for the quarter. Key P&L items to note, growth in loan origination revenues was driven by the growth in total originations, lower asset management and servicing revenues was driven by lower CCIM revenues at KG due to the impact of the sale of our portfolio investments in Q3 2021, which is partially offset by higher servicing revenues at Triad due to the growth in managed assets there. The increase in marketing revenues was driven by the growth in KG's Pay-for-Performance marketing programs, as noted by John earlier. Finally, higher interest income was driven by the increase in floorplan loans on our balance sheet.

Turning to Page 47. Higher business segment operating expenses were largely driven by the higher revenues at each of our businesses. Corporate operating expenses of $4.4 million compared to $6.5 million in the prior year quarter, reflecting our cost reduction efforts subsequent to the sale of Service Finance.

With that, I'll turn it over to Steve for the closing summary.

[Steven Hudson, executive]

Thanks, Michael. On Slide 39, just 3 observations. The first is the IFG investment, results with Source One in a nationwide superprime and prime originator with over more than $1 billion in annual originations, a significant step forward for these companies and ECN strategy. Second, we're reconfirming our '22 guidance as well as our '23 guidance. We will update '23 guidance on our Q3 call. And finally, second quarter was extremely strong and $0.09 ahead of our budget and at the high end of our range provided on Investor Day.

With that, operator, we'll open the call for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Nik Priebe with CIBC Capital Markets.

[Nikolaus Priebe, analyst]

First of all, congrats on the transaction. Just a point of clarification, and apologies if this has been covered. I'm still digesting a lot of this. But if I caught that correctly from Michael's comments, the $75 million purchase price, that was financed using a draw on the senior credit facility. So where does that take your pro forma leverage? I know that the credit facility is a bit of a hybrid, in the sense that it finances both floorplan assets as well as acquisitions. And so what does your pro forma leverage look like? Or how much availability do you have remaining post transaction here?

[Michael Lepore, executive]

You turn to the MD&A, in the liquidity section, that will take you through what's available subsequent to quarter end and subsequent to this acquisition on the senior line. It's effectively about $260 million.

[Nikolaus Priebe, analyst]

And then I think I also caught in the prepared remarks that there are 4 additional platforms currently under letter of intent. Are you referring to potential bolt-on acquisitions that you would expect to announce that are similar in scale to Source One and IFG. Did I catch that correctly?

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Well, I would say that we have 4 different transactions that we're currently under LOI. We have several others that are in earlier stage in the process. I wouldn't necessarily characterize them all as the same size as IFG and Source One. Some could be smaller, but they could be sort of fill-in type things. Like think about a geographic situation where they've got some teams or some origination capability or some new products.

[Nikolaus Priebe, analyst]

And then I'll sneak one last one in. The 2023 EPS guidance wasn't changed. But I think you signaled that the acquisition is expected to be $0.06 accretive. Why defer the update to the 2023 EPS guidance? Is there anything that you're waiting for to update until next quarter? Just looking for a bit of clarification on that.

[Steven Hudson, executive]

We've got 4 transactions under LOI. We will have other stuff to announce. We're going to do it all at once.

[Operator]

The next question is from Geoff Kwan with RBC Capital Markets.

[Geoffrey Kwan, analyst]

Just was wondering about those transactions at Kessler, you said they are kind of getting pushed out to 2023 in credit. What exactly, I guess, is driving the delay in terms of getting those done until next year?

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Geoff, over time, what we've seen is that Kessler's business was, say, more affected by COVID than Triad and Service Finance at the time. And what we've seen is just with the overall market environment, you've just seen some difficulty settling on valuation and some other things in certain transactions. And what we've seen is just a push out in terms of where -- when we think things might close. And so we're trying to be prudent about thinking about how the rest of '22 is going to look and as we get into '23. We still think the pipeline is quite strong. At this point, we're not seeing things fall out of the pipeline or -- so it just feels like deferrals to us. But once the environment calms down a little bit and pricing can become a little more transparent, I think we can move forward with some of these transactions. I just can't tell you with any degree of certainty that they're going to close here in the next quarter or so.

[Geoffrey Kwan, analyst]

With these deals where you had previously announced, but there was some sort of, I guess, turbine, the agreements with the buyers I guess, we're able to renegotiate or...

[John Wimsatt, executive]

These would be additional portfolios that we have yet to announce or close. So this is a pipeline -- this is true pipeline. Like we've said in the past, we think that this business can do $1 billion to $3 billion in a normal year. What we've seen is the market environment has caused a situation to delay a lot of transactions, and we're just -- we're waiting through it. And who knows, maybe we'll get some stuff closed towards the end of the year, this year and things look better. But until we start feeling like that's going to happen, we're going to push this out to 2023.

[Geoffrey Kwan, analyst]

And then just my other question, same thing on Kessler, the marketing program. The economy is still reasonably okay, but there's concerns about the direction that it's going. Are they seeing any changes in terms of their clients' interest and appetite for those services?

[John Wimsatt, executive]

I don't know. I mean, there's been a bunch of articles recently in like -- the Wall Street Journal talking about how the credit card businesses are out there pretty aggressively marketing for new customers. We saw obviously a big jump quarter-over-quarter in marketing spend and marketing revenues. I think that's reflective of sort of what's going on out there in the marketing world. Is that -- I mean, I guess, if you saw a situation where the economy turned down or took a meaningful turn one way or the other, that could change. But as of right now, we think the appetite for marketing is still pretty strong.

[Operator]

The next question is from Tom MacKinnon with BMO Capital Markets.

[Tom MacKinnon, analyst]

Just continuing on with Kessler. If I look at Page 15 of the MD&A, it looks like revenue is actually for Kessler is up year-over-year, but it's the OpEx that seems to be a lot more elevated here, and that's forcing both the EBITDA and the adjusted operating income before tax to be generally flat to down. So can you help me understand what's happening with respect to that? And is it just because of the business mix?

[Michael Lepore, executive]

As we noted at Investor Day, our new Pay-for-Performance marketing program is a bit of an accounting difference compared to our historical accounting programs, whereas under the old marketing programs that we accounted for on a net revenue basis. Under Pay-for-Performance, we recognize the gross revenues and the expenses. So that's why you see the increase in revenue and also the increase in operating expenses. And the margin obviously gets compressed as a result of that. We're still making money, but any expenses, gross accounting is going to give you a lower margin than accounting.

[Steven Hudson, executive]

If we were stuck with net accounting, you'd have similar margins as you had in the past. It's just we're now -- the accounting change to gross accounting.

[Tom MacKinnon, analyst]

And you've tried different programs, you've announced new portfolios with respect to Kessler Group, but it still just seems to be a bit of a stalled car here. Is it strictly the environment? Or what's the attitude for clients to take on some of these additional services that you have? Is there any execution issues here? Just trying to dig down a little bit deeper into Kessler -- or is it just strictly the macro environment?

[John Wimsatt, executive]

I think a lot of it is the macro environment. Obviously, since we've owned Kessler, we've tried to transition it somewhat from a real transaction-oriented business into something that can generate longer-term earnings and earnings growth. And like anything, when you do a transition like that, there's always some issues that arise. But I wouldn't say that's where we are at this point. I'd say we have a series of high-quality products, and it's just a matter of time before we get them going. And I think the macro environment is really affecting the CCIM business really only.

If you look at the year-to-date in the Partnership Services business, we're right on track to where we guided for the full year. And while the marketing business is a bit slow, we've seen a material pickup in the second quarter over the first, and it still looks really good for the year. So it's really just the CCIM and that's really, in our view, a macro environment. The pipeline still looks strong.

[Steven Hudson, executive]

Tom, it's Steve. I would add just 2 things. I think if you reflect upon this most recent quarter in Q2, there was lots of statements about the health of U.S. consumer and their spend. I think those have largely been dispelled and the consumer now shows to be very strong. That wasn't the case during the quarter. There was a lot of back and forth on the interest rates impact value. I think we've got a more stable interest rate environment, in fact, backing up a bit. I think both of the return to saying the consumer is confident and a more stable interest rate environment, we'll get these portfolios going.

[Tom MacKinnon, analyst]

And just a couple of quick number questions. On IFG, I think you're talking about 12% to 14% in OpEx or pardon me, adjusted operating earnings in 2023. This been closed July 1, and I think the increment in 2022 is just $4 million. So why is it so much lower in 2022 than what you're telling us for 2023?

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Tom, it's just like all -- there are other businesses. There's seasonality, you earn more money in the first half than the second half because the selling season is really that April, May, June, July period and starts to slow down in the back half. So we expect that IFG will make somewhere close to $10 million for the year in 2022, and we'll get somewhere between 4% and 5%, but we're just being a little bit conservative at 4% right now. So let's see how it plays out and the volumes look like in the back half of the year, but we feel pretty good about that 4% number. So that's where we are.

[Tom MacKinnon, analyst]

And the corporate expense guide, I think it was $12 million to $14 million for 2022. Is that changing? Is that increasing?

[Michael Lepore, executive]

Tom, obviously, given our year-to-date expenses, we're going to be a little bit over that, but we've also outperformed in our businesses. So we're not updating the line-by-line guidance. We still think we're going to be on the overall EPS range.

[Operator]

The next question is from Vincent Caintic with Stephens.

[Vincent Caintic, analyst]

Congratulations on the acquisition. So first, just on that acquisition and the pipeline. So you mentioned the 4 LOIs. Maybe if you could talk broadly how the market is looking for acquisitions, I'm guessing valuations maybe have rationalized a bit. And if you could put a framework on how you're thinking like -- what's your size appetite for total acquisitions?

[John Wimsatt, executive]

So as we've stated at the beginning, one of the things we think is so interesting about the marine and RV space, it is quite fragmented. There's a lot of smaller players that are out there. That lends in 2 ways. One, you've seen valuations come down overall, but just smaller players, typically, we can negotiate probably even better valuations on average. We feel pretty good about that sort of 5 to 7 times kind of range for acquisition prices on current year earnings. And remember, we're always looking at these businesses through ECN's lens of what we can do with them. We're typically looking at something where EPS can grow quite a bit. So over a relatively short period of time, we think that multiple that we paid can contract meaningfully.

So from a valuation perspective, I think we feel pretty good about that. Typically, when we're talking to a target, we're right up front with exactly how we think about how to value these things and the conversations move forward from there. So we're not surprising anybody and it's worked well for us here to date. In terms of total appetite, like I said, I think there's a pretty significant opportunity in the marine and RV space. We continue to look at different kinds of tuck-in acquisitions. Again, there's lots of capabilities. There's lots of different products. There's lots of different geographies that we can attack. And hopefully, over the next couple of quarters, we can really round out this platform at ECN.

[Steven Hudson, executive]

I think the key, Vincent, is that we've had a track record of investing with strong proven entrepreneurs, Service Finance, Triad and Source One and now IFG, and I think that these entrepreneurs have been looking for a stable informed source of capital, whether it's floorplan or complimentary flow or other proven make or take share, and deeper funding basis. Funding basis are bank partners who are broader and deeper and better on terms. And I think that when they meet us, and we chat through it, they can see the value created, then they have, if you look at the IFG, there's continuing financial interest by Hans Kraaz of a significant nature. So he will continue to enjoy upside with us. So I'm quite excited. I think that the numbers we put out there for IFG are conservative with respect to '23. We look forward to outperforming on them.

[Vincent Caintic, analyst]

And yes, I think that roll-up story makes a lot of sense. Secondly, on the other side of it, the funding side, if you could talk about maybe the discussions you're having with your funding partners on the banks, the credits insurance companies and so on, and what their appetite has been as maybe interest rates have risen and we're talking about inflation and other things that you could talk about, how your discussions have been on the funding partner side?

[Steven Hudson, executive]

So on the pricing issue, as you know, we're a price taker. So we've been able to, in both businesses, push through 150 basis points of price increase. So that's just fine. We continue to be -- maybe John can speak to Source One. But at Triad, we're oversold, Vincent. There's no available loans in '23. So we're now into '24. But the performance of the manufactured housing loan portfolios has been exceptional. I think our partners at Blackstone have commented that their best risk-adjusted assets in our portfolio. Maybe, John, you want to provide some color on Source One.

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Yes. So in the Source One business, in the prime and superprime side or IFG and [indiscernible] side, we kind of have unlimited funding because you're talking about the biggest banks out there, and they just -- if you can present paper that meets their criteria, they're going to buy it. On the Source One side where we're dealing with more smaller banks and credit unions, we continue to add capacity there, continue to add new credit unions and all things considered, we feel pretty good about where we are on the funding side. But we're going to keep looking and keep adding more funding partners over the coming quarters.

[Operator]

The next question is from Jaeme Gloyn with National Bank Financial.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

Yes, I just want to dig on Kessler a little bit more here, just to make sure I understand. The CCIM push out, is it that investors, third-party institutional investors are just not interested in the space at this point given the market backdrop? Or is it that you can't find the right valuation to grow purchasing portfolios, which -- like where does the breakdown happen?

[John Wimsatt, executive]

It's not the investors. We still have strong demand from our investors. It's really more things like settling on valuation with -- on portfolios. It's the sellers of the portfolio. We see this frequently or we've seen this frequently. Whenever there's challenging market environments, whether it's COVID or et cetera, you've seen a lot of activity just kind of slow down, especially when you're talking about transaction activity within the credit card space. And I think the first half of this year into the summer, with interest rate changes and thoughts around whether we're having a recession or we're not having a recession, I think there was a lot of -- lot of the sellers were sitting back trying to figure out what they wanted to do. And we had some things that we thought we'd get closed here in the second or third quarter, and it just looks like it's going to be pushed out.

So it's not so much demand from investors, like I think investors still like the product. Most credit cards are floating rate products. So it's not so much an interest rate issue directly. It's really more where the sellers are sitting today and where -- what portfolios we can actually shake loose and close, what the timing looks like around that. So we still feel pretty good that we'll get a lot of those deals closed to just probably not going to be on a time frame in the next quarter or so.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

And my takeaway from the good revenue growth number and operating income decline is that CCIM is a pretty high-margin business. And so when you shift maybe more to marketing, which is a lower-margin business, that's what's driving the impact here.

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Yes. It's also -- like Michael said, it's a bit tricky because we had to change some of the accounting around the marketing because the program has changed a little bit, which makes the marketing business a bit lower margin than it would have been otherwise. Even though we're generally speaking, making the same amount of money on the dollar of capital, similar type return. We just now print everything grows. That said, yes, CCIM is quite profitable. The margins are really exceptional. So to the extent that we have issues there, it just gets trickier from an EBITDA margin perspective. But even so, I mean EBITDA margin in the quarter was kind of in line with where we sort of guided for the year. It's really just -- when we see those things pick back up again, you'll see some of that growth look more normal.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

Switching to the M&A story, I understand the dry powder is at $250 million. You could do a couple of these IFG transactions and Source One transactions. And I think that's quite crucial to drive the attractive accretion that you're generating on these deals. So I just want to confirm that like the 4 LOIs that you have in place now, maybe some more, like the likelihood of seeing any dilution on an equity basis is -- what would it be fair to characterize that as very, very low?

[Steven Hudson, executive]

We can fund these 4 deals from our balance sheet as is.

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Yes. Actually, we could fund these 4 deals and several others that we may or may not do. They're still way early stage. But like the deals that we're talking about doing here, I would characterize them as small, not bigger than, say, IFG and Source One. These are really the incremental platforms that we need to round out the product set, round out the geographies, round out what we need to do to then take this business and do all the things that we can do with it, whether it's the floorplan, whether it's the progress pay, the component, all the different things that we're talking about doing licensing and servicing, et cetera, which is going to help us grow these businesses like we have with, say, Triad or Service Finance before it.

We'll be in a really good position to do that after we finish buying some of these things. But we're -- I don't see a situation where we're anywhere close to going through our capacity on what we have right now in the pipeline.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

And last one for me. M&A expenses in the quarter, is it to close the IFG and to pursue others, $5.6 million, maybe for Michael. What's the outlook for M&A expenses over the next couple of quarters as you're closing out a few more deals here?

[Michael Lepore, executive]

It's obviously hard to say depending on the transactions. But that -- yes, that was for the -- those expenses related to IFG as well as the others that we're looking at for sure. On the M&A side, I would -- as John said, the pipeline activity there generally a bit smaller, but it's the number of them as well. So in and around that area is probably -- in and around that area or less is probably -- if we close, that will be around that number.

[Operator]

The next question is from Stephen Boland with Raymond James.

[Stephen Boland, analyst]

Maybe you could just remind me what the materiality threshold is for your tuck-in deals in terms of a press release because IFG, based on your guidance and what they expect to add next year is going to be adding like 15% to your operating income. Is it based on assets? Is it based on other -- some other metric? Because I would have thought that was kind of material to basically press release.

[John Wimsatt, executive]

I'm not a [indiscernible] what the rule is, but we check with obviously our attorneys on these kinds of things. We did the same thing with Source One. Remember, we acquired Source One and then announced it at Investor Day. So we have good advice on what we would need to do. We don't need to do it from a materiality perspective.

[Steven Hudson, executive]

Long-term practice accounting, Steve. But I think $4 million on '22 earnings is not material. It's about $0.01 a share -- less than $0.01 a share.

[Stephen Boland, analyst]

It's more -- it's not -- it's current earnings, not future like guidance earnings kind of thing that's basically right now?

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Forward guidance, I really consider it, what we're doing now.

[Michael Lepore, executive]

It's $50 million on a $1.4 billion balance sheet.

[Stephen Boland, analyst]

Yes. I mean if it's a balance sheet metric, I get that. It just seems like it's moving the needle on your future earnings, which seems material to the stock, in my opinion. But anyway, you've obviously done the test. There's a number -- I apologize if you've addressed this on Slide 39, when you talked about originations of Source One and it says IFG to add $4 million in 2022. I don't know if you addressed that. It's under the origination tab.

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Yes. Unfortunately, I think that bullet ended up in the wrong place. It's $4 million worth of adjusted operating. I'm not sure -- I believe what was supposed to happen that was to be an origination number. Steve, I'll come back to you with it. It shouldn't be that material.

[Stephen Boland, analyst]

Okay. I just thought it was working. And so now you've got these 2 marine/RV financing businesses, but I haven't heard anything about integration about synergies. In Source One, you're still adding reps, adding states. So is there any thought about integration in terms of the operational side? I mean are reps going to be competing with different dealers in the same state? So I'm just trying to get an idea of what kind of integration plans are for these 2 businesses.

[Steven Hudson, executive]

Well, I think, Steve, first of all, we're using the systems and process of Triad. So even though floorplan is being introduced to both Source One and to IFG, it's off the Triad systems and processes. It's expanded menus of Triad. So it's more injecting those expanded menus and services into those 2 businesses. I think the overlap has been modest. You saw the Source One and IFG overlap, it's really been incremental to territory. So we don't see a lot of overlap and redundancy. And these are very modest-sized businesses. So Michael just plugs this accounting systems, and there's no need to integrate accounting systems. So I think the integration cost and benefits are extremely modest. I'm very wary of large of any sort of synergistic savings. So we just simply -- we simply don't go into those transactions.

[Operator]

We have a follow-up question from Jaeme Gloyn with National Bank Financial.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

I was actually going to ask about something somewhere as Steve's questions there. Just in terms of the sales reps that were added in Florida and California, I believe, at Source One, are they currently funding new loans at this point? And to Steve's point or Steve Boland's point, would you expect to maybe pause on further sales staff hires given the exposure that IFG is providing to Source One?

[John Wimsatt, executive]

So yes, our Florida rep has done fantastically, she was the first one we added. She's added significant originations in Florida to Source One. Our Southwest rep, we added, I believe, in May, so he hasn't been around for quite as long, but he's up and running now and had a really nice month of July. And then our Northwest rep, we just added at the end of July. So he's just going -- finishing up training. So I wouldn't say that he's actually bringing any new originations at this point, but we'd expect him to hear in the coming weeks or months. We would like we're going to find a Northeast rep for Source One here coming up. There's some differences in the business model within -- with Source One and IFG, for example.

IFG is a bigger correspondent lender. They also deal -- they deal with dealers as well, but they deal with bigger transactions, therein -- big and Source One is a bit different. They're dealing with sort of smaller transactions, they are directly on some of the dealer systems, directly through to the banks. I guess there's some differences here. So adding in Northwest -- Northeast sales rep or Northwest sales rep is not a conflict versus what IFG is doing.

[Steven Hudson, executive]

Jaeme, I think the simplest way to think about this is that Source One is freshwater boat for the most part. And then IFG is principally saltwater boat. And there's a little bit of overlap, but not a lot. Hence, the difference in price points.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

In terms of the other question on IFG and just to get a sense as to potential risks in a downturn, the chargeback data that you provided, and you can answer this question for both IFG and Source One, how much of a track record or how far back does that go? Will those chargeback rates of 5 basis points and 60 basis points apply during, let's say, the global financial crisis?

[John Wimsatt, executive]

Yes. I mean, IFG, you've got quite a long track record. I mean it was founded in 1987. Chargeback rates are not such a big deal there because it's only a 6-month look back. So you're talking about a 6-month look back for either a prepayment or a loss, a credit loss. Within 6 months of the origination, you would owe the fee you earned back, not -- you don't know have any principal risk, right? So that one, I don't think will be materially different in almost any environment, and maybe you see it go up a couple of basis points down. Source One is a little bit longer, they have -- so they have a little bit -- a bit more exposure. But it's been pretty consistent for quite a long time. So we feel pretty good about it.

Remember, we're not taking credit losses in a true sense. There's no principal risk here. We don't have any recourse to the boat or the boat loan or anything like that. It's really just the fee that we earned. And again, it's designed to protect the bank because the bank is paying a premium for that asset, right? If they get prepaid or take a loss in the first 6 months, they lose the entire premium that they paid.

[Operator]

As there are no further questions registered, this concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.