Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Encore Capital Group First Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will begin at that time. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I will now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Bruce Thomas, Vice President of Investor Relations for Encore. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and welcome to Encore Capital Group's first quarter 2014 earnings call. With me on the call today are Ken Vecchione, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Paul Grinberg, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Ken and Paul will make prepared remarks and then we will be happy to take your questions. Before we begin, we have a few housekeeping items. Unless otherwise noted, all comparisons made on this conference call will be between the first quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2013. 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. 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 release, which was filed on Form 8-K earlier today. As a reminder, this conference call will also be made available for replay on the Investors section of our website, where we will also post our prepared remarks following the conclusion of this call. With that, let me turn the call over to Ken Vecchione, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Bruce, and good afternoon. I appreciate everyone joining us for a discussion of our first quarter results. Encore had a terrific quarter. Our GAAP EPS was $0.82 per share, compared to $0.80 cents per share in the first quarter of 2013. Excluding one-time expenses and convertible non-cash interest, Non-GAAP economic EPS was a record $1.08 per share, an increase of 26% from the first quarter of 2013. Cash collections increased 47 percent to nearly $400 million dollars. This significant increase was driven by our acquisitions of Asset Acceptance, Cabot, and Marlin; each of which I would talk about in more detail, as we move through the presentation. Adjusted EBITDA was $250 million, an increase of 43%. Our overall cost-to-collect this quarter was 38.4% percent, reflecting the presence of Asset Acceptance and Cabot in our results this year. Our estimated remaining collections, or ERC, at March 31st was approximately $4.8 billion dollars, an increase of $2.8 billion from last year. During the quarter, we deployed $487 million, $105 million of which was in our core business in the U.S. Our capital deployment in the U.K. was also meaningful. Excluding the $208 million associated with the Marlin acquisition, we deployed $143 million in portfolio purchases in the U.K. during the first quarter. We believe that this demonstrates the strength of our U.K. platform and confirms our thesis of geographic diversification. Our strong level of capital deployment in the first quarter demonstrates that we are able to deploy capital profitably, even in this period of lower supply -- primarily in the US market, driven by record low levels of charge-offs and the temporary pause in selling from a couple of large issuers. We are deploying capital at Refinancia and Propel in line with our business plans. With the closing of Grove…

Thank you, Ken. As Ken discussed, we had a very strong first quarter, reflecting strong performance from our core business and our recent acquisitions. Before I go into our financial results in detail, I would just like to remind you that as required by US GAAP, we are showing 100% of Cabot and Refinacia's results in our financial statements. Where indicated, we will adjust the numbers to account for our non-controlling interest. We generated nearly $400 million of collections in the seasonally strong first quarter. $81 million of collections in the quarter came from Cabot. Our call centers outside of the U.K. contributed 36% of total collections, or $142 million, compared to $127 million in Q1 of 2013. Domestic legal channel collections grew to $151 million in Q1, compared to $122 million in 2013, and accounted for 38% percent of total collections. For some of Cabot's purchases, we are contractually required to keep accounts with certain collection agencies for a period of time after purchase. When excluding Cabot, 6% of collections in the quarter came from third-party collection agencies. For the quarter, revenue was $254 million, an increase of 75% over the $145 million in the first quarter of 2013. With regard to our revenue from receivable portfolios, as a percentage of collections and excluding the effects of allowance reversals, our revenue recognition rate was 59.1%, driven largely by Cabot's influence, compared to 51.7% in Q1 of 2013. For the quarter, we had $3.2 million of allowance reversals, the majority of which were zero basis allowance reversals, compared to $1 million of allowance reversals in Q1 of 2013. We had no portfolio allowances in the quarter. As many of you know, once we have evidence of sustained over-performance in a pool, we will increase that pool's yield. Consistent with this…

Thanks, Paul. As you can see from our activities in the U.K. and Latin America, and when we begin deploying capital in India early next year, we are transitioning ourselves into a global company. With that comes the ability to deploy capital in different geographies and different asset classes, which we believe will continue to allow us to generate strong growth and earnings even when one market may have pricing or other pressures. As we continue our asset class and geographic diversification strategy. We will become an even more versatile company with a broader range of investment opportunities to consider when choosing how best to deploy our capital. And while we've done a lot over the last year, we have executed well, as evidenced by our results so far. But we know that as we do more, we must manage the execution risk. As many of you know, Paul has spent a significant amount of his time working on identifying and analyzing new business opportunities and in helping with the ongoing oversight of these businesses. We continue to see significant opportunities in new markets and geographies and believe that we should pursue these to continue to build shareholder value. It is becoming more and more difficult for Paul to work on these new opportunities and continue managing the financial operations of the company. Simply put, there are just so many hours in the day. Since Paul has done so well in helping us expand our business, I have asked him to spend even more of his time in pursuit of those opportunities and in overseeing some of our recent acquisitions. To give him the time and bandwidth to be successful, we have decided to undertake a search to find a strong, experienced Chief Financial Officer to offload that important portion of Paul's current responsibilities. We're just in the beginning stages of planning this transition, and it will take time to find the right candidate for this important role. And Paul isn't going anywhere. He will be intimately involved in the process and will essentially work closely with the new person for a period of time to ensure a smooth transition. We view this change as an investment in the growth of our company, and a great opportunity to add bench strength along the way. We look forward to Paul's continued contributions to Encore's future success and I want to congratulate him on all the hard work and dedication that has positioned him for this terrific opportunity. With that, we would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Operator, would you please open the line for questions.

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from David Scharf of JMP. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Paul, a question on funding options going forward, because the Propel transaction kind of reminded me that back when the debt buying industry sort of went public in the early or mid-90s, it actually did engage in a fair number of securitizations. Have you guys explored a return to the ABS markets for the core portfolio purchasing business?

Yes. We try to look at all available opportunities to raise capital and ABS financing and the core business is certainly one that we have and continue to look at.

Has there been any kind of soft feedback from investors? I mean, there is obviously a lot of demand in the asset-backed markets now, given that so many asset classes aren't issuing much? Is it something that you think is a viable event within 12 months perhaps?

I think its certainly something that we are exploring, and that's something that is vital. Its obviously a more complicated transaction than our typical financing, but its one that we've definitely spent some time on.

Okay, got it. Switching to the regulatory side here in the U.S., obviously things seem to be pretty much in holding pattern until the CFPB undertakes some rulemaking. But just wanted to get a sense for what you're hearing from sellers? I think on the last call you mentioned that you had 11 issuer audits in the previous quarter, has that died down, is there a sense that the sellers have pretty much done all the work they feel they need to do and that they are just waiting for the ground rules to be laid out by the bureau?

I think that's correct. I mean, we did have 11 issue of audits last quarter. This quarter, I think we might have had one that has been very-very quiet. Each issuers has their own particular hot buttons, but we have gone through 11 of them, we have come out with flying colors. And I think you're right, it’s a little quiet here now, that we see in the --

Got it. Okay. Broadly speaking as it relates to guidance, based on the events of the first quarter, how capital was deployed? Is mid-teens -- long term goal of mid-teens annualized growth still how we should be thinking about this year as well?

Look, I think the best guidance we can give you is that, we would be very proud of this company, if we can continuously grow 15% earnings per share year-after-year. And some years doesn't mean that we may grow a little more than 15, but really our goal is 15%.

Okay, got it. And may be along those lines, when I think about maybe four components of that growth and these components are going to move around from year-to-year. But when we think about kind of asset growth reductions in the cost-to-collect, improvements in yields and lastly lower funding costs. Can you kind of rank those in terms of order of magnitude, how they kind of help drive that mid-teens outlook near term? I mean, I would imagine asset growth as clearly number one, but may be the others?

Well you know, actually inside the company, we are putting more and more focus on improving liquidation and increasing our yields, we think that's important. We have over $140 billion, nearly $150 billion of defaulted debt on our books, and we can improve the liquidation rates on that, we think that's very-very important. And simultaneously with that, we want to do it a more -- a more efficient way and that would lead us to a lower cost to collect. On the asset side, we are looking at different opportunities. They generally come across our debt. We don't usually miss out on many, and if they work for us, then we will go ahead and do an acquisition or -- a portfolio acquisition or a business acquisition. But we do have a very specific playbook when it comes to doing M&A deals, and its got a bunch of our checklist on that playbook, that's in that playbook.

Got it, got it. And lastly, I apologize again I was fading in and out during your important remarks at the end regarding Paul's transition. Is there a title he is assuming?

I don't know. Do you have a title in mind?

Yeah, I caught about half of it. I guess what I really wanted to confirm, is based on your description, is it effectively sort of corporate development if you will, or head of M&A?

No, its more than that. And [indiscernible] is in a very -- we are going to have a normal transition. We just started to search for a new CFO. Paul will help that new person come in and transition into the new role. And then Paul is going to be in charge of all the new businesses that we are purchasing. So yes, will there be a corporate development aspect to that, you bet. But sort of as I said before privately, you bought it, you run it, you make sure we hit the numbers. So its all kind of residing in one place, as it relates to the international stuff. If its something we buy domestically, then we have got some of our other senior execs that will run those businesses and integrate them, but Paul will have a hand in also buying them.

Got it. All right. Thanks a lot guys.

Okay.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sameer Gokhale of Janney Capital. Your line is open.

Hi thanks. Just a few questions. The first one was just come context around that tax lien acquisition. It seems like you bought it from another acquirer of tax liens. Could you give us a sense for price or just price per premium that you paid for that portfolio or was there any other reason, why specifically they turned -- it seems like in that business. So why did they turn around and sell that portfolio to you guys? Just some context would be helpful?

So this was a business that was -- really wasn't focused upon, it was another large institution that just wasn't putting the time and effort against it. We paid $43 million for the deal. As we said, I think last quarter when Propel's or PTS, one of the things we liked about the Propel business, is that it can grow organically and has the ability to scale-up in terms of doing consolidation. The PTS was acquired and integrated rather quickly, and we had those opportunity, which we have been working on for quite some time with this other platform, and we closed the deal last week and we just thought to integrate it as well.

Okay. Can you give me a sense for what that premium was? That you might have paid -- maybe discounts, since that -- since they may not have been able to focus as much on that portfolio and sold it to you guys?

We will provide some additional disclosure when we report in our Q2 results. But we paid less than the face value for the liens that were acquired.

Okay. That's helpful. Then just, in terms of the legal channel and some of the commentary you've provided. One of your competitors clearly talked about -- I think the way they put it was adjusting their return thresholds and expanding the amount of legal channel work that that they are doing. Are you also viewing that similarly, as maybe kind of adjusting your ROE thresholds and then therefore expanding more of the paper that pushed through the legal channel, or do you feel you have kind of optimized there to the extent possible?

So we have done models that help us determine, when we buy some paper, and depending on the type of paper, whether its fresh or very-very old paper, how best to collect it. We let those models drive our decision points, as to how best to collect. So some paper obviously will just go through the call centers, and some will more quickly go to our legal channel. And then, inside of the legal channel, what we do is, we try to optimize in the space that we both have legal outsourcing and our internal legal operations in. We do Champion and Challenger test all the time to see who is performing best between our internal legal and our legal outsourcing, and then we move paper between the two of those sources. As Paul said, we are not fixated always on the cost to collect, but really, on the return that we get for investing in this paper, whether it be the internal legal or the legal outsourcing channel.

You shouldn't expect to see any significant change in volumes going through that channel, going forward compared to where it has been historically.

Okay. That's helpful. Then just a couple of your peers also settled with regulators in New York and kind of stopped doing collections activity on older paper. And I was just trying to get a little bit more perspective on that, and clearly in that particular case, it didn't look like the fines were material and they did -- they were going to stop collections on some portion of those receivables. But I guess in your case also, can you provide some context with where you are at in that process with regulators; and how should we think about that? I mean should we think about New York State being one state where maybe you stop going after order paper, but can we see that happening in more states, and then if you cumulatively look at the amount which you are not going to be collecting, would that be a meaningful number? So I am just trying to frame that a little bit. I don't think its material, but I just want to make sure.

Anything that relates to our competitors, I will let them give you their own opinion as to how and why they settle. But from our point of view, this should not impact us materially. These are basically older issues. They have been around since 2010, and we have adjusted our operations for them.

And I think Sameer as it relates to other states, just related to a specific technicality on what the statute of limitation was based upon some contractual things in the agreements with consumers. So I don't think you can draw an inference from New York to other states.

Okay. Perfect. Thanks a lot guys.

Thank you.

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

Yeah, thank you. Paul is it the case that you will still be full time with the company and you will -- it sounds like you are like a chief admin or chief operations officer or business development?

I will be -- I wish it was just full time. I think it’s the same as it is today, which is 150% of the time, and as Ken mentioned I will be working on all the geographic and asset class diversification that we are doing, and for those transactions that we do overseas, I will be continuing to oversee them and then make sure that they deliver on the results that we are achieving. There is no -- we haven't formulated titles or anything like that, but I think we are still talking about a process that's going to take some time. We are just kicking off the recruiting efforts. It will take some time to bring the right person in, and we will take some time to transition into -- my responsibilities to that person. So we are still way off before that become what I am doing full time. So I will continue to do what I am doing now for quite some time.

Okay. Thank you. The securitization, how does that impact the model, the contribution to earnings as we look at Q2 or Q3? What are the adjustments we should make?

So Propel -- credit facility as about L plus 300, this is fixed at 1.44%. So the difference between the two of those on $140 million-ish of debt is the impact that its going to have. Those liens do pay off over a period of time, so you just have to take a look at the redemption rates or the payoff rates on those liens and use that balance to calculate any interest savings on it. But its basically the difference between L plus 300 and 144 basis points.

Okay. And then the -- can you talk about the amortization excluding Cabot? I heard you saying that the Cabot influenced amortization. How should we think about that going forward? Is there going to be as much seasonality in amortization? Is it going to be relatively steady from here? How did the amortization look on the underlying non-Cabot business?

On the non-Cabot business, amortization was positively impacted by the asset deal in Q2. So Q1 last year, we didn't have that large purchase. So Asset was a large transaction and also the multiple was very good, as we mentioned when announced that deal, the reason we often buy our competitors or portfolio from competitors, its because they are more complex transactions. Others can't execute on those as effectively as we can, and therefore the multiples and returns are higher. So we also had some positive impact from the Asset in our non-U.K. amortization. So over time, that will moderate a little bit. I think the seasonality in the core U.S. market will continue. There is less seasonality in the U.K. market. But the U.S. amortization was positively impacted by Asset and over time won't have as much of an impact.

Right. How much did you say you deployed in the U.K. outside of the Marlin transaction? Was it $143 million?

$143 million.

Right. And then, I think you have touched on this, but the supply in the U.S., your outlook for your ability to purchase any meaningful way in the U.S., could you talk about it?

Sure. So the pricing environment is still competitive. Supply continues to be constrained. Pricing still remains to be -- remains elevated. I would say that, we witnessed the early signs of stabilization. I am really going to stress on the word early. But despite all this, we acquired $105 million in the U.S. But there is a lot of activity around these portfolios, there is some scarcity. You know that three large issuers are not in the market at this time, and that creates a scarcity, and we are seeing that the -- even the winner of the top -- the winner of the portfolio there, the top three bids are very closely clustered together in terms of price.

Thank you.

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). Our next question comes from Brian Hogan of William Blair. Your line is open.

Thank you. A question on -- kind of a follow-up to the last one, capital deployment. Obviously, the U.S. being constrained, but you did deploy $105 million, which isn't a bad number. What are the opportunities in the United States from a -- and I'm talking from a risk return perspective versus, opportunities in the UK versus, call it, South America. Where do you see the best return and how much do you expect to deploy?

So I think the best returns these days are in Colombia and Peru, that's the good news .The bad news is, there is only limited dollars that we can deploy there. But we like those markets and I think I said last quarter, they have very-very attractive returns. After that, we see the returns in the U.K. next in line. We had a good quarter, we deployed $143 million that's well ahead of what we are anticipating for the full year, meaning that we have moved a long way against our full year goals. So the opportunities are there. In the U.S., while we did -- while the market is constrained, we did put out $105 million. We think are going to have another good quarter in Q2. So we are seeing opportunities there as well. So really the first rule is, does it equal or achieve our hurdle rate, and then we decide from there, where best do we get the best bank for a dollar. But we have multiple pools of dollars chasing investment portfolios. Does that help?

Yes, I guess. And even on that front, are you saying 2Q is going to be another good quarter -- is that the impact of the stabilization? Is that -- you said it's very competitive still, just fewer bidders are winning. Basically the seller is narrowing it from a lot to just a few then? And then a follow-up to that, is are there portfolio acquisition opportunities?

Okay well; what I would say is, while there are fewer competitors -- I am sorry, fewer issuers selling these days. The ones that are selling, are selling a little bit more frequently. I think they realize that the pricing for them is very good and they are bringing more to market. As I said to one of the other questions, we are really focused on our operational efficiencies and improving liquidation, and we see opportunities to buy at these levels, and to meet our hurdle rates, and we are pretty pleased with what those hurdle rates will be. As it relates to acquisitions, we are always talking to folks. People are always calling us, and I would say some of the smaller competitors have an ask for their business or portfolios that's way too high. But believe over time, as they see the compliance effort that is in front of them, and the cost of that compliance effort. Their price requests will come down, and I think there will be opportunities to buy from these competitors as well.

Sure. And then sticking with the U.S. market, what are your expectations, timeframes or any have been articulated from the three issuers that are on the sidelines. Any timeframe around there when they come back?

One of the three we always hear is coming back this quarter. And I have heard that since I joined the company, and that issuer has not returned yet. So I am hearing that again this quarter. The other two I think are a little longer out, but as we think about it, in spite our company, for two of those three issuers, we are just assuming they are not returning in 2014, and not returning in 2015. Now they may come back, but we are just assuming they are not. And what we do here is we have got a plan for life without them for the next two years. Hence we have been diversifying geographically, and we feel comfortable that we could continue to move forward, and achieve our 15% growth rates.

And you think they will come back to market? I mean, the risk is they could take it in-house? Is it their intention --

I don't see that happening, but my crystal ball gets a little fuzzy when you start asking me what are they going to do. So I can only control what we can do, and we are just assuming they are not coming any time soon, and we are going to continue to move on without them. When they come back, we are happy to be there.

All right, a couple of other items. The share repurchase program, the $50 million is roughly 5% of the market you have. How aggressive do you expect to be with that? I mean, you mentioned your stock is undervalued and, obviously, you have the equity grants.

Yeah. So we are going to work on using some of that $50 million to buy back the equity and as we said, we will be opportunistic when we think there -- our stock is not reflecting the value that we see in it, we will be out there purchasing.

Sure. And then one last one with the kind of Propel and tax lien business strategy. You bought a business for $43 million and you see it as a nice growth opportunity. But yet originations were actually down year over year. I'm trying just to --what's that disconnect and --

Originations usually are a little bit stronger in Q2 than they are net income Q1. This deal could have easily closed in Q1, it didn't, just as you could imagine -- just contract negotiations usually take longer than you would expect. But we are optimistic about the growth with Propel, and Propel has become more and more of a significant contributor to the overall EPS of the company. Its doing a nice job. As I said it, as an opportunity to grow organically and as an opportunity to do consolidation in the Texas market, and we like it.

Sure, and then one last one. The other revenue line, other income, I guess. Is that the Asset Acceptance bankruptcy business? What is that in particular?

Other revenue largely relates to the Cabot's contingency business.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Robert Dodd of Raymond James. Your line is open.

Just can you compare for us the pricing between the U.K. and U.S.? I mean, obviously, you bought more over there, but given everything we hear about -- just how aggressive the U.S. is -- $105 million in the U.S. versus $143 million ex-Marlin in the U.K. Do you feel that matches up to the relative returns in the two markets so is there a supply constraint in the U.K. as well, in terms of lumpiness; and if you've got any color there on what your market share is? You are the market leader, clearly, but how much room do you have relative to kind of where the ceiling is in the U.K. market at this point?

I think the U.K. market is going to be a very strong market. I think U.K. banks are still referring some of their balance sheets. They have some pent-up demand sitting on their balance sheets. And I also think that you are going to see several of our competitors come to market and put themselves up for sale. So I think you're going to see both of those things happening. Its almost again, the way we look at, why we bought Propel is the same reason why we bought Cabot, which is a business that could be scalable either organically, or we can buy other businesses and put them on our platform or connect them to our platform. Hence Marlin, and we see a few other competitors that we think will be coming to the market for sale. So I think that, the strong pipeline in the U.K., and we are going to look to be disciplined in how we purchase, and to make sure we achieve our stated hurdle rates that we have in the U.K.

And Robert, as Ken had mentioned before, we have separate financing vehicles or financing facilities for both of those markets. So when we are thinking about capital allocation, we are not making the decision, do we deploy capital in the U.S. or the U.K., because we have separate facilities, we can do both, and we just measure how much we deploy in each market, based upon the returns associated with the opportunities in front of us. So its not like we are taking one pool of capital and allocating in much markets, we have got two separate facilities, and another at Propel to -- where we can deploy as much capital as we think is prudent in each one of our geographic markets or asset classes.

Okay, I got that. And just one follow-up on that or clarification. In the U.K., is there any atypical seasonality in terms of when sales occur from -- obviously, it's relatively lumpy; but is there any kind of pattern that you can point us to about -- is Q1 abnormally strong or abnormally weak relative to kind of an annual quarterly average?

I don't know I can give you any guidance on that. I will say that some of the issuers tend to sale on half-year sales, rather than some of the issuers here in the U.S. that will come to market quarterly.

And as we had mentioned previously, when we did the Cabot acquisition, there is backlog and so some of the issuers come to the market with backlog periodically, and that's not a regular quarterly sale, it is a one-off transaction. So there is lumpiness associated anytime there is a backlog transaction, to the extent that we win those.

Got it. Thanks a lot, guys.

Thank you.

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

On that other revenue, the contingency fee revenue, is there any seasonality in that?

There is less seasonality in the U.K. than there is in the U.S. So there is a little bit, but frankly given the small -- the size of that revenue as compared to the rest of our business and the fact that contingency business doesn't have extremely high margins. From an earnings perspective, any seasonality really doesn't have much impact on our earnings. So I wouldn't worry about having them model in seasonality associated with that. And its also, just not a focus of our operations either. We have it, it adds some strategic value, but its not a big focus.

I don't know if you break this out in the Q, but do you have the amortization associated with the U.K. operation?

We do break it out separately. There is a table in the Q which -- we show the inverse, we show the revenue recognition rate. That is broken out separately between the U.S. -- its broken out by pool group and it is broken out for the U.K. pool groups and the U.S. pool groups.

You don't happen to have it there, do you?

Let me just look. I do. So the U.K. for the quarter was 69.1% revenue recognition rate, so correct that from one to get the amortization rate, and the U.S. was 56.5%.

Super. Thank you.

Thank you. I am not showing any further questions in queue. I'd like to turn the call back over to management for any further remarks.

Yeah, one last thing I will say is, we are looking forward to see you all in June for our Investor Day, and at that meeting, you will get a chance to meet the CEOs of Refinancia and Cabot and Grove, and I think you will enjoy meeting them and hearing what they have to say about their markets. So we look forward to seeing you then, and we thank you all for attending and we thank you all for your questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes today's program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.