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Earnings Call: Q2 2022

Aug 4, 2022

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to Open Lending second quarter 2022 earnings call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press one followed by four on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star zero. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. On the call today are John Flynn, Chairman and CEO, Ross Jessup, President and COO, and Chuck Jehl, CFO. Earlier today, the company posted its second quarter 2022 earnings release to its Investor Relations website. In the release, you will find reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures discussed on this call.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this call may contain estimates and other forward-looking statements that represent the company's view as of today, August 4, 2022. Open Lending disclaims any obligation to update these statements to reflect future events or circumstances. Please refer to today's earnings release and our filings with the SEC for more information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied with such statements. Now, I'll pass the call over to Mr. Flynn. Please go ahead.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks again for joining us today for Open Lending second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. I will briefly discuss the highlights of our results for the quarter and how we are performing given the current industry and economic conditions. Ross will then discuss current auto industry trends and Open Lending's relative performance in prior cycles. Then lastly, Chuck will go over the financials and thoughts for the remainder of the year. For the second quarter, our results were in line with our expectations, despite continued challenging economic and industry headwinds to our business, with our results modestly growing quarter over quarter. The industry is still facing low levels of dealer inventory due to the continued global semiconductor chip shortages and the supply chain challenges.

In addition, and equally significant, our inflated used car values impact on affordability to the near and non-prime consumers. When we began the second quarter of 2022, there were indications that fundamentals were beginning to stabilize and an expectation that the second half of the year would lead to higher auto transaction volume compared to the first half of the year. Instead, continued lockdowns in Asia and the effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine collectively dampened the supply to fuel a recovery. Even more notable has been the impact of a 40-year high record inflationary condition and the impact on consumers' budgets, and the Federal Reserve's monetary tightening response of 75 basis point hikes in both June and July. The results of high inflation and higher borrowing costs have pushed consumer sentiment to the lowest level seen in our company's history.

Despite these industry headwinds, our business has performed well. Our current expectations for full year 2022 auto originations at Open Lending are projected to be in line with full year 2021. While the current run rates at many of the universal banks implies auto lending originations will be down over 20% year-over-year. We remain focused on what we can control, including investing in our go-to-market sales strategy to capture more of our significant and growing TAM. In the first half of the year, we increased our sales and account management teams by 23%. The individuals we've hired have deep experience in the auto loan origination space, in particular with credit unions and banks.

While some players in our ecosystem are holding flat or even reducing their employee base during this period of economic uncertainty, we are actively hiring high-quality talent and positioning ourselves to take market share. Although early, we have seen good traction on these investments. It is worth noting that during the second quarter, our non-OEM business, primarily credit unions, grew certified loans 27% year-over-year. During the quarter, we signed 18 new customers and had 10 lenders certify their first loan in the quarter. We also further grew our existing customer base with our top 10 non-OEM customers, increasing their certification volume by 33% in the second quarter of 2022 as compared to Q2 2021.

Another area of focus has been on enhancing lenders' protection by continuing to invest in the platform and the infrastructure to support our growth, as well as improving lender onboarding, reporting, and claims administration capabilities, and investing in development resources. Early indications support improved onboarding and cycle times from contract signing to our first certified loan and revenue. These initiatives and associated investments are all to support our large growing TAM, which according to a recent assessment prepared for us by a third party, now totals approximately $270 billion for auto loan originations, which is up 8% from the study prepared prior to our public listing. In addition, there is approximately $40 billion in TAM related to the auto refinance opportunity, which represents 32% of our search this quarter and is expected to continue to perform well even with the current macroeconomic backdrop.

Based on the recent TAM analysis, we have penetrated less than 2% market share, leaving a significant room for growth. As you know, we bring together the various players in the auto retail ecosystem, offering a very compelling value proposition to each. We enable lenders to make loans to consumers they would otherwise not make, deepening their relationships with other existing customers and helping forge relationships with new customers. The loans made through our Lenders Protection Program provide yields that often exceed that of our customers prime portfolio with lower risk to the lender. The ultimate beneficiary is the underserved near and non-prime consumer who receives access to credit from a larger range of lenders with higher loan amounts, better rates, and appropriate down payments, which is even more important in today's environment where consumers' affordability is being squeezed. The benefits we offer are needed now more than ever.

In addition to the massive underserved and growing TAM and our mission to help both lenders and consumers, we have considerable moat around our business with over 20 years of proprietary data, a five-second underwriting decision, and our exclusive relationships with four A-rated insurance partners. This moat continues to widen as we make strategic investments in new data, technology, and talent. We believe our value proposition to the various players in the auto retail ecosystem supports our confidence in the resiliency of our business through any cycle and gets us even more excited about our long-term opportunities. A few reminders about our business as we head into potentially slower economic growth. First and foremost, we will maintain our discipline and rigor at all times in our underwriting process during this economic contraction.

In the second quarter, we adjusted our underwriting models to optimize for the health of our portfolio from a risk perspective. As you are all aware, we do not take balance sheet risk, and we will continue to prudently manage our balance sheet to ensure we maintain financial flexibility. In the end, we will continue to target growth rates in excess of industry growth rates, but never at the expense of our commitment to managing risk. Our business fundamentals and our long-term outlook are strong. I would now like to turn the call over to Ross, who will provide more details on what we are currently seeing in the auto lending industry, as well as a comparison to how the industry performed during the recession of 2008-2009. Ross?

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Thanks, John. As John stated, I would like to focus on two topics today. First, let me turn to auto industry trends. Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index prices in June decreased 1.3% from May 2022, but were still noticeably up 9.7% compared to June 2021. For the year remain at historical 25-year highs. Wholesale used vehicle prices continued to increase in the first half of the year. Average used car price is now 28,000 versus 19,000 pre-pandemic, an increase of 47%. New vehicle inventory is building at a more measured rate compared to expectations we began this year. The 2022 new vehicle SAR industry estimates have been revised downward three times and by 1.6 million units this year, clearly an indication of continued supply-side challenges.

Average incentive dollars per vehicle, a leading indicator of inventory availability, are noticeably below historical levels. In June 2021, OEMs were offering $2,700 per vehicle in incentives as compared to approximately $1,200 per vehicle in June 2022. While these are headwinds currently facing our industry, the number of new vehicle sales is forecasted to grow 5.2% per annum over the next five years, but could clearly grow more quickly considering the new vehicle SAR has been running at 2 million-3 million units below historical levels. Finally, the average age of a vehicle on the road is as high as it's ever been at over 12 years old, further adding to the number of units of pent-up demand and the opportunity for us ahead. Now to move on to my second topic.

We continue to compare and contrast current economic conditions against prior recessions, specifically 2008 and 2009. During that time, credit unions grew deposits and loan volumes each year in the last recession, suggesting that volumes can continue to grow through a downturn. While the value of used vehicles declined and used auto sales decreased in the last recession, both returned to pre-crisis levels within a year. Given the tight supply, our current belief is that price levels will not decline as precipitously as it did during the great financial crisis. 90% of the lenders using Lenders Protection reach their targeted goals. The lessons learned from the remaining 10% have enabled the company to improve its risk-based pricing model, thick versus thin versus normal, and LP Score.

Some prime customers will fall into the near-prime market due to the economic conditions creating growth in our total addressable market. We expect the carrier appetite and capacity will not be an issue as defaults need to increase 2x the levels in the Great Financial Crisis to create an economic loss for our insurers. Auto lending has typically performed better than other consumer asset classes as cars and car payments are prioritized over other consumer discretionary spending. There's an industry adage that you can sleep in your car, but you can't drive your house to work. Accordingly, we are optimistic about our core competencies in the auto lending space. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Chuck to review Q2 in further detail, as well as to provide updated thoughts on the full year 2022 outlook. Chuck?

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Thanks, Ross. During the second quarter of 2022, we facilitated 44,531 certified loans compared to 46,408 certified loans in Q2 of 2021, and 43,944 certified loans in Q1 of 2022. In addition, as John stated earlier, we executed contracts with 18 new customers during the quarter and had 10 new lenders certify their first loan in the quarter. Total revenue for the second quarter of 2022 was $52 million, as compared to $61.1 million in the second quarter of 2021.

I would like to point out that if you exclude the ASC 606 change in estimated revenues associated with profit share from each quarter, Q2 of 2022 revenue is flat year over year on a lower number of certified loans as a result of our focus on higher average unit economics and quality of credit in our portfolio. To break down total revenues in the second quarter 2022, profit share revenue represented $29.2 million, program fees were $20.7 million, and claims administration fees and other were approximately $2.2 million.

Now to further break down the $29.2 million in profit share revenue in Q2, profit share associated with new originations in the second quarter of 2022 was $26.3 million or $591 per certified loan, as compared to $27 million or $582 per certified loan in the second quarter of 2021. Also included in profit share revenue in Q2 of 2022 was $2.8 million change in estimated future revenues from certified loans originated in previous periods, primarily as a result of positive realized portfolio performance due to lower claims and lower severity of losses, which was partially offset by higher prepaids and increasing severity of losses expected in future periods. Change in estimated future revenues was $11.8 million in the second quarter of 2021.

Gross profit was $47 million and gross margin was 90% in the second quarter of 2022, as compared to $57 million and gross margin of 93% in the second quarter of 2021. Selling, general, and administrative expenses were $14.1 million in the second quarter of 2022, compared to $12.1 million in the previous year quarter. The increase is primarily due to additional employees to support our growth with a focus on our go-to-market sales strategy and investment in our technology, with both of which John mentioned earlier. Operating income was $32.8 million in the second quarter of 2022, compared to $44.9 million in the second quarter of 2021. Net income for the second quarter of 2022 was $23.1 million, compared to $76 million in the second quarter of 2021.

As a reminder, second quarter of 2021, we recognized a one-time gain on the extinguishment of the Tax Receivable Agreement of $55.4 million. Basic and diluted earnings per share was $0.18 in the second quarter of 2022, as compared to $0.60 in the previous year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2022 was $34 million, as compared to $46.1 million in the second quarter of 2021. There is a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures that can be found at the back of our earnings press release. Adjusted operating cash flow for the quarter was $34.6 million, as compared to $30.5 million in the second quarter of 2021, a 13% increase year-over-year.

We exited the quarter with $366.8 million in total assets, of which $167.7 million was in unrestricted cash, $106.7 million was in contract assets, and $66.5 million in net deferred tax assets. We had $159.3 million in total liabilities, of which $144.9 million was in outstanding debt. Now moving to our guidance for 2022.

Based on the first half of 2022 results and trends into the third quarter, we're revising our guidance ranges for full year 2022 as follows. Total certified loans to be between 155,000-185,000, total revenue to be between $175 million-$205 million, adjusted EBITDA to be between $110 million-$135 million, and adjusted operating cash flow to be between $115 million-$145 million. Despite the industry headwinds, we remain confident in the resiliency of our business and our ability to navigate through the supply and affordability constraints. However, these industry and economic challenges have impacted our growth outlook in the near term. In our guidance, we took the following factors into consideration.

We adjusted program underwriting with a focus on optimizing the health and quality of our portfolio from a credit perspective, continued disruption in transportation networks and raw material shortages, the global semiconductor chip shortages, low levels of dealer inventory and dealer sentiment, the investments we are making in the business, continued strength of our refinance program and the value proposition it offers consumers, the rate of growth for an index of public auto lender financial institutions, which peaked in the second quarter of 2021 at 21% and contracted to -2% in the second quarter of 2022, the affordability index of our target credit score due to continued inflated used car values, and finally, inflation and rising interest rates and overall consumer sentiment, which perhaps has had the most significant weighting on our guidance considerations.

While we model and analyze the industry supply chain and end market field conditions, the visibility on Federal Reserve policy can be less clear. As the Fed's guidance has changed from a view that inflation would be transitory to tighter monetary policy, consumer and dealer sentiment dropped considerably. With consumer spending slowing dramatically, the Fed noted that it will likely become appropriate to slow the pace of increases as they assess how cumulative policy adjustments affect the economy and inflation. We will continue to keep a watchful eye on the FOMC policy in addition to the fundamentals that matter most to our sales outlook.

Now, in closing, I'd like to note that the midpoint of our revised guidance is in line with last year as it relates to certified loans, which grew 82%, and revenue, which grew nearly 70% in full year 2021, excluding any impact from ASC 606 change in estimated revenues. We provide a true value proposition to our customers. We have limited near-term capital investment requirements and no near-term maturities on our debt. We will continue to maintain financial flexibility with a strong balance sheet and cash position and an overall conservative financial policy while investing in our business during a challenging economic time, and we stand ready to capitalize on the pent-up demand. We want to thank everyone for joining us today, and we will now take your questions.

Operator

All right. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to register for a question, you can do so by dialing one four . That's one, followed by the four on your telephone keypad right now. Now, you're going to hear three tones to acknowledge your request. If your question has been answered, you'd like to withdraw, you can dial one three . Okay. Once again, to queue up for questions today, it's one four , one followed by the four on your telephone keypad right now. All right, our first question comes from the line of Napoli from William Blair. You may now proceed.

Bob Napoli
Partner and Senior Research Analyst, William Blair

Thank you. Hey, good afternoon, John, Ross, and Chuck. Appreciate the question.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Hey, Bob. How you doing?

Bob Napoli
Partner and Senior Research Analyst, William Blair

I guess. All right. Hope you're doing well. So I guess just, I mean, obviously it's a difficult environment in the auto space right now, so no, you know, huge surprise, I think, on the guidance adjustments. As you know, what are your thoughts on, you know, how you're doing from a market share perspective? As we lap a tougher year, as you look into 2023 and ongoing, what is your feel for what the right growth rate should be for your company?

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah-

Bob Napoli
Partner and Senior Research Analyst, William Blair

Just from a-

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah. Thanks, Bob. This is Chuck. Go ahead, John.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

No, I was just gonna say, you can answer the percentage, Chuck, but I think we kind of tried to point out how excited we are about not just, you know, the growth ahead of us, but the numbers that we're hitting given the status of all these other lenders. The credit unions are continuing to be excited about, you know, what we have to offer, how we offer it. Their funding rates are always gonna be way below everybody else. I think given the new TAM that we had, you know, gone out and asked to get done from the same company that did it when we took the company public, I was thrilled to see that it's actually grown.

You know, it's up to $270 billion just on the purchase side and $40 billion on the refinance side. You know, those two numbers combined takes it about $60 billion greater than what the TAM was when we started this, you know, public path here. So I think that there's a huge runway ahead of us. Again, that was primarily in the credit union space, the bank space, the refinance space. I think with the cars starting to come back out, I think we're gonna see a lot of growth.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah, I'll just add.

Bob Napoli
Partner and Senior Research Analyst, William Blair

On credit-

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Sure. Go ahead, Bob.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

No, go ahead.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

I was just gonna say what we believe and we have been forecasting is that you know if you track used car values and how we see them declining slowly but we see them you know. You know we think we're pretty conservative on our forecast and realistic as well that it's gonna be in late 2023 early 2024 before they're down to a level that will result in you know the change in the affordability making in the our loans.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

A lot more attractive. I believe the near non-prime folks are on the sidelines. They are, you know, there's going to be a pent-up demand, and it's just gonna, as soon as supply increases, we're gonna be taking advantage of that. I think in the meantime, we have the ability to pivot and keep going after our lenders to help refinance and put these consumers in a better state.

Bob Napoli
Partner and Senior Research Analyst, William Blair

What are you seeing on the credit quality side? I'm sorry. Sorry about that.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

No problem.

Bob Napoli
Partner and Senior Research Analyst, William Blair

I let you go ahead.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Yeah, you know, our average score in our portfolio is about 640. All right. With that in mind, you know, I don't consider us to be in the subprime and the non-prime. When we're seeing first of all, on the default and the delinquency side, we are seeing an uptick, but it's in line with our expectations and still is even our you know just you know this past month and quarter, our expected defaults are actually higher than we actually are seeing. You know, it is shoring up. On the claim side, we're still at record lows.

That's just because the people are still, you know, yielding, you know, much more, you know, at the auction than we have forecasted. You know, we kind of have, you know, a headwind on that.

Bob Napoli
Partner and Senior Research Analyst, William Blair

Thank you.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Bob, just real quick. On your growth rate, you know, all the things John and Ross both said, you know, the production, the SAR obviously has been a big impact in the prepared comments and, you know, in the inventory and restocking. As things normalize and we get back to, as Ross said, you know, affordability comes down a bit, used price, you know, values come down a bit as well as inventory restocks. I mean, this business has performed well through challenging times.

As things normalize, we feel, you know, historically it's been a, you know, if you look past three years before the pandemic, a 30%, you know, revenue CAGR business and, you know, we feel like we can get back to significant growth rates as things normalize.

Bob Napoli
Partner and Senior Research Analyst, William Blair

Thank you very much.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Thank you.

Operator

All right, our next question comes from the line of David Scharf from JMP Securities. You may now proceed.

David Scharf
Managing Director, JMP Securities

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Good afternoon. Hey, you know, you actually, Chuck, I believe when you went through the guidance, you know, you. I think you answered what I was prepared to ask, which was, you know, is the updated outlook on affordability, is this more a function of elevated used car prices which have been so stubbornly high, or is it a function of consumer sentiment? It sounded like it was the latter. I just wanted to confirm, you know, as we think about, wow, it looks like a $29,000 was the average size loan this quarter, which is much higher than I think any of us are used to seeing for a 640 average FICO.

You know, as we think about sort of, you know, your comfort level and visibility and how you're thinking internally about trends over the next few quarters, is it more inflation, broader consumer credit, trends in Fed actions that we should be thinking about more than just supply chain issues? Because there seem to be a lot of, you know, inputs here.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Thanks for the question, David. Yeah, definitely a lot of inputs here. You know, as we work through it from a bottoms-up perspective, I'd just kind of like to point to maybe just, you know, three real, you know, big drivers that went into our input is, you know, the geopolitical environment, you know, has changed notably, you know, since we were last on the phone. You know, the war in Ukraine has disrupted the energy sector. Oil prices are, you know, at highs and gas prices. You know, as you mentioned, inflation at 40-year high. You know, the Consumer Price Index at 9%. That's a, you know, big impact.

You know, Asia was locked down in containment and, you know, in the chips. That is definitely still a macro chip issue there and getting the auto demand back in good order. You know, in the auto sector, it really hasn't improved like what we thought, you know, when we were last on the phone. You know, it's the industry chips, it's supply, it's affordability, you know, it's the SAR. It's just many inputs and, you know, outside of our control.

You know, what we're really focused on is executing and running the business through this, you know, and generating a lot of cash flow for the, you know, shareholders in the company, you know, continue focusing for the pent-up demand when it comes back and it's ready. Yeah, it's really a blend of all of it. But probably the biggest, you know, factor on the range of the guidance is really the Fed's action and what's the Fed going to do over the next, you know, several months here.

You know, are we going to ease on the rate or, you know, the rate increases and sentiment from the consumer is going to get better and affordability is going to come down as prices, you know, normalize on the Manheim. That's really the biggest factors, I think, in the range of that. Yeah, just supply in general just has to improve in the auto space. I know it's a long-winded answer, but it's a lot of inputs to what we thought about here.

David Scharf
Managing Director, JMP Securities

No, that's very helpful. Maybe just as a follow-up, this is more sort of a structural question. Within the profit sharing arrangements with the carriers, does their portion of the profit share that they keep, does that change at all based on any absolute levels of profit share per cert? You know, as we think about potentially, you know, not just credit normalization, which we're seeing now, to pre-pandemic levels, but if we were to actually fall into a true unemployment-driven recession and so our loss rates become significantly elevated and then lower profit share per loan, maybe under $500, does that trigger any changes in terms of how the splits are calculated?

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

It does not.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

No. No, sir. It does not.

David Scharf
Managing Director, JMP Securities

Okay. Terrific. Thank you.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Thank you. Thank you, David.

Operator

All right, next question comes from the line of Joe Vafi from Canaccord Genuity. You may now proceed.

Joe Vafi
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Canaccord Genuity

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. I know you mentioned that you may have tweaked your underwriting model a bit in the quarter. Interested to get a little more detail on that. You know, it does sound like you know the credit unions and basically the non-OEMs kind of still grew in the quarter, and I just wanna confirm if that's a lot of refi activity there that's kind of keeping things really high. I guess you know to finish that equation off, I guess it does sound like probably the OEM channel is the one that's you know clearly down the most at this point. Maybe one quick follow-up.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Yeah. Yeah, Joe. As far as underwriting, you know, in April when we're just trying to address things that we can't control. You know, we launched 84 months. We expanded our loan amounts for indirect. I was just looking and the uptick has been definitely in line with our expectation. It's growing. We're actually seeing improved capture rates, which was our overall intent as well. Instead of countering and basically not getting that opportunity, you know, our capture rate continues to improve, and we expect that to continue to improve from here on out 'cause it takes a while for some of our institutions to adopt our larger underwriting box. Yeah, we are excited about it.

When we continue to look at other, you know, underwriting changes that we can help navigate through this. As far as the refi, and John can speak to it, you know, it's still, you know, it's. We have new accounts that are coming on, you know, we're expanding our kind of wallet share with how we serve and new refi opportunities. We have accounts that just have signed up and launched doing refi only initially before they look at other channels.

You know, I think that's just what's great about our business model, is the ability to pivot when originations, because the supply is limited, we're able to still help the consumer out by getting them in a payment that fits their credit quality. Yeah. Joe, I'll jump in. On the refis, it was 32% of our quarter, you know, about 14,000 certs of the 44,500 we generated. Still strong performance there. Actually, it was up about 27% or let me back up, the non-OEM business. You know, your point about the OEMs being down, yeah, they're down the most, you know, as you look at the customers and.

You know, to be expected with supply and you know, where things are with incentives and inventory. That's where it kind of rounded out. The core business performed very well.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

The cost of capital.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Yeah, just the cost of capital.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

I think some, you know, when you look at some of our funding sources that may be running out of a little bit of liquidity, we've got some new funding sources lined up that are totally interested in the refi channel. The fact that they're sitting there waiting to get some of the value, I think is awesome. I don't think we're gonna see a huge down tick in refinance at all. I think if anything, those applications are gonna continue to come in stronger than they even did in the past because of what's going on with the economy. Yeah, I think it was David that asked the previous question, you know, about the I forget how it was worded, but the economy and the things we're thinking about with unemployment and things like that.

You know, if you look at. We recognize some of those things are happening. You know, the unemployment rates, all these different things, delinquency. We have over 2 million unique risk profiles that we look at. As these consumers' scores fall, or as their, you know, performance gets a little worse, all they're gonna do is fall into a higher priced bucket, if you will. From a premium standpoint, we're still gonna be able to help them. We'll still get the loan, but it's gonna. You know, it might perform a little differently, but we're collecting enough premium to make sure that the profit share stays where it needs to. Even though those outside factors are happening, we're pricing for that in every category.

Joe Vafi
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Canaccord Genuity

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks, John. Then just, you know, do we have an update on new OEMs at this point? You know, has this macro changed their kind of view on a timeline here on adopting the Lenders Protection Program? Thanks, guys.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Yeah, Joe. No, we still have a lot of activity going on and discussions going on. There's, you know, really not a lot of change from the last quarter except

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

What we are seeing is some folks are starting to see some losses, which actually ironically is a good thing, as far as the, you know, showing the value prop of ours. I think with the used car index where it is now and the new originations that are out there, they have a lot more risk because of the decline that's gonna happen compared to the timing when losses are gonna happen. We look forward. We continue, you know, to, you know, pursue the ones we've been talking to, and there's still a level of interest. We're trying to get on the radar and. We're kind of pleased where we are at this point.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Hey, Joe, I'll add one more thing, just kinda your comment about guidance and maybe David's comment and, you know, kind of you think about the most significant impacts to the outlook, the guidance outlook. You know, incentives, as Ross said in the OEMs, have bottomed. You know, the SAR has bottomed. You know, we believe prices peaked. You know, sector dynamics are improving and, you know, there's 5 million pent-up demand units that, as we said in the script, that we stand ready to capitalize on because our business fundamentals are, you know, we believe are very strong and ready for that when things, you know, normalize. Things are improving.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

Thanks, guys.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah. Thank you, Joe.

Operator

All right, our next question comes from the line of Pete Heckmann from Davidson. You may now proceed.

Pete Heckmann
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Davidson

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks for taking the question. Just looking at the

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Hi, Pete.

Pete Heckmann
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Davidson

The implied revenue per loan and your updated guidance, it certainly seems to imply that you expect that the profit share per loan to continue to run, you know, pretty solid, you know, $570-$590, something like that. Is that? Obviously, the origination fee is also going up as the average price of the car goes up. That is. Is that the right way to think about how you're thinking about, you know, uptick in default rates?

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Well, yeah, on unit economics, yeah, as you relate to program fees and profit share. Yeah, we feel good and, you know, at that $550-$600, you know, there's mix at times, you know, not all risk is created equal on the premiums. But yeah, that $550-$600, you know, feels good from a modeling perspective. And then program fees, as you pointed out, are up a bit year-over-year, you know, just loan amount increases and also mix of business. Yeah, we feel good about those numbers.

Pete Heckmann
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Davidson

Just thinking about refi and sorry if someone already asked this, but I think the absolute number of refinance loans was down about 18% sequentially. Did that correspond with like a mailing program or, you know, maybe a major mailing program that's in the first quarter that's not in the second quarter? Or is that a remnant of perhaps, you know, just a concern over rates? Any way to think about that?

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

Yeah. I think it's all driven by a little bit of liquidity issues, not concern over rates, not concern over any kind of meltdown or anything. It's simply one of our largest credit union funding source is taking a two-month pause on funding excess cash to be able to lend out. They were over 100% lent out. It's just a matter of fine-tuning their balance sheet and getting back into it.

Pete Heckmann
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Davidson

I see. All right. I appreciate it.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

John, this is Chuck. You would agree with me. Yes, we were a little under 40% peak, you know, in Q1, but, you know, obviously still strong at, you know, almost 32.5%, for Q2. Still a strong piece of our opportunity, as John said.

Pete Heckmann
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Davidson

Mm-hmm.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

Oh, sure. Yeah.

Pete Heckmann
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Davidson

Definitely. I appreciate it.

Operator

All right, move on to our next question, comes from the line of James Faucette from Morgan Stanley. You may now proceed.

Sandy Beatty
Equity Research Associate, Morgan Stanley

Hi. Yeah, this is Sandy Beatty on for James. Just a conceptual question here, and maybe you've had conversations with the credit unions that can help in terms of color. Are credit unions more or less interested, or do they use the products more or less into periods like this where, let's just say, expectations for defaults are increasing? Framed differently, how does product demand and usage react just on a cyclical basis and then even factoring in interest rates and pricing into the equation as well? Any color that you can offer there would be great.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

Yeah, I don't think they use us any more, or I think they've all adopted the program. If you look back in history, credit unions traditionally were prime lenders. You know, very few of them lent below a 680, a 690. When they started to adopt our program, they became more in line with realizing that they could safely lend to the near-prime consumer with the safety net of our insurance piece tied to every loan, so that in the event of default, they were still gonna get the yield they wanted. The majority of them, even some of the largest ones, simply didn't have the data to be able to underwrite these loans appropriately, so they simply denied it or conditioned it to the point where the poor consumer was sent out and subjected to the Exeter and the Santander.

you know, I mean, I do think that as you start to see delinquencies rise a little bit out there, I think we're gonna see some of the shops that we've been targeting, that we haven't even gotten into yet. Be more prone to want to sign up for our program. Again, I'll come back to the answer from earlier about, you know, and Ross made the point a few minutes ago, as they start to see more losses and more delinquency, we become a lot more appealing. The beauty to us is it's priced appropriately from a current standpoint for us to benefit. I think it's not. They try not to be cyclical. They try to stay in the game.

You know, one of the things dealers hate, and we've seen it with some, the likes of some of the big banks, you know, one day they're buying 620, the next day they're not. Well, what we give the credit unions the ability to do is stay in the game with the dealers and become their, you know, their lead source for getting those loans funded.

Sandy Beatty
Equity Research Associate, Morgan Stanley

Got it. That's helpful.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Yeah. Hey, Sandy, I do wanna.

Sandy Beatty
Equity Research Associate, Morgan Stanley

Yeah.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Hey, Sandy, I wanted to add something to John's comments. Basically, when you know, when John and I can talk about back in 2007 and 2008, our capture rate, nothing but credit union clients then. Our capture rate then was double what it is today. During those times, I mean, we you know, the demand for our product definitely increased, and we were able to see very positive results from that. I think, Chuck, you wanna add something.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Just one more thing. If you go to delinquencies for a second, you know, our FICO at 575 and above is only 2%, you know, delinquencies. In defaults, 575 or above are less than 5%. You know, our FICO score, average FICO score is in the 640 range.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Right

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

as John and Ross said. It's in line with the, you know, ten-year trailing performance.

Sandy Beatty
Equity Research Associate, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Helpful. Maybe a little bit more of a high level question. Competitive landscape, how has this evolved the past three to six months? Obviously, the environment changing pretty rapidly, particularly with respect to interest rates, refi, obviously, an impact there as well. Anything that you're seeing competitors pulling back or pushing? Obviously, you called out market share in the press release. Any color there would be great.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

When you say competitors, I'm not sure we've identified any. You know, other funding sources, some of the likes of the, you know, larger banks, we see their numbers, their loans are way down. I don't know if that's because they've overpriced them or, you know, their cost of funds, I'm sure, is rising. You know, from a competitive standpoint, we've yet to identify a competitor that does what we do the way we do it.

Sandy Beatty
Equity Research Associate, Morgan Stanley

Perfect. That's good to know. Thank you.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Thank you.

Sandy Beatty
Equity Research Associate, Morgan Stanley

All right, next question coming from the line of John Hecht from Jefferies. You may now proceed.

John Hecht
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Jefferies

Hey, guys. Afternoon, and thanks for taking my question.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah.

John Hecht
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Jefferies

This is just, I guess, an extension of some of the other discussions we've had here. You mentioned that the refi market is pretty, you know, resilient right now. You would expect that, you know, rising rates might have some influence on that over time. I guess the question is, you know, considering rates and considering the direction of used car prices and some of, I guess, your just economic judgments, what happens. Then I guess also on the other side of that, some normalization of production from the OEMs. What happens. In your guidance, what do you think happens to mix over the next, you know, several quarters?

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

You mean the mix of refi purchase?

John Hecht
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Jefferies

Refi purchase

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah

John Hecht
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Jefferies

even channels, OEM versus, you know, credit unions and banks and so forth.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

Chuck, do you wanna

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah, I think I can start. You know, John, I think the way to think about it is the OEMs and there's more inventory and the dealers, you know, as floors increase, you know, OEMs, OEM one and two will be a bigger piece of our business going forward as that normalizes. We think the absolute percent of refi, you know, the percent of refi may sustain or go down slightly, but we believe the absolute number of certs could continue to rise even through the rising rate environment. I don't know, John, if you want to add anything to that.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

No, I would say just exactly that. I think in addition to that, you know, regardless of where the loans are coming from, and I think Ross alluded to it a little bit in his prepared remarks, you know, the economy is gonna drive a lot of consumers' scores lower. You know, a lot of people just can't afford to make their payments, so they're using credit cards, which is a big factor in your FICO score.

I think what you're gonna find is with the economy getting squeezed, people that are making a $500 a month car payment today that weren't considering a refi in the past are now looking at, you know, increased gas prices, you know, food prices are up, that they're gonna be looking for ways to reduce their monthly outflow, which I think is gonna drive a lot of these 18% and 17% interest rates. You know, we're still coming back with 11s and 12s using credit union funds. I think it's just gonna. I don't see it going away or getting any smaller.

John Hecht
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Jefferies

Great. Guys, that's very helpful. Thanks.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Thanks, John.

Sandy Beatty
Equity Research Associate, Morgan Stanley

Our next question comes from the line of Faiza Alwy from Deutsche Bank. You may now proceed.

Faiza Alwy
Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Yes. Hi, thank you. I wanted to just ask about the EBITDA outlook, because you mentioned some investments in data, et cetera. I'm curious if most of the change in EBITDA outlook is because of revenue impacts or if you're embedding some, you know, additional investment spending, there too?

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah. Hi, Faiza. How you doing? It's Chuck. Yeah. You know, obviously, as we talked about, you know, we're investing in our go-to-market sales strategy as well as technology this year. You know, the change there that you've seen from the previous guidance to this is really just more revenue top line. You know, we're gonna maintain in our guidance, you know, approximately 63%-65% EBITDA margin, and that's net of the investments we're making in the year for 2022. That's all baked in. That's the margin profile in the guidance.

Faiza Alwy
Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. Understood. You mentioned, you know, several times sort of maintaining financial flexibility and your strong balance sheet, cash position. Like, how are you thinking about, you know, using that to your benefit during this time?

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

I think I'll tag on to, you know, the investments we're making right now, first and foremost in the business and in the go-to-market sales and being ready to capitalize on that pent-up demand as things recover. That's first and foremost. You know, we're gonna. When we say maintain financial flexibility, you know, having a strong cash position is in uncertain times is definitely something that we're very focused on and just maintaining that flexibility through these challenging times. You know, we'll look at other opportunities as the business matures. You know, we look at opportunities from time to time on the M&A front. But obviously just investing back in the business right now is the primary focus.

Faiza Alwy
Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question coming from the line of Vincent Caintic from Stephens. You may now proceed.

Vincent Caintic
Specialty and Consumer Finance Analyst, Stephens

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon. First, wanted to talk about or if you could discuss the conversations you're having, you know, with your lending partners and with the lending partners you've signed up. I guess, even at the midpoint of the guidance, the implied second half, you know, you do have non-OEM volume shrinking. I'm sort of wondering if you could discuss, like, what just, you know, broadly what these banks and credit union lenders are thinking. I know you mentioned one credit union maybe reached their limits or taking a two-month pause. Are you seeing maybe other lenders, you know, maybe requiring higher returns or wanting to reduce risk exposure?

How are they thinking about, you know, this current environment and your partnership? Thank you.

John Flynn
Chairman and CEO, Open Lending

Yeah, I don't think they're trying to reduce their exposure or, you know, even their cost of funds. I don't think is that big of an issue because even if a credit union's cost of funds comes up a half a point, they're still gonna be the lowest interest rate in town relative to the refinance market that we're going after. I truly just believe that it's a situation where those that have been really successful in our program, and we've seen this over the years, even going back to, you know, 2007, 2008, where they get so successful with our program that they just need to find additional cash to lend. What they're trying to do is just kind of reorganize their balance sheet.

You know, if you look at where mortgage rates are going and all these other asset classes with the rates climbing on that, they're still not. They don't wanna hold on to these long-term loans not knowing where rates are gonna go. The perfect asset liability mix for a credit union is an auto loan that's got an average life of 2.5-3 years with a yield probably 4x that of a prime loan. I think it's just a matter of prioritizing where to get the cash from and where to, you know, deploy it.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah. I wanna add something to John. Even though we do have a couple of our partners in that situation temporarily, we are actively trying to reallocate that to other partners and having you know calls and meetings regarding that. We're everybody's at work trying to still take those applications those sources and place them at one of our other participating customers out there. You know, but the OEM volume you know was a little. Actually, Q2 was a little up from Q1. I think for the balance of the year, it should be in line with where it's trending right now.

Vincent Caintic
Specialty and Consumer Finance Analyst, Stephens

Okay, great. Thank you. Just one kind of a follow-up on the balance sheet question earlier. Yeah, your cash position is $168 million, you know, kind of builds very nicely. I know you talked about investing in the business in M&A, but your, you know, balance sheet's very capital light. Just wondering if you've thought about capital return like share repurchases since you have bought stock in the past at higher prices than where the stock is now, or, you know, are there any limitations to doing share buybacks? Thank you.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Thanks, Vincent. No, there's no limitations to doing share buybacks. You know, we don't have a current board authorization to buy stock back. You know, we evaluate that, thoughtful decisions at the board level for us to think through. Again, you know, building cash and you know maintaining that financial flexibility is what we're focused on and investing back in the business right now.

Vincent Caintic
Specialty and Consumer Finance Analyst, Stephens

Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Just a quick reminder for everybody, if you would like to register for a question, you can do so by dialing one four on your telephone keypad. We have one more question in queue. It's coming from the line of Mike Grondahl. It's from Northland Capital Markets. You may now proceed.

Speaker 13

Hi, this is Michael St. John from Mike Grondahl. Thanks for taking the questions.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Hey, Michael.

Speaker 13

Hey, just a reminder on, I think last year, early second quarter, you dropped the vehicle value discount. Does that impact year-over-year comparison on, like, the profit share average there?

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Yeah. I believe last April of 2021, we actually got rid of the 5% discount. Our capture rates did increase from that. You know, because basically when we dropped it, that reduced premium and reduced the contract rate in place.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

I'd just point out that you know higher loan amounts drive higher premium and

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Oh, yeah.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

higher profit share as well.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

the addition of 84 months.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Right

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

came with higher premiums.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Right

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Premium rates as well.

Speaker 13

Got it. Maybe just on slide three, has there been any vintage to call out on the realized versus respective performance on those for that?

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Can you repeat that, Michael? I didn't follow your question.

Speaker 13

Sure. Just on the contract asset estimates and the profit share revenue. Has there been any other?

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Right

Speaker 13

vintage segment to, like, call out there? Or has that been pretty broad-based as far as the realized coming in ahead of expectation?

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah, I think the realized was just, you know, lower claims and severity of loss than we had originally modeled in that $6.4 million component. Then the negative $3.6 million was really just us putting more stress in the forward-looking periods for higher severity of loss with prices, you know, used car values coming down and-

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Increased prepayments

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

increased prepayments as well as increased, you know, defaults forward-looking. That's what all that is.

Speaker 13

Okay. Thank you.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

Thank you.

Operator

All right. We have no further questions queued up. I'll turn the call back over to our presenters for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Ross Jessup
President and COO, Open Lending

I just said thanks to everybody for your continued interest and support in the company. I think we've got great roads ahead of us here to continue to grow the business, and we're looking forward to doing that.

Chuck Jehl
CFO, Open Lending

Yeah, thank you.

Operator

All right, ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude the conference call for today. We thank you very much for your participation, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.

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