Encore Capital Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECPG) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 8, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Bruce Thomas - Vice President, Global Investor Relations
Ashish Masih - President & CEO
Jonathan Clark - EVP & CFO

Conference Call Participants

John Rowan - Janney Montgomery Scott
Mark Hughes - Truist Securities
Mike Grondahl - Northland Securities
Robert Dodd - Raymond James

Operator

Good day, folks, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Encore Capital Group's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Bruce Thomas, VP of Investor Relations. Bruce, please go ahead.

Bruce Thomas

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and welcome to Encore Capital Group's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call.

Joining me on the call today are Ashish Masih, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Jonathan Clark, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Ryan Bell, President of Midland Credit Management. Ashish and Jon will make prepared remarks today, and then we will be happy to take your questions.

Unless otherwise noted, comparisons on this conference call will be made between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2023. In addition, today's discussion will include forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from our expectations. Please refer to our SEC filings for a detailed discussion of potential risks and uncertainties. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

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 Investor Presentation, which is available on the Investors section of our website.

As a reminder, following the conclusion of this call, a replay of this conference call, along with our prepared remarks, will also be made available on the Investors section of our website.

With that, let me turn the call over to Ashish Masih, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Ashish Masih

Thanks, Bruce, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'll begin today's call with key highlights from the first quarter.

Encore's solid first quarter performance was driven by strong portfolio purchasing in the U.S. and double-digit collections growth on a global basis. Continued growth in U.S. portfolio supply, driven by both credit card lending growth and charge off rate at a 10-year high has led to very attractive pricing and returns. As a result, we continue to allocate the vast majority of our capital to the U.S. market, deploying a record $237 million in the U.S. in the first quarter.