Q2 2020 Earnings Call

Good morning, and thank you for holding welcome to the Cons Inc. conference call to discuss earnings for the fiscal quarter ended July 31, 2019. My name is Dana and I will be your operator today.

During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen only mode. After the speakers remarks, you will be invited to participate in the question and answer session.

As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

The company's earnings release dated September Threerd 2019 was distributed before market opened this morning and can be accessed via the company's investor Relations website at IR Dotcom dotcom.

During today's call management will discuss among other financial performance measures adjusted EBITDA adjusted net income.

And adjusted earnings per diluted share. Please refer to the company's earnings release that was issued today for a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures.

I must remind you that some statements made in this call are forward looking statements within the meaning of federal Securities laws. These forward looking statements represent the companys present expectations or beliefs concerning future events. The company cautions that such statements are necessarily based on certain assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties.

Which could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated today. Your speakers today are norm Miller, the Companys CEO Lee Wright, the Companys COO, George Bush era, the company's CFO .

I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Miller. Please go ahead Sir.

Good morning, and welcome to Con second quarter of fiscal year 2020 earnings conference call I'll begin the call with a strategic overview. Then we will provide additional details on the quarter before turning the call over to George who will complete our prepared remarks with additional comments on the financial results.

Our record second quarter earnings demonstrate our continued success executing on our strategic priorities, our strong operating performance across both our retail and credit segments.

And the demand for our unique value proposition.

We are pursuing a compelling retail strategy that takes advantage of a large and stable addressable market and we have invested in people operations and systems to support our planned growth.

As you May recall last quarter, we launched our new e-commerce platform, including the implementation of our upgraded website, which was a significant milestone for our company.

Tom has created an end to end online solution, allowing our customers to transact with us entirely online using any of our financing options.

I am also pleased to announce our planned expansion into the Florida market. Another significant milestone in the 129 year history of our company.

Florida is a logical next step for our geographic expansion as it is contiguous to our existing footprint is home to over 21 million people and supports an attractive rate environment for our in house credit offering.

To support our future, Florida locations, we recently executed a lease agreement for an over 400000 square foot distribution center in Central Florida that will open in the next 12 months.

We expect the first floor to store to open in the second half of next fiscal year.

Ultimately, we believe the state of Florida could support over 40, cons locations, which would represent a significant expansion to our current store base.

Our credit performance remains strong and is in line with the strategy, we outlined over three years ago.

With confidence in our underwriting and collections performance are stable credit segment provides us with additional opportunities to grow retail sales and differentiates our business from other retailers.

Reflecting our optimism for the future and our desire to create value for shareholders. I am pleased to announce that we have repurchased $57.9 million of common stock through August 29, which represents approximately 9.6% of our outstanding shares.

As you can see positive momentum is accelerating across our business and we believe fiscal year 2020 is shaping up to be a year of strong earnings and operational growth.

So with this overview, let me turn the call over to Lee, who will provide more details on our second quarter operating results.

Thanks norm the second quarter of fiscal year 2020 is the second best quarter of total retail sales growth in 13 quarters. Despite the continued headwind of lapping the benefit hurricane Harvey rebuilding efforts had on our results last fiscal year.

Although total same store sales decreased 2.3%, reflecting the continued impact of hurricane Harvey I am pleased to announce that total retail sales increased 3.3% for the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, and same store sales were positive in non hurricane Harvey impacted markets highlighting the power of our growth opportunity year to date, we've opened 10, new showrooms in existing states, including two opened in August we plan to open four additional locations in the third quarter. This will bring the total number of showrooms opened in fiscal year 2020 to 14, all within existing states, which reflects the highest number of new stores that we will have opened in four years, new stores continue to operate in line with our credit and retail expectations. As a result, we plan to open a greater number of showrooms next fiscal year, which includes several in Florida with only 133 stores in 14 States. We are excited by the significant and long term opportunity.

We have to expand our footprint.

Since coming to cons in July Rodney Lastinger, our new President of retail has quickly contributed to our success, helping to drive better retail execution, both in our new stores and within our existing store base Rodneys experienced a target corporation managing over $21 billion in sales 85000 team members and 565 stores provides cons with a proven leader who understands how to properly manage scale and develop a large retail operation.

Same store sales and non hurricane Harvey impacted markets increased 0.4%, primarily due to higher sales within our home appliance and furniture and mattress categories. In fact total same store sales are home appliance category were up 3.4% during the second quarter and outpaced industry growth as we have continued to enhance our better best assortment and go to market strategy.

Our furniture and mattress category grew and non hurricane Harvey markets as customers continue to embrace the increasing number of new styles and looks now present in our showrooms.

Partially offsetting these second quarter strengths were lower sales within our consumer electronics and home office categories, which were impacted by challenging market dynamics for Tvs computers, and gaming consoles. Overall, we continue to strategically manage our merchandising assortment and we believe we are well positioned to continue growing same store sales as a result of our better best product focus attractive financing programs and compelling retail shopping experience.

Second quarter same store sales within our Hurricane Harvey markets, which includes our largest market of Houston continue to demonstrate the significant contribution rebuilding efforts had on our retail sales last fiscal year for the quarter same store sales and hurricane impacted markets were down 9.3%, which is the smallest decline over the last four quarters and is a 550 basis point improvement compared to the first quarter.

As a reminder, hurricane Harvey affected several of our Texas markets, including our home market of Houston in August 2017 has taken two full years for us to lap Hurricane harvest impact and we believe this current quarter will be the last period meaningfully affected by Hurricane Harvey.

Turning to E Commerce sales, which are included in same store sales. The second quarter reflects the transformational increase in web visits online applications and ecommerce sales for the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, ecommerce sales were $3.2 million, which is approximately 20% higher than total ecommerce sales for all of last fiscal year.

Application volume increased sequentially as a result of improvements in our online platform. After the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 transition to our new web site.

In addition, we are starting to see improving trends in application volume from Hurricane Harvey markets. In fact total application volume for the second quarter of fiscal year 2020 was the highest second quarter amount in three years, even with the continued pressure our Harvey impacted markets have had on application in sales volume.

We are well positioned to expand ecommerce sales in the coming quarters as our digital marketing efforts grow our existing logistics infrastructure warehouse locations and last mile delivery capabilities are fully scalable as we already offer next day delivery across our 14 States store network. We are excited by the positive trends, we are seeing in online traffic applications and sales and we believe that our ability to transact with our customers through our E. Commerce platform is an important capability. This supports our continued growth.

With over 90% of our retail sales completed using one up caused three credit offerings. We work closely with both progressive leasing in synchrony financial to optimize our third party financing programs are unique and diverse credit offerings provide significant value for our customers and partners, while differentiating Khan from other retailers.

During the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, we understand that our lease to own financing partner progressive leasing modestly tightened underwriting standards for lease transactions across many of their product category verticals, which included all of our eligible product verticals.

Progressive and cons remain committed partners and we continue to believe 10% of retail sales through progressive offering is achievable. In addition, we continue to work with synchrony, Our third party partner for Prime credit customers to enhance our relationship and expand our programs to prime customers. As a result of these efforts sales financed through synchrony increased to 17.7% of total retail sales for the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, compared to 16.4% for the same period last fiscal year and up 200 basis points compared to synchrony sales for fiscal year 2017.

Quickly looking at the profitability of our retail segment retail gross margin remains strong we continue to benefit from our better best merchandising strategy retail gross margin was 40.5% for the second quarter, representing the fifth consecutive quarter at or above our target rate of 40%. The 90 basis point year over year decline in retail gross margin was due primarily to the onetime benefit of increases in appliance retail pricing related to the tariff adjustments and the associated forward buys of inventory during the second quarter of fiscal year 2019, coupled with increased logistics cost to help support future growth specifically related to our new Houston distribution Center.

Im pleased with the continued strength of retail profitability in the second quarter of fiscal year 2020 is aligned with our strategy to produce annual retail gross margin above 40%.

Positive momentum is underway in our retail business and we expect the second half of fiscal year 2020 to benefit from improving retail execution and the longer tenure of our merchandising marketing and operations teams. We also expect the second half of the fiscal year to be positively impacted by new stores sales from our E Commerce platform and lapping the sales impact from Hurricane Harvey with this overview of our retail segment, let's look at the continued positive trends underway in our credit segment.

Credit results remain strong and are in line with expected seasonal trends our credit spread for the second quarter was 890 basis points, representing the highest second quarter credit spread in six years as a result of a net yield of 21.9% and a net charge off rate of 13%.

On a trailing 12 month basis, our credit spread was 920 basis points at July 31, 2019, compared to 660 basis points at July 31 2018.

As a reminder, seasonality impacts credit performance as our core customer receives the benefits of personal income tax refunds during the first quarter.

Overall portfolio performance has benefited from stable underwriting the enhancements we have made in our collection recovery efforts and a healthy economic environment for our core customer.

As a result, the 60 plus day delinquency rate remained stable, 8.7%, while our charge off rate net of recoveries was 13% compared to 13.8% for the same period last fiscal year. In addition, we continued to control new store credit performance in first payment default rates at our new stores remain better than the company average.

Improving our recovery process remains a strategic focus as higher cash recoveries result in lower net charge offs in reduced loss rates on our allowance for bad debts.

For the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, we collected $6.1 million of recoveries, a 26% increase from the same period last fiscal year.

Year to date, we have collected $12.5 million and we remain on track to collect over $20 million in recoveries this fiscal year.

As our trailing 12 months credit spread demonstrates the majority of our portfolio, including recent originations is in line with our 1000 basis point annual credit spread target as a result, our sophisticated underwriting team continues to analyze and segment our portfolio to identify and test incremental sales opportunities. We remain focused on maintaining a steady stable credit business and I'm confident in our ability to manage risk going forward, even as growth accelerates.

Positive same store sales and non hurricane Harvey impacted markets higher total application volume and growth in ecommerce sales demonstrates the positive momentum underway in our business. As a result, we believe we are well positioned to achieve total annual retail sales growth of 8% to 10% in the coming quarters at this level of growth. We can manage the credit segment with our 1000 basis point spread target, while achieving annual retail gross margin of at least 40% in leveraging SG and expenses.

This is the foundation of a very powerful and sustainable business model and I'm extremely excited by the opportunities we have in fiscal year 2020 and beyond.

With this let me turn the call over to George Thankfully I'm pleased to report results in line with or better than our guidance across every financial measure on a consolidated basis revenues increased 4.3% to $401.1 million for the second quarter of this fiscal year from $384.6 million for the same period last fiscal year. This helped drive an increase in GAAP net income of 17.4% to $20 million or 62 cents per diluted share for the second quarter of fiscal year, 2020 from $17 million or 53% per diluted share for the prior fiscal year quarter.

On a non-GAAP basis, adjusting for certain charges and credits and loss from extinguishment of debt earnings per diluted share were 62 cents for the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, compared to 57 cents for the same period last fiscal year.

Adjusted EBITDA was $54 million or 13.5% of total revenue for the second quarter of fiscal year, 2020, compared to $50.4 million or 13.1% of total revenue for the same period last fiscal year.

Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures are available on our second quarter earnings press release that was issued this morning.

Looking at our retail segment in more detail total revenues for the second quarter increased 3.3% to 300 and $106.3 million for the same quarter last fiscal year.

Regarding the ongoing trade negotiations in tariffs our merchandising team in partnership with our top vendors has made substantial progress since last year in diversifying our production outside China and other affected countries for good covered by tariffs the higher costs have generally been split between the parties, thereby limiting the retail increases needed to offset the tariff.

Additional tariffs impacting consumer goods, including electronics computers, and accessories were announced in early August .

While postponed we believe this latest round of tariffs could have an impact on prices and demand for these products. If they were to go into effect.

Retail us unit expense was $88.1 million, an increase of approximately $5.1 million from the same quarter in the prior fiscal year, while retail M&A expense as a percentage of the revenue Deleveraged 80 basis points to 28.8% primarily due to increased costs for new stores.

Im pleased to announce that our new state of the yard Houston distribution Center opened in August . This LEED certified facility will increase the capacity and efficiency of our retail operations within our largest market.

Costs will be higher temporarily as we wind down operations from our legacy Houston distribution Center, which we expect to be completed by the fourth quarter.

In addition for fiscal year 2020, we plan to open 14 stores compared to seven stores last fiscal year and only three stores two years ago. We typically start incurring costs associated with new stores approximately six months ahead of opening and there will be additional expenses incurred throughout the fiscal year as we prepare to open these locations.

I also want to mention that during the second quarter, we successfully implemented our new ERP system and we are progressing towards a successful conversion of our new loan management system, which we expect to be completed during the third quarter.

As you can see we are making a number of near term investments to support our meaningful and long term growth plan.

This includes higher expenses associated with new distribution centers as well as investments in ESG in a to support accelerating new store growth and our plan to Florida expansion.

While these higher costs will temporarily impact our overall level of profitability. They are necessary investments as we continue to expand our retail footprint and grow sales.

Turning to the credit segment finance charges and other revenues were second quarter record of $94.8 million up 7.5% from the same period last fiscal year.

The increase versus the second quarter of fiscal year 2019 was primarily due to a 60 basis point increase in the portfolio yield to 21.9% as well as higher retrospective insurance income compared to the prior fiscal year period.

Second quarter net annualized charge offs as a percent of the average outstanding balance were 13%, an 80 basis point improvement over the prior fiscal year period.

Provision for bad debts in the credit segment was $49.8 million for the second quarter of fiscal year 2020.

A decrease of approximately $2.8 million from the same period last fiscal year, primarily due to strong portfolio performance.

The allowance for bad debts, and uncollectible interest as a percent of the total portfolio was 13.3% at July 31, 2019, which was down approximately 20 basis points from the prior fiscal year period.

As DNA expense in the credit segment for the second quarter increased 4.4% versus the same quarter last fiscal year and on an annualized basis as a percentage of the average customer portfolio balance was 10.2% compared to 10.1%.

The increase in credit ESG today, primarily reflects continued investments we are making in our recovery efforts and an increase in operational expenses to support our growth.

Interest expense for the second quarter was $14.4 million, which declined 7.5% from the same period last fiscal year as a result of reductions in our weighted average cost of funds.

For the second quarter annualized interest expense as a percentage of the average portfolio balance was 3.7% compared to 4.2% for the same period last fiscal year.

Average net debt as a percentage of the average portfolio balance was approximately 60% to 61% for the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, compared to 62% for the prior fiscal year period.

ABS notes currently outstanding include all classes of our 2019, a and 2018, a note and a b and C causes of our 2017 B note. We currently expect to complete one additional ABS transaction during the current fiscal year.

I am very pleased with the improvements we continue to make in our capital position, we expect to fund our anticipated growth through internally generated funds and from our existing capital sources.

As norm mentioned through August 29, we have repurchased a total of 3.1 million shares at an average price of $18.79 per share, which is approximately 6% below our book value as of April Thirtyth 2019.

The total amount repurchased through August 29th under our $75 million share repurchase plan was $57.9 million or 9.6% of our outstanding shares.

During the second quarter, we repurchased $34.3 million of our common stock and funded the growth of our customer receivables portfolio, while our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio declined.

Before opening the call up for questions I want to note that we continue to expect our annual effective tax rate to be between 25% and 27% for the current fiscal year.

With this overview normally and I are happy to take your questions. Operator, Please open the call up to questions.

Thank you at this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad.

A confirmation tomlin indicate your line is in the question queue. You May Press Star two if you would like to move your questions on the queue for participants using speaker equipment.

And may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys.

Our first question comes from the line of John <unk> with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you good morning, Greg solutions on a good quarter.

Thank you John John Warner.

Wondering if we could start we.

Florida and.

Maybe talk a little bit about how you expect the expenses to ramp there and importantly, the interest rate.

Cap or regulatory environment within that state.

Sure John I'll start off with.

The reason, we went to Florida, and then I'll hand, it to to Lee and George talk about the SGN a side.

Florida, obviously is contiguous to our existing markets. So makes a lot of sense for us very attractive from a rate standpoint, we are able to charge. It is it will be a state licensed product and we'll be able to charge.

And now the 29.99%.

Our and so and from a demographic standpoint as you heard in our comments in other 21 million people in Florida.

A lot of similarities to the state of Texas from a demographic standpoint, and we're very bullish about what it what it bodes from a future sales standpoint, and from an operational standpoint, John expenses as we as we mentioned we have signed a lease for the distribution center in Central Florida gives us at core location for our logistics build out will start incurring expenses in the fourth quarter. As we go we'll start opening showrooms in the second half of next year and ramp that up.

Again, obviously as you know when we go into new market, we will have some marketing expenses as we enter there and make sure we get our brand name outside.

As we talked about norm, so call very excited about Florida, the long term potential.

So from that standpoint, its certainly worth the investment a long term play for us the 40 plus stores opened in the state.

Great and then.

Maybe we could talk again about same store sales.

Particularly interested in non Harvey and you've got to assume some.

But building benefit from new stores, you opened over a year ago offset by some cannibalization because all the stores have been an existing markets could you just talk about the plus and the minus there and maybe how that's influencing numbers now on.

How that might change going forward towards the Florida plant.

Yes, John so yes.

Currently because we didn't open that many stores last year seven there is not many in the comp base. It will be the fourth quarter and ended the first quarter of next year. When we when we will start to see that benefit.

As you well know.

Historically, when the company opened new stores, we would open them it.

At $8 million to $10 million in revenue in the first year, we're now averaging between six and $7 million in revenue because of the tightened underwriting.

And those stores by the way are still profitable and payback in the first year, even at those reduce initial revenue levels, but they will give us tailwinds in future years, we believe ultimately the stores will still mature to that 10 million dollar on average from a revenue standpoint, and we should see tailwinds from a three to five year timeframe.

From a comp standpoint that.

Yes, it should bode very well for us in the next year certainly the back half of next year as we're lapping the significant number of stores. We've added this year and John just a follow up as you mentioned ultimately there will be cannibalization in some of our existing markets as we open those showrooms.

An existing states, but obviously, we strongly believe and we've seen that we grow our overall total sales in the market significantly. So it makes sense as they become a bigger piece of cannibalization you will look at breaking it out for you as we used to do in the past.

But is there a little bit of a drag in say the Q2 numbers and the Q3 expectations from a cannibalization currently.

Very little John Yes, Okay.

All right and my last question.

We'll have many more but I'll get back in queue.

Huge increase in applications processed in Q2 significant turn there.

Could you talk about.

What's online what what's maybe a byproduct of comparing more to the first quarter, where I know you had some challenges with the new online.

Process, what kind of walk through the pieces of that.

Applications I know, you're seeing an increase in applications offline. If you will in the existing non Harvey markets any any way you can slice that thank you.

Thanks, John Yes, we will.

All we really communicated in the past is our online applications are greater and are growing at a faster pace than our retail applications. As you know thats why we changed our platform. We went through a bit of a bumpy road in the first quarter as we transition to the new E Commerce platform, but.

As we shared at the end of the first quarter were were seeing the impact of that new platform. The effectiveness of the platform and we believe that's reflected not only in ecommerce sales that.

That Lee touched on for the quarter, where we were 20% higher in ecommerce sales for the quarter for what we did the entire prior year. We believe we're still in the very early innings of what what we can deliver from an omni channel standpoint, as the retailers. So very bullish about what the future bodes from both an application, which ultimately translates to sales standpoint.

Thank you good luck.

Thanks, John .

Our next question comes from the line of Brad Thomas with Keybanc Capital markets. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. Thank you good morning, normally and George and.

Nice results here.

Thanks, Thanks, Brett.

I guess guys I wanted to zoom in first maybe on the on the retail gross margin and I was hoping you could talk a little bit about some of the puts and takes as we think about modeling it over the next couple of quarters.

Particularly as you think about tariff starting to roll and.

Yes, Brad Paisley Hi, good morning.

So from a.

From a gross retail gross margin I think what we tried to stress on the calls but continue to reiterate is that look we want to make sure that were in that 40, plus retail gross margin range and feel very comfortable that we can keep it there.

Obviously, its our fifth consecutive quarter at or above that rate. So we are excited about obviously down year over year.

But we did talk about from the standpoint that we did have some of those foreign buyers. Some of the tariffs that came in and we bought pre those tariff implementation. So we got a onetime benefit from that so I would just point you back to we feel very comfortable that 40% retail gross margin piece and that sort of what we guided towards the next quarter in that in that standpoint, so from that as we look at it that's where we really would continue to point you towards and we have some downward pressure.

Because of the logistics side of the house with the new Houston DC, the opening of the Florida DC. Both of those will we will incur some cost here as we get those the old legacy Houston, DC closed and the new Florida, DC opened but even with those those gives and takes we still expect to be at or above that 40% margin level.

Okay, that's great.

And as we think about the new DC and the store openings, you'll be ramping in for next year I guess as we calibrate our models because it real helpful kind of one quarter out, giving us some line items, but as we start to think about the fourth quarter and some of these costs coming in any more quantification or color you could share with us on how to think about.

Seen and some of the ramp in expenses, Yes, Hey, Brad. This is George I would tell you that as we continue to open up.

Increasing new stores year over year. So this year were out.

Planning to open 14 stores compared to seven last year, and we've talked about opening even more stores next year, we will continue to see some de leveraging from an M&A standpoint.

But as we get to that consistent run rate basis. You then start to see leveraging from an SGR.

Okay. Okay.

And if I could squeeze one more in here I just on the on the comments around the lease to own.

That had been growing pretty nicely the last few quarters and to kind of a step back sequentially. I mean, if you then.

Inline in Twoq with where it was as a percentage of sales in one Q.

Looks like comps would have been about two points better.

I guess could you help us think about.

Maybe how much of a headwind that was for you here into Q is with 2% be a reasonable estimate.

I think that's that's reasonable.

Brad and but what I would say is and as we shared in the prepared comments.

It was really driven predominantly by.

By our partner and some things they did not specific to cons, but overall from a from an underwriting standpoint, having said that hasnt shaken what our belief is long term on.

On the lease to own opportunity that we have remember in the past 12 months.

We had 1.2 million applications submitted.

From a.

Khan standpoint, both in house and online.

And.

Bob Proximately 700000 were approved which means about 500000, our decline so that speaks to the magnitude of the opportunity that exists for us to capture and get to that why we remain very bullish on our ability ultimately to get to that 10% balances sale not at the expense of other elements of financing book by growing the overall size of the pie.

Great. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from the line of Rick Nelson with Stephens. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks, Good morning, guys.

Hi, good morning, Rick.

Okay.

Spread between Herb again, non RV market.

Same store the difference 10% to 11%.

You are guiding to at 6%.

Hi to spread at the mid point.

As for Threeq, two do you think that spread goes away in the fourth quarter.

Timing.

Thanks, Eric.

Yeah, we think it will be negligible in the fourth quarter, Rick we don't anticipate breaking out Harvey a non Harvey in the fourth quarter.

Okay carriage.

Eric accelerating new store growth that you referenced is that number for you there.

Is that percentage.

Our growth rate.

The number of units number of units number of units.

Patrick and.

Yeah.

All right can you discount.

Economics there.

Last Friday, and it's interesting to you.

Referred to these stores showrooms to to see.

Over the long haul online sales.

Accounting for a substantial.

Proportion of your volume well, Rick So first of all thanks for the call out on showrooms, we're excited about.

The look and feel of our of our new showrooms than existing showrooms and I know you'll be down here to see what our new showroom, so but regarding the E. Commerce, obviously very pleased to see that we were actually our ecommerce revenues, 20% all of last years.

Certainly believe it should meet should be a material percentage of sales, but we really do believe thats going to be incremental sales on top of there'll be some cannibalization, but mostly new customers able to come on in.

As you referenced we certainly are very careful from an underwriting perspective is why we took so long to actually offer a true omni channel online E Commerce experience.

What would John Davis and team, we certainly have the sophistication to do the proper underwriting and not take any excess of losses. So we are excited about that going forward and just as you've seen Rick on our new stores.

You know our SPD is continue to run their lower than the portfolio average.

From an underwriting standpoint online, we're well aware of the risk associated with the online consumer versus the retail in person consumers. So we're taking appropriate steps from an underwriting standpoint to ensure that as we stated any business that we underwrite always with the risk of mindset of maintaining that thousand basis points of credit spreads.

Parents and.

The Florida expansion also interesting facts.

How many stores you could open across the country.

I know that.

That.

In the past there's been numbers thrown out there.

Prefer at this point not to it it is materially by by several factors bigger than what our store base is now.

Out of the 50 states when you look at attractiveness from a from a high.

Our being in the high Twentys NPR.

There's there's 35 plus states that give us that opportunity right off the bat.

So.

When you only in 14 of them and Florida is obviously, one California is one and a number of other high population states give us that opportunity. In addition to where we're at now so we believe we can grow at that 8% to 10% topline revenue growth for many many years.

From a growth standpoint.

Because our customer our core customer demographic is in every city every town every state in the United States. It represents about 20% of the U.S population. So.

The potential future growth is enormous for the company.

Slide 16 in your deck.

Okay cut corners shareholder population actually grow.

In a downturn.

That has been historically a number of the members of the senior leadership team, including myself and and Lee and J.D. have operated in the sub prime for a number of years, we've been in it in.

In various economic cycles, and downturns and although there is.

Some impact when there is a recession there was also.

Significant opportunity that presents itself as well as more customers enter into our core our core focus or demographics. So.

No we don't from a recessionary standpoint, or a cycle standpoint, we are aware of that but it gives us as much opportunities as it does.

The challenge is that would be presented in a down cycle.

Okay. Thanks for that color and good luck.

Thanks Rex.

Our next question comes from the line of Kyle Joseph with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, guys. Most of my questions have been asked just just to follow up on credit and I can wait for the queue for this but just to get a sense.

The the charge off decline year over year is that is that primarily from the better recoveries or are you also.

Basically looking for some color on frequency versus severity in terms of losses.

Yes, certainly recoveries had an impact we've been excited about the ramp up and continued pace of our recovery effort and so that's a material piece of the cow.

And then from a from a frequency perspective, I know you guys talked about first payment defaults management at new stores that can you give us any sort of sense of what trends you're seeing there.

Continue to be very pleased with.

60 day, plus delinquencies answer Stds, which as you know Kyle are the two leading indicators of what the quality and the strength of the portfolio is so well this year and going forward, we're not going to see the significant increases we saw in past years, because we're close to that thousand basis points spread and as we hit that and we achieved that will take associated incremental risk to maintain a thousand basis points, but also give us retail opportunity. So the target here going forward. So you shouldn't see.

Significant fluctuations there because we're within that range that we're targeting spread wise.

That's it from me thanks, very much for answering my questions.

Thanks.

Our next question comes from the line of Bill Ryan with Compass point. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks, and good morning.

Couple of questions first.

Theres, obviously been a reduction in market interest rates and you talked about doing one more securitization this year and you're obviously going to be rolling some of the prior deals do you see an opportunity with a reduction in market rates that the funding costs might actually come down a little bit further as we progress through the next few quarters.

And secondly, going back to the disparity between the implementation of the tech tariffs and the pricing changes that you implemented.

Because obviously you had an outsized retail gross margin in Q4 last year when it kind of get some anticipate what you anticipate of what Q4.

The retail gross margin might look like thanks, Hey, Bill This is George.

With respect to your first question around interest rates, our ABL is tied to LIBOR rates. So certainly as market rates come down it is possible that that we would see reductions in our interest rate as a result.

And then with respect to the second question on on tariffs I mean, we continue to guide and feel comfortable with our 40 basis, 40%.

Retail gross margin throughout the back half of the year now you are right bill that the fourth quarter was elevated so.

You know, it's typically our highest quarter from a from a margin standpoint, our one of our higher higher quarters. So.

But we.

We don't expect to probably be at that level, we haven't guided for quarter, four yet, but it won't be at that elevated level because of some of the tariff and some other thing onetime things that occurred in that fourth quarter, but still above that 40% for sir.

Okay. One last thing in terms of the lease to own obviously.

Some competitors introduced a lease on product earlier. This year just want to kind of get an idea are you seeing any incremental competition.

On the lease to home product as well in your stores.

On a very limited basis, Bill I mean.

Our expectation is ultimately.

Probably every retailer will have some lease to own product every bricks and mortar retailer remember our customer in the ones we're attracting.

At very different than what the prime customer is targeting and attracting which is why out of the 1.2 million applications, we get 500000.

We decline as I mentioned earlier, so the pool, we have from an opportunity to grow our lease to own and to capture that 10% is within our walls right now even if we lose some small piece of that and remember our financing is two and a half to three times.

Better or.

Less expensive for a customer if they can qualify.

For our current financing versus having to move to a lease to own option.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Thanks Bill.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session and I would like to turn the call back to norm Miller for closing remarks.

Thanks, I just want to thank first of all our almost 5000 associates across our stores in our distribution centers in our call centers for their hard work each and every day and for their contributions to our success and I also want to thank the folks at as.

That are interested in the company and we look forward to sharing our third quarter results with you later this year have a great day.

This concludes today's conference you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.