There is plenty of debt on the market at present, a trend working for any business, such as Collection House , chasing unpaid loans.The Brisbane-based mercantile house yielded a small rise in profit from reasonable growth in revenues in the December 2008 half. Revenue increased 11 per cent to $53 million. After rounding, profit tacked sideways rather than increased at $3.4 million. Releasing some provisions for state taxes added $900,000 to the profit.EBITDA increased 14 per cent to $25 million, keeping lenders satisfied and sufficient for unnamed banks to extend term loans to 2011.Lenders to Collection House can count on other banks, and maybe themselves, to give the company growth options.Troubled times mean more loans going unpaid and creating work for somebody.And with more debt needing someone to chase it, banks looking to sell debt to Collection House and others are having to wear lower prices."There is plenty of debt for sale," Tony Aveling, chief executive of Collection House said yesterday."Prices are coming down. Banks are not wanting to work the debt themselves, they want to be cutting costs not increasing them, so there's plenty of outsourcing".Aveling said some banks were resisting, or at least surprised by, the lower price point but most were realistic.Outsourced, or contingent, collections is one area of the business going pretty well, with rising productivity measures. The cost trends are much weaker in the business of chasing debt Collection House owns.The firm was investing less in purchase debt, though this might change.Debt purchases fell by half to $18 million over the half year.Cash flow will fund most future purchases. Collection House may also use the little spare capacity in its bank facility, already drawn to $70 million out of $75 million.The debt to equity ratio increased to 83 per cent at December 2008, up from 76 per cent a year ago and a low of 47 per cent.There are two themes to the recent repositioning of Collection House, addressing, partly, the operational weakness limiting returns and inflating costs, and also the sale of side activities. The last of that period may have passed through this set of accounts with the correction of accrual accounting for staff costs (accounted on a cash basis for some reason in the past).Collection House will pay out 59 per cent of profit for the period as a dividend of 2.3 cents per share, up 0.3 cents.Might the dividend flow improve?Said Aveling, "It's a cash-flow generating business. The dividend-generating side will depend on your level of profit. If it makes profits it'll pay dividends."