Credit Corp chief tastes the medicine

Credit Corp expects its second half profit to be slightly worse than its first half profit, with the full details of the latter disclosed yesterday, three days after a profit warning that slaughtered the debt collection firm's share price.

The share rout appears to have trapped the firm's managing director, Geoff Lucas, in one of the now common margin calls that are exposing the senior management of a bevy of niche financial services entities as unable to raise sufficient funds in a hurry to prevent the forced sale of their shares.

The Financial Review reported that Lucas was forced to sell more than a third of his shares.

The December 2007 profit shows revenue increased by a quarter to $75.5 million and the EBITDA profit increased by eight per cent to $43.8 million.

On the cost side the employee benefits expense increased 68 per cent to $20.3 million, with collection expenses doubling to $6.4 million. This partly reflects the takeover of the debt collection book of Repcol.

The reported EBITDA and net profits for the December half year mean the June 2008 half year profit will be lower, given the forecast annual profit ranges published on Monday.

Credit Corp has cut its forecast for net profit for the June 2008 year to a range between $10 million and $12 million. At the low end this is half the net profit reported in 2007. The company also cut its forecast of its EBITDA profit to a range between $83 million and $87 million.

There are now more details of the operational issues flagged on Monday. Debt purchase operations staff increased 40 per cent for the six months to 412, with support function staff increasing 18 per cent to 72. Overall staff numbers are up 31 per cent.

The interim dividend has been slashed to two cents from 10.25 cents in the corresponding period, but ironically this will increase the dividend yield on the stock, which was trading in the $9 dollar to $10 dollar range in February 2007.

Since peaking at a twelve-month high of $12.99 in August 2007, the stock has recently plunged to a low of 83 cents, recovering slightly to be trading close to a dollar.