One beneficiary of improved operations at Credit Corp, a lead mercantile agency, are the lenders from whom the firm buys troubled portfolios.Credit Corp recycled what the chief executive described as "excess returns" by paying more for debt ledgers."We have reinvested this improvement into our valued client relationships by increasing the prices paid" for ledgers, CEO Thomas Beregi wrote in the annual report."Our objective is to maximise purchasing volume at our required rate of return, rather than looking for one-off opportunities to earn excess returns," he wrote.The company aims to collect 2.3 times the purchase price of a ledger over six years.Credit Corp has improved the productivity of its debt collection practices in part by persuading more debtors to enter into payment arrangements, and by lifting returns from the oldest ledgers.