Collections & Credit Risk articles from August 2007

Collections & Credit Risk archives from August 2007

CCR's Industry Rankings - Bigger and Better.(Collections & Credit Risk)
August 1, 2007... You can be pardoned if, when you see our Industry Rankings cover story, you ask yourself, "Didn't Collections & Credit Risk just do industry rankings a few months ago?" Yes; here's the explanation. We resurrected our practice of...

CCR Rankings Participants Indicate They Are Bullish on 2007 Growth.
August 1, 2007... Collection agencies in Collection & Credit Risk's 2007 Industry Rankings saw their 2006 revenues rise 5.7% over 2005 and forecast a further improvement of 5.5% this year. Debt buyers that provided forecasts project a 39.7% increase in this...

Survey: ACA Members Landed $25 Billion in New Business in 2006, Mostly Healthcare.
August 1, 2007... ACA International members who took part in the "Top Collection Markets Survey" for 2006 said they garnered $25.6 billion in new business last year. Hospital and healthcare ac-counts provided the largest bulk of all new business to survey...

Shopping for Deals: Diving for dollars in the commercial debt market calls for tenacity and inside knowledge of debtors' industries.
August 1, 2007... Add up the nation's troubled and charged-off business loans and you get a number estimated to be as high as $100 billion. Where there's that much charged-off debt, it's likely a market for it will develop. Commercial debt is no exception to...

Building a Better Yardstick: Collection managers are turning to new measurements to gauge agent effectiveness - and help their bottom lines.
August 1, 2007... Think such information as the number of calls placed per hour, contacts made in a day, average length of each call or dollars collected are true measurements of how effectively an agent is performing? Think again. These traditional...

Encouraging Borrowers to Restructure Their Auto Loans.
August 1, 2007... Knoxville TVA Employees Credit Union provides incentives to its collection agents to find ways for delinquent members to restructure their loans and lower their monthly payments. The credit union has made about $438 million in loans,...

2007 Industry Rankings: As a group, the top agencies, debt buyers and collection law firms continued to exhibit healthy grow last year. Read about the progress and aspirations of the top three ranked players in each category.
August 1, 2007... THE COLLECTORS NCO: NOW PRIVATE, SEEKING ACQUISITIONS NCO Group Inc., Horsham, Pa., ranks No. 1 among collection agencies with $1.19 billion in 2006 revenues, up 13% from 2005 revenues of $1.05 billion. In spite of the growth, the...

Top Collection Agencies.(Statistical table)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... 2006 Revenue Number of Rank COMPANIES (in thousands) Collectors 1 NCO Financial Systems Inc. $1,190,097 10,892 2 Outsourcing Solutions Inc. 442,000 3,587 3 Intrum...

Top Debt Buyers.(Table)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... 2006 Revenue Rank COMPANIES (in thousands) 1 Sherman Financial Group $1,250,000 2 Unifund 375,000 3 Asset Acceptance Capital Corp. 344,200...

Top Law Firms.
August 1, 2007... 2006 Revenue Rank COMPANIES (in thousands) 1 Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Co. L.P.A. $69,639 2 Eskanos & Adler P.C. 31,000 3 Peroutka & Peroutka P.A. 25,000...

Poor Students: Unpaid student loans continue to grow, which means opportunities for collectors. But the market can be tricky; here's what you need to know.
August 1, 2007... The student loan market would seem like easy pickings for a collection agency searching for new business. Billions of dollars in defaulted student loans are floating around the country, after all (see table, below). Former students...

Why Consider Collecting on Student Loans?
August 1, 2007... There's lots to collect * $35 billion - inventory being worked for 35 state loan guarantee agencies * $18.5 billion - estimate of U.S. Department of Education defaulted loan portfolio Average balances are high * Student loan...

Department of Education Collectors.
August 1, 2007... Account Control Technology Bakersfield, Calif. Allied International Credit Corp. Smyma, Ga. Allied Interstate Minneapolis Aman Collection Service Aberdeen, S.D. CBE Group Waterloo, Iowa Collect One Norwell, Mass. ...

Buyers Are Circling Student Loan Agencies.
August 1, 2007... The U.S. Department of Education's (DOE) plan to award new student loan collection contracts in 2009 is already having an impact in the collection industry - one that could prove lucrative for the owners of agencies in line to get DOE work. ...

Which Way to Turn?: Collection outsourcing is increasing around the globe. Deciding which countries to consider depends on your goals and expectations.
August 1, 2007... OSI call center manager Julie Equitz recalls a day when she was managing a collection call center in Jamaica, and the lunch provided to collectors was oxtail soup. It wasn't until after the employees had eaten that someone discovered the soup...

First Data Corp. Looks South.
August 1, 2007... One dramatic example of call center outsourcing recently - payment processing giant First Data Corp. announced in June it would close two U.S.-based call centers and transfer part of the work those centers had performed to the Dominican...

Where are the Deals?: Small and mid-sized agencies and buyers are prime acquisition targets; here's why.
August 1, 2007... To anyone who has been reading about merger and acquisition activity in the accounts receivable management (ARM) industry, it may appear that a company has to be generating $50 million or more in annual revenues to attract the attention of...