The Latitude Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: LFS) share price faces scrutiny after the ASX share announced its HY23 result.
Latitude describes itself as a leading instalments and lending business, with 2.8 million customer accounts, 5,500 merchant partners in Australia and New Zealand, and 5,800 accredited brokers.
HY23 result
Here are some of the highlights from the six months to 30 June 2023:
- Origination (lending) volume down 3% year on year to $3.6 billion
- Gross receivables of $6.2 billion, which was flat year on year
- Interest income yield of 15%, up around 1% year on year
- Net interest margin (NIM) of 9.8%, contracting 147 basis points (1.47%) year on year
- Net charge-offs of 3.31%, up 94 basis points year on year
- ‘Risk adjusted’ income of $223 million, down 23%
- Cash operating expenses down 1% to $173 million
- Cash net profit after tax (NPAT) down $86 million to $7 million
- Statutory loss of $126.9 million, down from a $56.4 million profit
Latitude explained that the cyber incident impacted lending, it delayed pricing actions and delayed collections. The company booked $76 million of pre-tax costs and provisions relating to the March cyber incident.
Other highlights
During the period, the company completed the sale of Hallmark Insurance business to St Andrew’s, in line with its strategy of simplifying the business and focusing on its core sales finance and lending arms, while releasing approximately $99 million of capital for use by Latitude.
The company also said that it’s working co-operatively with regulators as they review Latitude’s information handling practices and with insurers on claims which may mitigate “some or all” of the $76 million of pre-tax costs and provisions arising from the cyber incident. Getting a lot of that money back would be good for the Latitude share price.
Management commentary
Latitude Managing Director and CEO Bob Belan said:
While the first six months of 2023 have been amongst the most challenging in Latitude’s history. That said, I am proud of the extraordinary resilience and response of my colleagues and pleased with the strength of the rebound we are now beginning to see.
We have and will continue to work diligently to continuously review and enhance the security of our systems and importantly, accelerate the delivery of our refreshed strategy focused on improving the experience for our customers and elevating the financial performance in our core Pay and Money divisions.
As we continue to simplify our operations, we expect to generate further operating efficiencies, creating capacity to incrementally invest in our capabilities and high yielding growth opportunities.
Outlook for the Latitude share price
The business has confirmed its guidance for full year cash net profit of between $15 million and $25 million. As a reminder, it made $7 million of cash net profit in this result, so it’s not really expecting things to get much better compared to FY22.
It has fallen over 50% since 2021. Is this shorter-term dip or the new reality for lenders like Latitude? It’s hard to say.
There are many other ASX dividend shares I’d rather buy for stability.
