Share count
19Mpeak FY2021
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ATLCZ, Atlanticus Holdings Corp
Consumer Finance financial
Atlanticus is a financial technology company powering more inclusive financial solutions for Everyday Americans.
We leverage data, analytics, and innovative technology to unlock access to financial solutions for the millions of Americans who would otherwise be underserved.
We provide technology and other support services to lenders who offer an array of financial products and services to consumers.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$2.0B
+50.1% YoY · 28% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $2.3B 5-yr avg $1.2B
Revenue $72M +37.1% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income $45M yr-ago $31M
Net margin 62.0% yr-ago 59.3%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Net interest margin, loan losses, and book value. A lender is read on the quality of its balance sheet, not an earnings multiple, and the worst year of credit losses matters more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on equity has run high across the record (median 42%, above 12% in 8 of 9 years). A bank that earns above its cost of equity through the cycle compounds book value; whether this one did it by underwriting discipline or by reaching for risk is what the 10-K, and the worst years in the record, will tell you.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2017–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||||||
| $93M | $167M | $455M | $563M | $748M | $1.0B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $2.0B | $2.3B | RevenueRevenue |
| $87M | $124M | $210M | — | — | — | — | — | — | $339M | Net interest incomeNet int. |
| $6M | $42M | $112M | $3M | $4M | $809K | $630K | $1M | $39K | ($199K) | Noninterest incomeFee inc. |
| ($41M) | $8M | $26M | $94M | $178M | $136M | $103M | $111M | $122M | $135M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | — | 17% | 18% | 19% | 10% | 21% | 20% | 24% | 24% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||||||||
| -9.6% | 1.3% | 2.8% | 7.8% | 9.2% | 5.7% | 3.8% | 3.4% | 1.6% | 1.8% | Return on assetsROA |
| — | — | 2919% | 122% | 62% | 42% | 26% | 23% | 20% | 21% | Return on equityROE |
| — | — | n/m | 122% | 62% | 42% | 26% | 23% | 20% | 21% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| — | — | 2919% | 122% | 62% | 42% | 26% | 23% | 21% | 22% | Return on tangible equityROTCE |
| 93% | 55% | 39% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Efficiency ratioEffic. |
| Balance sheet | ||||||||||
| $426M | $583M | $936M | $1.2B | $1.9B | $2.4B | $2.7B | $3.3B | $7.6B | $7.5B | Total assetsAssets |
| ($36M) | ($22M) | $906K | $77M | $288M | $326M | $395M | $493M | $609M | $648M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | ||||||||||
| 13.9M | 14.0M | 15.3M | 20.1M | 20.9M | 19.4M | 18.9M | 18.8M | 19.2M | 19.0M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $-2.93 | $0.56 | $1.73 | $4.68 | $8.51 | $7.00 | $5.45 | $5.92 | $6.37 | $7.10 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-2.58 | $-1.56 | $0.06 | $3.84 | $13.78 | $16.85 | $20.90 | $26.22 | $31.74 | $34.12 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| $-2.58 | $-1.56 | $0.06 | $3.84 | $13.78 | $16.85 | $20.90 | $26.22 | $30.17 | $32.67 | Tangible book / shareTBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 8-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +40.6%/yr | +29.6%/yr |
| EPS | — | +6.4%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +9.6%/yr (3-yr) | +9.6%/yr (3-yr) |
| Book value / share | — | +52.5%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2017–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$2.0Blow FY2017
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- Return on equity 20%Very high (≥17%)Net income $122M ÷ equity $609MIndustry peers: median 5%
What this means
The bank's north star, what it earns on shareholders' capital. Cost of equity is roughly 10%, so a return durably above that builds value and below it destroys it. One year is noisy; the durability across a full credit cycle is what counts.
- Very high (≥18%)Net income ÷ (equity − goodwill $0 − intangibles $30M)Industry peers: median 2%
What this means
The cleaner return, stripping out the goodwill paid for past acquisitions. This is the number a buyer of the whole bank actually earns on the hard capital.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 39%
What this means
Noninterest expense or revenue missing.
Is it sound?
- Capital (equity / assets) 8.0%ModestEquity $609M ÷ assets $7.6B
What this means
A plain-English leverage read: how much of the balance sheet is the owners' own money. This is a rough proxy; the regulatory figure is the CET1 ratio, which is risk-weighted and reported in the filing. The point is the same, how much loss the bank can absorb before depositors are at risk.
- Funding —Not enough data
What this means
Deposits or total assets missing.
- Credit cost (provision / NII) 37%ElevatedProvision for credit losses $78M ÷ net interest income $210M
What this means
What the bank set aside this year against loans going bad, as a share of its lending income. This swings hard with the cycle, low in good years and spiking in recessions, so read it across the record, not in one year. Disciplined underwriting shows up as low, stable provisions through a downturn.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor
The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Debt maturity
the debt note, SEC EDGAR →Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.
Bars scaled to the largest single year.
Due in the next 12 months$688Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year
Within two years$2.7Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions
Biggest single year$2.0Bin 2027the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest
Due over the next five years$5.8Bthe near slice; the balance sheet carries $5.8B of debt in all
Against what the business has and earns
Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$651M
One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$637M
Together, against $688M due next year1.9×
Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $1.3B against the $688M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 1.9 times it.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | David G. Hanna | $1.7M | $1.7M | $178M |
| 2021 | Jeffrey A. Howard | $1.7M | $18.1M | $178M |
| 2022 | David G. Hanna | $2.2M | $398k | $136M |
| 2023 | David G. Hanna | $2.0M | $2.6M | $103M |
| 2024 | David G. Hanna | $1.8M | $2.9M | $111M |
| 2025 | David G. Hanna | $2.1M | $2.6M | $122M |
| 2025 | Jeffrey A. Howard | $2.1M | $2.6M | $122M |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership51%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$4M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 1% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Acquisitions, Contingencies as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Consumer Finance
The same industry, side by side on the bank lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | ROE | ROTCE | Efficiency | NII / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BKKTBakkt Inc. | $2.3B | -146% | -252% | — | 0.5% |
| GDOTGreen DOT Corp | $2.0B | 5% | 13% | — | -0.1% |
| ATLCZAtlanticus Holdings Corp | $2.0B | 42% | 42% | 55% | 21.3% |
| TREELendingTree Inc. | $1.1B | 5% | — | — | -2.2% |
| UPSTUpstart | $1.0B | -7% | -8% | — | 0.0% |
| SOFISoFi Technologies | $3.6B | -6% | -9% | 85% | 3.6% |
| SLMSLM Corporation | $2.0B | 30% | 31% | 33% | 5.0% |
| OMFOneMain Holdings Inc. | $4.9B | 23% | 48% | 39% | 15.3% |
| Group median | — | 5% | 13% | 47% | 2.1% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookA bank is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what Atlanticus Holdings Corp’s record justifies.
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The assumptions
Tangible book / share, delivered43%/yr’20→’25
The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). A bank earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; the premium above that prices each point of durable excess return. A higher cost of equity lowers the justified multiple for a bank.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / tangible book—
Justified by the return—
Normalized return on tangible equity42%
Price / book—
Earnings yield—
P/E (3-yr avg ’23–’25)—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham applied the same standards to financial enterprises (Intelligent Investor ch.14): the 15× multiple cap on averaged earnings, and P/E times price-to-book at most 22.5. The gate marks the bargain-hunter’s floor, not a verdict.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Tangible book $621M on 15M shares, a 42% normalized return on it. The dials set the multiple such a return would justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. It assumes the bank keeps earning that return; a credit cycle, a rate shock or a bad acquisition changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Atlanticus Holdings Corp (ATLCZ), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/ATLCZ, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← ATLCP its page in the Manual ATMU →
Industry order: ← ATLCP the Consumer Finance chapter CACC →