Edgar Filing: Atlanticus Holdings Corp

10-K

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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

For the year ended December 31, 2015

ATLANTICUS HOLDINGS CORPORATION

a Georgia Corporation

IRS Employer Identification No. 58-2336689

SEC File Number 0-53717

Five Concourse Parkway, Suite 300

Atlanta, Georgia 30328

(770) 828-2000

Atlanticus’ common stock, no par value per share, is registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Act”).

Atlanticus is not a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act of 1933.

Atlanticus (1) is required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 of the Act, (2) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 of the Act during the preceding 12 months and (3) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.

Atlanticus has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T during the preceding 12 months.

Atlanticus believes that its executive officers, directors and 10% beneficial owners subject to Section 16(a) of the Act complied with all applicable filing requirements during 2015, except as set forth under the caption “Section 16(a) Beneficial Ownership Reporting Compliance” in Atlanticus’ Proxy Statement for the 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders.

Atlanticus is a smaller reporting company and is not a shell company.

The aggregate market value of Atlanticus’ common stock (based upon the closing sales price quoted on the NASDAQ Global Select Market) held by non-affiliates as of June 30, 2015 was $18.3 million. (For this purpose, directors, officers and 10% shareholders have been assumed to be affiliates, and we also have excluded 1,459,233 loaned shares at June 30, 2015.)

As of March 22, 2016, 13,903,827 shares of common stock, no par value, of Atlanticus were outstanding. This excludes 1,459,233 loaned shares to be returned.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of Atlanticus’ Proxy Statement for its 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders are incorporated by reference into Part III.

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Page
Part I
	Item 1.	Business	1
	Item 1A.	Risk Factors	7
	Item 1B.	Unresolved Staff Comments	17
	Item 2.	Properties	17
	Item 3.	Legal Proceedings	17
	Item 4.	Mine Safety Disclosures	17

Part II
	Item 5.	Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities	18
	Item 6.	Selected Financial Data	18
	Item 7.	Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations	19
	Item 7A.	Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk	36
	Item 8.	Financial Statements and Supplementary Data	36
	Item 9.	Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure	36
	Item 9A.	Controls and Procedures	36
	Item 9B.	Other Information	36

Part III
	Item 10.	Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance	37
	Item 11.	Executive Compensation	37
	Item 12.	Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters	37
	Item 13.	Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence	37
	Item 14.	Principal Accountant Fees and Services	37

Part IV
	Item 15.	Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules	38

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In this Report, except as the context suggests otherwise, the words “Company,” “Atlanticus Holdings Corporation,” “Atlanticus,” “we,” “our,” “ours” and “us” refer to Atlanticus Holdings Corporation and its subsidiaries and predecessors. Atlanticus owns Aspire^®, Emerge^®, Fortiva^®, Imagine^®, Salute^®, Tribute^® and other trademarks and service marks in the United States ("U.S.") and the United Kingdom ("U.K.").

Cautionary Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

We make forward-looking statements in this Report and in other materials we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) or otherwise make public. In this Report, both Item 1, "Business," and Item 7, "Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations," contain forward-looking statements. In addition, our senior management might make forward-looking statements to analysts, investors, the media and others. Statements with respect to expected revenue; income; receivables; income ratios; net interest margins; long-term shareholder returns; acquisitions and other growth opportunities; divestitures and discontinuations of businesses; loss exposure and loss provisions; delinquency and charge-off rates; the effects of account actions we may take or have taken; changes in collection programs and practices; changes in the credit quality and fair value of our credit card loans and fees receivable and the fair value of their underlying structured financing facilities; the impact of actions by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”), Federal Reserve Board, Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) and other regulators on both us, banks that issue credit cards and other credit products on our behalf, and merchants that participate in our point-of-sale finance operations; account growth; the performance of investments that we have made; operating expenses; the impact of bankruptcy law changes; marketing plans and expenses; the performance of our Auto Finance segment; our plans in the U.K.; the impact of our credit card receivables on our financial performance; the sufficiency of available capital; the prospect for improvements in the capital and finance markets; future interest costs; sources of funding operations and acquisitions; growth and profitability of our point-of-sale finance operations; our entry into international markets; our ability to raise funds or renew financing facilities; share repurchases or issuances; debt retirement; the results associated with our equity-method investees; our servicing income levels; gains and losses from investments in securities; experimentation with new products and other statements of our plans, beliefs or expectations are forward-looking statements. These and other statements using words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “project,” “target,” “can,” “could,” “may,” “should,” “will,” “would” and similar expressions also are forward-looking statements. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of the particular statement. The forward-looking statements we make are not guarantees of future performance, and we have based these statements on our assumptions and analyses in light of our experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors we believe are appropriate in the circumstances. Forward-looking statements by their nature involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect expected results, and actual future results could differ materially from those described in such statements. Management cautions against putting undue reliance on forward-looking statements or projecting any future results based on such statements or present or historical earnings levels.

Although it is not possible to identify all factors, we continue to face many risks and uncertainties. Among the factors that could cause actual future results to differ materially from our expectations are the risks and uncertainties described under “Risk Factors” set forth in Part I, Item 1A, and the risk factors and other cautionary statements in other documents we file with the SEC, including the following:


•	the availability of adequate financing to support growth;


•	the extent to which federal, state, local and foreign governmental regulation of our various business lines and products limits or prohibits the operation of our businesses;


•	current and future litigation and regulatory proceedings against us;


•	the effect of adverse economic conditions on our revenues, loss rates and cash flows;


•	competition from various sources providing similar financial products, or other alternative sources of credit, to consumers;


•	the adequacy of our allowances for uncollectible loans and fees receivable and estimates of loan losses used within our underwriting and analyses;


•	the possible impairment of assets;


•	our ability to manage costs in line with the expansion or contraction of our various business lines;


•	our relationship with the merchants that participate in our point-of-sale finance operations and the banks that provide certain services that are needed to operate our business lines; and


•	theft and employee errors.

Most of these factors are beyond our ability to predict or control. Any of these factors, or a combination of these factors, could materially affect our future financial condition or results of operations and the ultimate accuracy of our forward-looking statements. There also are other factors that we may not describe (because we currently do not perceive them to be material) that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations.

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We expressly disclaim any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

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PART I



ITEM 1.	BUSINESS

General

A general discussion of our business follows. For additional information about our business, please visit our website at www.Atlanticus.com. Information contained on or available through our website is not incorporated by reference in this Report.

We are a Georgia corporation formed in 2009, as successor to an entity that commenced operations in 1996. We provide various credit and related financial services and products primarily to or associated with the financially underserved consumer credit market. We utilize proprietary analytics and a flexible technology platform to provide various credit and related financial services and products to or associated with the financially underserved consumer credit market. Currently, within our Credit and Other Investments segment, we are applying the experiences gained and infrastructure built from funding over $25 billion in consumer loans over our 19-year operating history to originate a range of consumer loan products through our primary consumer brand, Fortiva. As part of this brand, we market Fortiva Retail Credit, Fortiva Personal Loans and Fortiva Credit Cards through multiple channels, including retail point-of-sale, direct mail solicitation, Internet-based marketing and partnerships with third parties who have relationships with our core customers. In our point-of-sale channel, we partner with retailers and service providers in various industries across the U.S. to offer Fortiva Retail Credit to their customers for the purchase of a variety of goods and services including consumer electronics, furniture, elective medical procedures, educational services and home-improvements. Our flexible technology platform allows us to integrate our paperless process and instant decision-making capabilities with our partners' technology infrastructure. These products are often extended to customers who may have been declined under traditional financing options. We specialize in providing this "second-look" credit service. Additionally, we are able to market our general purpose Fortiva Personal Loans and Fortiva Credit Cards directly to consumers through additional channels, which enables us to reach consumers through a diverse origination platform that includes direct mail, Internet-based marketing and through partnerships. Our technology platform and proprietary analytics enable us to make instant credit decisions utilizing hundreds of inputs, from multiple sources and thereby offer credit to consumers overlooked by traditional providers of credit. By offering a range of products through a multitude of channels, we seek to provide the right type of credit, whenever and wherever the consumer has a need.

Using our infrastructure and technology platform, we also provide loan servicing, including underwriting, marketing, customer service and collections operations for third parties. Also through our Credit and Other Investments segment, we engage in testing and limited investment in consumer finance technology platforms as we seek to capitalize on our expertise and infrastructure.

Beyond these activities within our Credit and Other Investments segment, we continue to collect on portfolios of credit card receivables. These receivables include both receivables we originated through third-party financial institutions and portfolios of receivables we purchased from third-party financial institutions. One of our portfolios of credit card receivables is encumbered by non-recourse structured financing, and for this portfolio our principal remaining economic interest is the servicing compensation we receive as an offset against our servicing costs given that the likely future collections on the portfolio are insufficient to allow for full repayment of the financing.

Lastly, we report within our Credit and Other Investments segment, gains associated with investments previously made in consumer finance technology platforms. These include investments in companies engaged in mobile technologies, marketplace lending and other financial technologies. These investments are carried at the lower of cost or market valuation, and the remaining associated book value as of December 31, 2015 is negligible given variations in the ascribed values since acquisition. Some of these investees have raised, and continue to seek, capital at valuations substantially in excess of our associated book value. However, none of these companies are publicly-traded, there are no pending liquidity events, and ascribing value to these investments at this time would be speculative. Based on the performance and/or marketability of these investments in future periods, we could have material gains for our remaining ownership in these or other investment assets.

The recurring cash flows we receive within our Credit and Other Investments segment principally include those associated with (1) our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance activities, (2) servicing compensation and (3) credit card receivables portfolios that are unencumbered or where we own a portion of the underlying structured financing facility.

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We historically financed most of our credit card receivables through the asset-backed securitization markets. These markets deteriorated significantly in 2008, and the level of “advance rates,” or leverage against credit card receivable assets, in the current asset-backed securitization markets is below pre-2008 levels. We do believe, however, that our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance activities are generating and will continue to generate attractive returns on assets, thereby allowing us to secure debt financing under terms and conditions (including advance rates and pricing) that will allow us to achieve our desired returns on equity, and we continue to pursue growth in this area.

Within our Auto Finance segment, our CAR subsidiary operations principally purchase and/or service loans secured by automobiles from or for, and also provide floor plan financing for, a pre-qualified network of independent automotive dealers and automotive finance companies in the buy-here, pay-here, used car business. We purchase auto loans at a discount and with dealer retentions or holdbacks that provide risk protection. Also within our Auto Finance segment, we are providing certain installment lending products in addition to our traditional loans secured by automobiles.

We closely monitor and manage our expenses based on current product offerings (and in recent years have significantly reduced our overhead infrastructure which was built to accommodate higher account originations and managed receivables levels). As such, we are maintaining our infrastructure and incurring increased overhead and other costs in order to expand point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance solutions and new product offerings that we believe have the potential to grow into our infrastructure and allow for long-term shareholder returns.

Subject to the availability of capital at attractive terms and pricing, we plan to continue to evaluate and pursue a variety of activities, including: (1) the expansion of our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance products; (2) the acquisition of additional financial assets associated with our point-of-sale finance activities as well as the acquisition of receivables portfolios; (3) investments in other assets or businesses that are not necessarily financial services assets or businesses; (4) the repurchase of our convertible senior notes and other debt or our outstanding common stock; and (5) the servicing of receivables and related financial assets for third parties (and in which we have limited or no equity interests) to allow us to leverage our expertise and infrastructure.

Credit and Other Investments Segment. Our Credit and Other Investments segment includes our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance operations, investments in and servicing of our various credit card receivables portfolios and other product development and limited investment in consumer finance technology platforms that generally capitalize on our credit infrastructure.

As previously discussed, through our Fortiva brand (Fortiva Retail Credit, Fortiva Personal Loan, and Fortiva Credit Card) we offer a broad array of products over multiple channels. We leverage proprietary analytics and a robust technology platform to offer loan products to consumers overlooked by other providers of consumer credit. Through Fortiva Retail Credit (our "point-of-sale" operations), we leverage our flexible technology platform to allow retail partners and service providers to offer loan options to their customers who have typically been declined by a primary lender. Our paperless process, instant decision-making and analytical capabilities enable a streamlined customer experience and increased sales for our retail partners. We leverage the same proprietary analytics and infrastructure to offer general purpose loan products directly to consumers through Fortiva Personal Loans and Fortiva Credit Cards (our "direct-to-consumer" products). We reach these consumers through a diverse origination platform that includes direct mail, Internet-based marketing and partnerships.

Our growing portfolio of finance assets are generating and we believe will continue to generate attractive returns on assets, thereby allowing us to secure debt financing under terms and conditions (including advance rates and pricing) that will allow us to achieve our desired returns on equity, and we continue to pursue growth in this area.

Substantially all of the credit card accounts underlying our credit card receivables and portfolios have been closed to new cardholder purchases since 2009. We continue to service our credit card portfolios as they continue to liquidate.

Our credit and other operations are heavily regulated, which may cause us to change how we conduct our operations either in response to regulation or in keeping with our goal of leading the industry in adherence to consumer-friendly practices. We have made several significant changes to our practices over the past several years, and because our account management practices are evolutionary and dynamic, it is possible that we may make further changes to these practices, some of which may produce positive, and others of which may produce adverse, effects on our operating results and financial position. Customers at the lower end of the credit score range intrinsically have higher loss rates than do customers at the higher end of the credit score range. As a result, we price our products to reflect this higher loss rate. As such, our products are subject to greater regulatory scrutiny than the products of prime lenders who are able to price their credit products at much lower levels than we can. See “Consumer and Debtor Protection Laws and Regulations—Credit and Other Investments Segment” and Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”

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Auto Finance Segment. The operations of our Auto Finance segment are principally conducted through our CAR platform, which we acquired in April 2005. CAR primarily purchases and/or services loans secured by automobiles from or for a pre-qualified network of independent automotive dealers and automotive finance companies in the buy-here, pay-here used car business. In 2010, we started offering floor-plan financing to this same group of dealers and finance companies. In 2013 we also started offering certain installment lending products in addition to our traditional loans secured by automobiles. While this product represented less than 15% of CAR's net outstanding receivables as of December 31, 2015, we seek to grow the volume of these loans in the coming quarters.

Through our CAR operations, we generate revenues on purchased loans through interest earned on the face value of the installment agreements combined with the accretion of discounts on loans purchased. We generally earn discount income over the life of the applicable loan. Additionally, we generate revenues from servicing loans on behalf of dealers for a portion of actual collections and by providing back-up servicing for similar quality assets owned by unrelated third parties. We offer a number of other products to our network of buy-here, pay-here dealers (including our floor-plan financing offering), but the majority of our activities are represented by our purchases of auto loans at discounts and our servicing of auto loans for a fee. As of December 31, 2015, our CAR operations served more than 590 dealers in 34 states, the District of Columbia and two U.S. territories. These operations continue to perform well in the current environment (achieving consistent profitability and generating positive cash flows with modest growth).

How Do We Manage the Accounts and Mitigate Our Risks?

Credit and Other Investments Segment. We manage accounts using credit behavioral scoring, credit file data and our proprietary risk evaluation systems. These strategies include the management of transaction authorizations, account renewals, over-limit accounts, credit line modifications and collection programs. We use an adaptive control system to translate our strategies into account management processes. The system enables us to develop and test multiple strategies simultaneously, which allows us to continually refine our account management activities. We have incorporated our proprietary risk scores into the control system, in addition to standard credit behavior scores used widely in the industry, in order to segment, evaluate and manage the accounts. We believe that by combining external credit file data along with historical and current customer activity, we are able to better predict the true risk associated with current and delinquent accounts.

For our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance activities as well as the accounts that are open to purchases, we generally seek to manage credit lines to reward financially underserved customers who are performing well and to mitigate losses from delinquent customer segments. We also employ strategies to reduce otherwise open credit lines for customers demonstrating indicators of increased credit or bankruptcy risk. Data relating to account performance are captured and loaded into our proprietary database for ongoing analysis. We adjust account management strategies as necessary, based on the results of such analyses. Additionally, we use industry-standard fraud detection software to manage the portfolio. We route accounts to manual work queues and suspend charging privileges if the transaction-based fraud models indicate a probability of fraudulent use.

Auto Finance Segment. Our CAR operations manage credit quality and loss mitigation at the dealer portfolio level through the implementation of dealer-specific loss reserve accounts. In most instances, the reserve accounts are cross-collateralized across all accounts presented by any single dealer. CAR monitors performance at the dealer portfolio level (by product type) to adjust pricing or the reserve account or to determine whether to terminate future account purchases from such dealer.

CAR provides dealers with specific purchase guidelines based upon each product offering and delegates approval authority to assist in the monitoring of transactions during the loan acquisition process. Dealers are subject to specific approval criteria, and individual accounts typically are verified for accuracy before, during and after the acquisition process. Dealer portfolios across the business segment are monitored and compared against expected collections and peer dealer performance. Monitoring of dealer pool vintages, delinquencies and loss ratios helps determine past performance and expected future results, which are used to adjust pricing and reserve requirements. Our CAR operations also manage risk through diversifying their receivables among multiple dealers.

How Do We Collect from Our Customers?

Credit and Other Investments Segment. The goal of the collections process is to collect as much of the money that is owed to us in the most cost-effective and customer-friendly manner possible. To this end, we employ the traditional cross-section of letters and telephone calls to encourage payment. We also sometimes offer customers flexibility with respect to the application of payments in order to encourage larger or prompter payments. For instance, in certain cases we may vary from our general payment application priority (i.e., of applying payments first to finance charges, then to fees, and then to principal) by agreeing to apply payments first to principal and then to finance charges and fees or by agreeing to provide payments or

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credits of finance charges and principal to induce or in exchange for an appropriate customer payment. Application of payments in this manner also permits our collectors to assess real time the degree to which a customer’s payments over the life of an account have covered the principal credit extensions to the customer. This allows our collectors to readily identify our potential economic loss associated with the charge off of a particular account (i.e., the excess of principal loaned to the customer over payments received back from the customer throughout the life of the account). Our selection of collection techniques, including, for example, the order in which we apply payments or the provision of payments or credits to induce or in exchange for customer payment, impacts the statistical performance of our portfolios that we reflect under the “Credit and Other Investments Segment” caption within Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”

Our collectors employ various and evolving tools when engaging with our customers, and they routinely test and evaluate new tools in their effort toward improving our collections with a greater degree of efficiency. These tools include programs under which we may reduce or eliminate a customer’s annual percentage rate (“APR”) or waive a certain amount of accrued fees, provided the customer makes a minimum number or amount of payments. In some instances, we may agree to match a customer’s payments, for example, with commensurate payments or reductions of finance charges or waivers of fees. In other situations, we may actually settle with customers and adjust their finance charges and fees, for example, based on their commitment and their follow through on their commitment to pay certain portions of the balances they owe. Our collectors may also decrease a customer’s minimum payment under certain collection programs. Additionally, we employ re-aging techniques as discussed below. We also may occasionally use our marketing group to assist in determining various programs to assist in the collection process. Moreover, we voluntarily participate in the Consumer Credit Counseling Service (“CCCS”) program by waiving a certain percentage of a customer’s debt that is considered our “fair share” under the CCCS program. All of our programs are utilized based on the degree of economic success they achieve.

We regularly monitor and adapt our collection strategies, techniques, technology and training to optimize our efforts to reduce delinquencies and charge offs. We use our operations systems to develop these proprietary collection strategies and techniques, and we analyze the output from these systems to identify the strategies and techniques that we believe are most likely to result in curing a delinquent account in the most cost-effective manner, rather than treating all accounts the same based on the mere passage of time.

As in all aspects of our risk management strategies, we compare the results of each of the above strategies with other collection strategies and devote resources to those strategies that yield the best results. Results are measured based on, among other things, delinquency rates, expected losses and costs to collect. Existing strategies are then adjusted based on these results. We believe that routinely testing, measuring and adjusting collection strategies results in lower bad debt losses and operating expenses.

We discontinue charging interest and fees for most of our credit products when loans and fees receivable become contractually 90 or more days past due and we charge off loans and fees receivable when they become contractually more than 180 days past due or 120 days past due for the point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer installment finance products. For our rent-to-own products, we charge off receivables and impair associated rental merchandise if the customer has not made a payment within the previous 90 days. However, if a customer makes a payment greater than or equal to two minimum payments within a month of the charge-off date, we may reconsider whether charge-off status remains appropriate. For all of our products, we charge off receivables within 30 days of notification and confirmation of a customer’s bankruptcy or death. However, in some cases of death, we do not charge off receivables if there is a surviving, contractually liable individual or an estate large enough to pay the debt in full.

Our determination of whether an account is contractually past due is relevant to our delinquency and charge-off data included under the “Credit and Other Investments Segment” caption within Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” Various factors are relevant in analyzing whether an account is contractually past due (e.g., whether an account has not satisfied its minimum payment due requirement), which for us is the trigger for moving receivables through our various delinquency stages and ultimately to charge-off status. For our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance accounts, we consider an account to be delinquent if the customer has not made any required payment as of the payment due date. Accounts under our rent-to-own program are considered delinquent if the customer has not made full payment of any rental amount by the due date and has not returned the rental equipment to us. For credit card accounts, we consider a cardholder’s receivable to be delinquent if the cardholder has failed to pay a minimum amount, computed as the greater of a stated minimum payment or a fixed percentage of the statement balance (for example 3% to 10% of the outstanding balance in some cases or in other cases 1% of the outstanding balance plus any finance charges and late fees billed in the current cycle).

Additionally, we may re-age customer accounts that meet our qualifications for re-aging. Re-aging involves changing the delinquency status of an account. It is our policy to work cooperatively with customers demonstrating a willingness and

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ability to repay their indebtedness and who satisfy other criteria, but are unable to pay the entire past due amount. Generally, to qualify for re-aging, an account must have been opened for at least nine months and may not be re-aged more than once in a twelve-month period or twice in a five-year period. In addition, an account on a workout program may qualify for one additional re-age in a five-year period. The customer also must have made three consecutive minimum monthly payments or the equivalent cumulative amount in the last three billing cycles. If a re-aged account subsequently experiences payment defaults, it will again become contractually delinquent and will be charged off according to our regular charge-off policy. The practice of re-aging an account may affect delinquencies and charge offs, potentially delaying or reducing such delinquencies and charge offs.

Auto Finance Segment. Accounts that CAR purchases from approved dealers initially are collected by the originating branch or service center location using a combination of traditional collection practices. The collection process includes contacting the customer by phone or mail, skip tracing and using starter interrupt devices to minimize delinquencies. Uncollectible accounts in our CAR operation generally are returned to the dealer under an agreement with the dealer to charge the balance on the account against the dealer’s reserve account. We generally do not repossess autos in our CAR operation as a result of the agreements that we have with the dealers unless there are insufficient dealer reserves to offset the loss or if a dealer instructs us to do so.

Consumer and Debtor Protection Laws and Regulations

Credit and Other Investments Segment. Our U.S. business is regulated directly and indirectly under various federal and state consumer protection, collection and other laws, rules and regulations, including the federal Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (the “CARD Act”), the federal Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the federal Truth In Lending Act (“TILA”), the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") Act, the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the federal Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act. These laws, rules and regulations, among other things, impose disclosure requirements when consumer products are advertised, when an account is opened, when monthly billing statements are sent and when consumer obligations are collected. In addition, various statutes limit the liability of consumers for unauthorized use, prohibit discriminatory practices in consumer transactions, impose limitations on the types of charges that may be assessed and restrict the use of consumer credit reports and other account-related information. Many of our products are designed for customers at the lower end of the credit score range. We price our products to reflect the higher credit risk of our customers. Because of the inherently greater credit risks of these customers and the resulting higher interest and fees, we and our finance partners are subject to significant regulatory scrutiny. If regulators, including the FDIC (which regulates bank lenders), the CFPB and the FTC, object to the terms of these products, or to our marketing or collection practices, we could be required to modify or discontinue certain products or practices.

In the U.K., our operations are subject to U.K. regulations that provide similar consumer protections to those provided under the U.S. regulatory framework. We are licensed and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA"), and we are governed by an extensive legislative and regulatory framework that includes the Consumer Credit Act, the Data Protection Act, Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, Consumer Protection and Unfair Trading regulations, Financial Services (Distance Marketing) Regulations, the Enterprise Act, Money Laundering Regulations, Financial Ombudsman Service and Advertising Standards Authority adjudications. The aforementioned legislation and regulations impose strict rules on the form and content of consumer contracts, the calculation and presentation of annual percentage rates ("APRs"), advertising in all forms, parties who can be contacted and disclosures to consumers, among others. The regulators, such as the FCA, provide guidance on consumer credit practices including collections. The FCA requires a comprehensive licensing process. We are currently undertaking steps to ensure that we continue to remain in compliance with all regulations.

Auto Finance Segment. This segment is regulated directly and indirectly under various federal and state consumer protection and other laws, rules and regulations, including the federal TILA, the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the federal Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act. In addition, various state statutes limit the interest rates and fees that may be charged, limit the types of interest computations (e.g., interest bearing or pre-computed) and refunding processes, prohibit discriminatory practices in extending credit, impose limitations on fees and other ancillary products and restrict the use of consumer credit reports and other account-related information. Many of the states in which this segment operates have various licensing requirements and impose certain financial or other conditions in connection with these licensing requirements.

Privacy and Data Security Laws and Regulations. We are required to manage, use, and store large amounts of personally identifiable information, principally customers’ confidential personal and financial data, in the course of our business. We depend on our IT networks and systems, and those of third parties, to process, store, and transmit that information. In the past, consumer finance companies have been targeted for sophisticated cyber attacks. A security breach

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involving our files and infrastructure could lead to unauthorized disclosure of confidential information. We take numerous measures to ensure the security of our hardware and software systems as well as customer information.

We are subject to various U.S. federal and state laws and regulations designed to protect confidential personal and financial data. For example, we must comply with guidelines under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that require each financial institution to develop, implement and maintain a written, comprehensive information security program containing safeguards that are appropriate to the financial institution’s size and complexity, the nature and scope of the financial institution’s activities and the sensitivity of any customer information at issue. Additionally, various federal banking regulatory agencies, and at least 48 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, have enacted data security regulations and laws requiring customer notification in the event of a security breach.

Competition

Credit and Other Investments Segment. We face substantial competition from other consumer lenders, the intensity of which varies depending upon economic and liquidity cycles. Our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance activities, rent-to-own and credit card businesses compete with national, regional and local bankcard and consumer credit issuers, other general-purpose credit card issuers and retail credit card and merchant credit issuers. Many of these competitors are substantially larger than we are, have significantly greater financial resources than we do and have significantly lower costs of funds than we have.

Auto Finance Segment. Competition within the auto finance sector is widespread and fragmented. Our auto finance operations target automobile dealers that oftentimes are not capable of accessing indirect lending from major financial institutions or captive finance companies. We compete mainly with a handful of national and regional companies focused on this credit segment (e.g., Credit Acceptance Corporation, Westlake Financial, Mid-Atlantic Finance, Santander Auto Finance, Western Funding Inc., and America’s Car-Mart) and a large number of smaller, regional private companies with a narrow geographic focus. Individual dealers with access to capital may also compete in this segment through the purchase of receivables from peer dealers in their markets.

Employees

As of December 31, 2015, we had 319 employees, including 7 part-time employees, most of whom are employed within the U.S., principally in Florida and Georgia. Also included in this employee count are 29 employees in the U.K. We consider our relations with our employees to be good. None of our employees are covered by a collective-bargaining agreement, and we have never experienced any organized work stoppage, strike or labor dispute.

Trademarks, Trade Names and Service Marks

We have registered and continue to register, when appropriate, various trademarks, trade names and service marks used in connection with our businesses and for private-label marketing of certain of our products. We consider these trademarks, trade names and service marks to be readily identifiable with, and valuable to, our business. This Annual Report on Form 10-K also contains trade names and trademarks of other companies that are the property of their respective owners.

Additional Information

We are headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and our principal executive offices are located at Five Concourse Parkway, Suite 300, Atlanta, Georgia 30328. Our headquarters telephone number is (770) 828-2000, and our website is www.Atlanticus.com. We make available free of charge on our website certain of our recent SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements and amendments to those filings as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC.

Certain corporate governance materials, including our Board of Directors committee charters and our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, are posted on our website under the heading “For Investors.” From time to time, the corporate governance materials on our website may be updated as necessary to comply with rules issued by the SEC or NASDAQ, or as desirable to further the continued effective and efficient governance of our company.

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ITEM 1A.	RISK FACTORS

An investment in our common stock or other securities involves a number of risks. You should carefully consider each of the risks described below before deciding to invest in our common stock or other securities. If any of the following risks develops into actual events, our business, financial condition or results of operations could be negatively affected, the market price of our common stock or other securities could decline and you may lose all or part of your investment.

Investors should be particularly cautious regarding investments in our common stock or other securities at the present time in light of the net contraction of our receivables levels over the last few years, uncertainties as to our business model going forward and our inability to achieve consistent earnings from our operations in recent years.

Our Cash Flows and Net Income Are Dependent Upon Payments from Our Loans and Fees Receivable and Other Credit Products

The collectibility of our loans and fees receivable is a function of many factors including the criteria used to select who is issued credit, the pricing of the credit products, the lengths of the relationships, general economic conditions, the rate at which customers repay their accounts or become delinquent, and the rate at which customers borrow funds from us. Deterioration in these factors, which we have experienced over the past few years, adversely impacts our business. In addition, to the extent we have over-estimated collectibility, in all likelihood we have over-estimated our financial performance. Some of these concerns are discussed more fully below.

Our portfolio of receivables is not diversified and originates from customers whose creditworthiness is considered sub-prime. Historically, we have obtained receivables in one of two ways—we have either solicited for the origination of the receivables or purchased pools of receivables from other issuers. In either case, substantially all of our receivables are from financially underserved borrowers—borrowers represented by credit risks that regulators classify as “sub-prime.” Our reliance on sub-prime receivables has negatively impacted and may in the future negatively impact, our performance. Our various past and current losses might have been mitigated had our portfolios consisted of higher-grade receivables in addition to our sub-prime receivables.

We may not successfully evaluate the creditworthiness of our customers and may not price our credit products in a profitable manner. The creditworthiness of our target market generally is considered “sub-prime” based on guidance issued by the agencies that regulate the banking industry. Thus, our customers generally have a higher frequency of delinquencies, higher risks of nonpayment and, ultimately, higher credit losses than consumers who are served by more traditional providers of consumer credit. Some of the consumers included in our target market are consumers who are dependent upon finance companies, consumers with only retail store credit cards and/or lacking general purpose credit cards, consumers who are establishing or expanding their credit, and consumers who may have had a delinquency, a default or, in some instances, a bankruptcy in their credit histories, but who, in our view, have demonstrated creditworthiness. We price our credit products taking into account the perceived risk level of our customers. If our estimates are incorrect, customer default rates will be higher, we will receive less cash from the receivables and the value of our loans and fees receivable will decline, all of which will have a negative impact on performance. It also is unclear whether our current payment rates can be sustained given weakness in the employment outlook and economic environment at large.

Economic slowdowns increase our credit losses. During periods of economic slowdown or recession, we experience an increase in rates of delinquencies and frequency and severity of credit losses. Our actual rates of delinquencies and frequency and severity of credit losses may be comparatively higher during periods of economic slowdown or recession than those experienced by more traditional providers of consumer credit because of our focus on the financially underserved consumer market, which may be disproportionately impacted.

We are subject to foreign economic and exchange risks. Because of our operations in the U.K., we have exposure to fluctuations in the U.K. economy, and such fluctuations recently have been negative. We also have exposure to fluctuations in the relative values of the U.S. dollar and the British pound. Because the British pound has experienced a net decline in value relative to the U.S. dollar since we commenced our most significant operations in the U.K., we have experienced significant transaction and translation losses within our financial statements.

Because a significant portion of our reported income is based on management’s estimates of the future performance of our loans and fees receivable, differences between actual and expected performance of the receivables may cause fluctuations in net income. Significant portions of our reported income (or losses) are based on management’s estimates of cash flows we expect to receive on our loans and fees receivable, particularly for such assets that we report based on fair value. The expected cash flows are based on management’s estimates of interest rates, default rates, payment rates, cardholder

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purchases, servicing costs, and discount rates. These estimates are based on a variety of factors, many of which are not within our control. Substantial differences between actual and expected performance of the receivables will occur and cause fluctuations in our net income. For instance, higher than expected rates of delinquencies and losses could cause our net income to be lower than expected. Similarly, as we have experienced for our credit card receivables portfolios with respect to financing agreements secured by our loans and fees receivable, levels of loss and delinquency can result in our being required to repay our lenders earlier than expected, thereby reducing funds available to us for future growth. Because all of our credit card receivables structured financing facilities are now in amortization status—which for us generally means that the only meaningful cash flows that we are receiving with respect to the credit card receivables that are encumbered by such structured financing facilities are those associated with our contractually specified fee for servicing the receivables—recent payment and default trends have substantially reduced the cash flows that we receive from these receivables.

Due to our relative lack of historical experience with Internet customers, we may not be able to target successfully these customers or evaluate their creditworthiness. We have less historical experience with respect to the credit risk and performance of customers acquired over the Internet. As a result, we may not be able to target and evaluate successfully the creditworthiness of these potential customers should we engage in marketing efforts to acquire these customers. Therefore, we may encounter difficulties managing the expected delinquencies and losses and appropriately pricing our products.

We Are Substantially Dependent Upon Borrowed Funds to Fund the Receivables We Originate or Purchase

We finance our receivables in large part through financing facilities. All of our financing facilities are of finite duration (and ultimately will need to be extended or replaced) and contain financial covenants and other conditions that must be fulfilled in order for funding to be available. Moreover, some of our facilities currently are in amortization stages (and are not allowing for the funding of any new loans) based on their original terms. The cost and availability of equity and borrowed funds is dependent upon our financial performance, the performance of our industry generally and general economic and market conditions, and at times equity and borrowed funds have been both expensive and difficult to obtain.

If additional financing facilities are not available in the future on terms we consider acceptable—an issue that has been made even more acute in the U.S. given recent regulatory changes that have reduced asset-level returns on credit card lending—we will not be able to grow our credit card operations and it will continue to contract in size.

Our Financial Performance Is, in Part, a Function of the Aggregate Amount of Receivables That Are Outstanding

The aggregate amount of outstanding receivables is a function of many factors including purchase rates, payment rates, interest rates, seasonality, general economic conditions, competition from credit card issuers and other sources of consumer financing, access to funding, and the timing, extent and success of our marketing efforts.

Our credit card operation currently is contracting. Despite our recent origination efforts, growth is a product of a combination of factors, many of which are not in our control. Factors include:


•	the availability of funding on favorable terms;


•	the level and success of our marketing efforts;


•	the degree to which we lose business to competitors;


•	the level of usage of our credit products by our customers;


•	the availability of portfolios for purchase on attractive terms;


•	levels of delinquencies and charge offs;


•	the level of costs of soliciting new customers;


•	our ability to employ and train new personnel;


•	our ability to maintain adequate management systems, collection procedures, internal controls and automated systems; and


•	general economic and other factors beyond our control.

Reliance upon relationships with a few large retailers in our point-of-sale finance operations may adversely affect our revenues and operating results from these operations. Our three largest retail partners accounted for over 45.0% of our point-of-sale finance revenue in 2015. Although we are adding new retail partners on a regular basis, it is likely that we will continue to derive a significant portion of this operations’ revenue from a relatively small number of partners in the future. If a significant partner reduces or terminates its relationship with us, these operations’ revenue could decline significantly and our operating results and financial condition could be harmed.

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We Operate in a Heavily Regulated Industry

Changes in bankruptcy, privacy or other consumer protection laws, or to the prevailing interpretation thereof, may expose us to litigation, adversely affect our ability to collect our loans and fees receivable, or otherwise adversely affect our operations. Similarly, regulatory changes could adversely affect our ability or willingness to market credit products and services to our customers. Also, the accounting rules that govern our business are exceedingly complex, difficult to apply and in a state of flux. As a result, how we value our receivables and otherwise account for our business is subject to change depending upon the changes in, and, interpretation of, those rules. Some of these issues are discussed more fully below.

Reviews and enforcement actions by regulatory authorities under banking and consumer protection laws and regulations may result in changes to our business practices, may make collection of account balances more difficult or may expose us to the risk of fines, restitution and litigation. Our operations and the operations of the issuing banks through which we originate some of our credit products are subject to the jurisdiction of federal, state and local government authorities, including the CFPB, the SEC, the FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the FTC, U.K. banking authorities, state regulators having jurisdiction over financial institutions and debt origination and collection and state attorneys general. Our business practices, including the terms of our products and our marketing, servicing and collection practices, are subject to both periodic and special reviews by these regulatory and enforcement authorities. These reviews can range from investigations of specific consumer complaints or concerns to broader inquiries into our practices generally. If as part of these reviews the regulatory authorities conclude that we are not complying with applicable law, they could request or impose a wide range of remedies including requiring changes in advertising and collection practices, changes in the terms of our products (such as decreases in interest rates or fees), the imposition of fines or penalties, or the paying of restitution or the taking of other remedial action with respect to affected customers. They also could require us to stop offering some of our products, either nationally or in selected states. To the extent that these remedies are imposed on the issuing banks through which we originate credit products, under certain circumstances we are responsible for the remedies as a result of our indemnification obligations with those banks. We also may elect to change practices or products that we believe are compliant with law in order to respond to regulatory concerns. Furthermore, negative publicity relating to any specific inquiry or investigation could hurt our ability to conduct business with various industry participants or to attract new accounts and could negatively affect our stock price, which would adversely affect our ability to raise additional capital and would raise our costs of doing business.

If any deficiencies or violations of law or regulations are identified by us or asserted by any regulator, or if the CFPB, the FDIC, the FTC or any other regulator requires us to change any of our practices, the correction of such deficiencies or violations, or the making of such changes, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations or business. In addition, whether or not we modify our practices when a regulatory or enforcement authority requests or requires that we do so, there is a risk that we or other industry participants may be named as defendants in litigation involving alleged violations of federal and state laws and regulations, including consumer protection laws. Any failure to comply with legal requirements by us or the issuing banks through which we originate credit products in connection with the issuance of those products, or by us or our agents as the servicer of our accounts, could significantly impair our ability to collect the full amount of the account balances. The institution of any litigation of this nature, or any judgment against us or any other industry participant in any litigation of this nature, could adversely affect our business and financial condition in a variety of ways.

Our rent-to-own operations are regulated by and subject to the requirements of various federal and state laws and regulations. These laws and regulations, which may be amended or supplemented or interpreted by the courts from time to time, could expose us to significant compliance costs or burdens or force us to change our business practices in a manner that may be materially adverse to our operations, prospects or financial condition. Currently, 47 states and the District of Columbia specifically regulate rent-to-own transactions such as those conducted in our rent-to-own programs. At the present time, no federal law specifically regulates the rent-to-own industry, although federal legislation to regulate the industry has been proposed from time to time. Any adverse changes in existing laws, or the passage of new adverse legislation by states or the federal government could materially increase both our costs of complying with laws and the risk that we could be sued or be subject to government sanctions if we are not in compliance. In addition, new burdensome legislation might force us to change our business model and might reduce the economic potential of our rent-to-own product offerings.

Most of the states that regulate rent-to-own transactions have enacted disclosure laws that require rent-to-own companies to disclose to their customers the total number of payments, total amount and timing of all payments to acquire ownership of any item, any other charges that may be imposed by them and miscellaneous other items. The more restrictive state lease purchase laws limit the total amount that a customer may be charged for an item, or regulate the amount of deemed “interest” that rent-to-own companies may charge on rent-to-own transactions, generally defining “interest” as lease fees paid in excess of the “retail” price of the goods.

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There has been increased attention in the United States, at both the state and federal levels, on consumer debt transactions in general, which may result in an increase in legislative and regulatory efforts directed at the rent-to-own industry. The federal government or states may enact additional or different legislation or regulation that would be disadvantageous or otherwise materially adverse to us.

In addition to the risk of lawsuits related to the laws that regulate rent-to-own and consumer lease transactions, we or our rent-to-own partners could be subject to lawsuits alleging violations of federal and state laws and regulations and consumer tort law, including fraud, consumer protection, information security and privacy laws, because of the consumer-oriented nature of the rent-to-own industry. A large judgment against us could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. Moreover, an adverse outcome from a lawsuit, even one against one of our competitors, could result in changes in the way we and others in the industry do business, possibly leading to significant costs or decreased revenues or profitability.

We are dependent upon banks to issue credit cards and provide certain other credit products. Our credit card and some of our other credit product programs are dependent on our issuing bank relationships, and their regulators could at any time limit their ability to issue some or all products on our behalf, or that we service on their behalf, or to modify those products significantly. Any significant interruption of those relationships would result in our being unable to originate new receivables and other credit products. It is possible that a regulatory position or action taken with respect to any of the issuing banks through which we have originated credit products or for whom we service receivables might result in the bank’s inability or unwillingness to originate future credit products on our behalf or in partnership with us. In the current state, such a disruption of our issuing bank relationships principally would adversely affect our ability to grow our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance products and other consumer credit offerings and underlying receivables.

Changes to consumer protection laws or changes in their interpretation may impede collection efforts or otherwise adversely impact our business practices. Federal and state consumer protection laws regulate the creation and enforcement of consumer credit card receivables and other loans. Many of these laws (and the related regulations) are focused on sub-prime lenders and are intended to prohibit or curtail industry-standard practices as well as non-standard practices. For instance, Congress enacted legislation that regulates loans to military personnel through imposing interest rate and other limitations and requiring new disclosures, all as regulated by the Department of Defense. Similarly, in 2009 Congress enacted legislation that required changes to a variety of marketing, billing and collection practices, and the Federal Reserve recently adopted significant changes to a number of practices through its issuance of regulations. Additionally, the CFPB is expected to be an active issuer of credit-related regulations in the near-term, and the scope and nature of those potential regulations are unknown. While our practices are in compliance with these changes, some of the changes (e.g., limitations on the ability to assess up-front fees) have significantly affected the viability of certain of our prior product offerings within the U.S. Changes in the consumer protection laws could result in the following:


•	receivables not originated in compliance with law (or revised interpretations) could become unenforceable and uncollectible under their terms against the obligors;


•	we may be required to credit or refund previously collected amounts;


•	certain fees and finance charges could be limited, prohibited or restricted, which would reduce the profitability of certain accounts;


•	certain of our collection methods could be prohibited, forcing us to revise our practices or adopt more costly or less effective practices;


•	limitations on the content of marketing materials could be imposed that would result in reduced success for our marketing efforts;


•	limitations on our ability to recover on charged-off receivables regardless of any act or omission on our part;


•	some of our products and services could be banned in certain states or at the federal level;


•	federal or state bankruptcy or debtor relief laws could offer additional protections to customers seeking bankruptcy protection, providing a court greater leeway to reduce or discharge amounts owed to us; and


•	a reduction in our ability or willingness to lend to certain individuals, such as military personnel.

Material regulatory developments are likely to adversely impact our business and results from operations.

Our Automobile Lending Activities Involve Risks in Addition to Others Described Herein

Automobile lending exposes us not only to most of the risks described above but also to additional risks, including the regulatory scheme that governs installment loans and those attendant to relying upon automobiles and their repossession and liquidation value as collateral. In addition, our most significant active Auto Finance segment operation acquires loans on a wholesale basis from used car dealers, for which we rely upon the legal compliance and credit determinations by those dealers.

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Funding for automobile lending may become difficult to obtain and expensive. In the event we are unable to renew or replace any Auto Finance segment facilities that bear refunding or refinancing risks when they become due, our Auto Finance segment could experience significant liquidity constraints and diminution in reported asset values as lenders retain significant cash flows within underlying structured financings or otherwise under security arrangements for repayment of their loans. If we cannot renew or replace future facilities or otherwise are unduly constrained from a liquidity perspective, we may choose to sell part or all of our auto loan portfolios, possibly at less than favorable prices.

Our automobile lending business is dependent upon referrals from dealers. Currently we provide substantially all of our automobile loans only to or through used car dealers. Providers of automobile financing have traditionally competed based on the interest rate charged, the quality of credit accepted and the flexibility of loan terms offered. In order to be successful, we not only need to be competitive in these areas, but also need to establish and maintain good relations with dealers and provide them with a level of service greater than what they can obtain from our competitors.

The financial performance of our automobile loan portfolio is in part dependent upon the liquidation of repossessed automobiles. In the event of certain defaults, we may repossess automobiles and sell repossessed automobiles at wholesale auction markets located throughout the U.S. Auction proceeds from these types of sales and other recoveries rarely are sufficient to cover the outstanding balances of the contracts; where we experience these shortfalls, we will experience credit losses. Decreased auction proceeds resulting from depressed prices at which used automobiles may be sold would result in higher credit losses for us.

Repossession of automobiles entails the risk of litigation and other claims. Although we have contracted with reputable repossession firms to repossess automobiles on defaulted loans, it is not uncommon for consumers to assert that we were not entitled to repossess an automobile or that the repossession was not conducted in accordance with applicable law. These claims increase the cost of our collection efforts and, if correct, can result in awards against us.

We Routinely Explore Various Opportunities to Grow Our Business, to Make Investments and to Purchase and Sell Assets

We routinely consider acquisitions of, or investments in, portfolios and other assets as well as the sale of portfolios and portions of our business. There are a number of risks attendant to any acquisition, including the possibility that we will overvalue the assets to be purchased and that we will not be able to produce the expected level of profitability from the acquired business or assets. Similarly, there are a number of risks attendant to sales, including the possibility that we will undervalue the assets to be sold. As a result, the impact of any acquisition or sale on our future performance may not be as favorable as expected and actually may be adverse.

Portfolio purchases may cause fluctuations in our reported Credit and Other Investments segment’s managed receivables data, which may reduce the usefulness of this data in evaluating our business. Our reported Credit and Other Investments segment managed receivables data may fluctuate substantially from quarter to quarter as a result of recent and future credit card portfolio acquisitions.

Receivables included in purchased portfolios are likely to have been originated using credit criteria different from the criteria of issuing bank partners that have originated accounts on our behalf. Receivables included in any particular purchased portfolio may have significantly different delinquency rates and charge-off rates than the receivables previously originated and purchased by us. These receivables also may earn different interest rates and fees as compared to other similar receivables in our receivables portfolio. These variables could cause our reported managed receivables data to fluctuate substantially in future periods making the evaluation of our business more difficult.

Any acquisition or investment that we make will involve risks different from and in addition to the risks to which our business is currently exposed. These include the risks that we will not be able to integrate and operate successfully new businesses, that we will have to incur substantial indebtedness and increase our leverage in order to pay for the acquisitions, that we will be exposed to, and have to comply with, different regulatory regimes and that we will not be able to apply our traditional analytical framework (which is what we expect to be able to do) in a successful and value-enhancing manner.

Other Risks of Our Business

We are a holding company with no operations of our own. As a result, our cash flow and ability to service our debt is dependent upon distributions from our subsidiaries. The distribution of subsidiary earnings, or advances or other distributions of funds by subsidiaries to us, all of which are subject to statutory and could be subject to contractual restrictions,

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are contingent upon the subsidiaries’ cash flows and earnings and are subject to various business and debt covenant considerations.

Although our Fortiva finance offerings are an important part of our strategic plan, we have limited operating history with these offerings. In late 2013, we expanded into our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance offerings, including our rent-to-own offerings. As with many early stage endeavors, these product offerings may experience under-capitalization, delays, lack of funding, and many other problems, delays, and expenses, many of which are beyond our control. These include, but are not limited to:


•	inability to establish profitable strategic relationships with merchants;


•	inability to raise sufficient capital to fund our anticipated growth in this area; and


•	competition from larger and more established competitors, such as banks and finance companies.

Unless we obtain a bank charter, we cannot issue credit cards other than through agreements with banks. Because we do not have a bank charter, we currently cannot issue credit cards other than through agreements with banks. Unless we obtain a bank or credit card bank charter, we will continue to rely upon banking relationships to provide for the issuance of credit cards to our customers. Even if we obtain a bank charter, there may be restrictions on the types of credit that the bank may extend. Our various issuing bank agreements have scheduled expiration dates. If we are unable to extend or execute new agreements with our issuing banks at the expirations of our current agreements with them, or if our existing or new agreements with our issuing banks were terminated or otherwise disrupted, there is a risk that we would not be able to enter into agreements with an alternate provider on terms that we consider favorable or in a timely manner without disruption of our business.

We are party to litigation. We are defendants in certain legal proceedings which include litigation customary for a business of our nature. In each case we believe that we have meritorious defenses or that the positions we are asserting otherwise are correct. However, adverse outcomes are possible in these matters, and we could decide to settle one or more of our litigation matters in order to avoid the ongoing cost of litigation or to obtain certainty of outcome. Adverse outcomes or settlements of these matters could require us to pay damages, make restitution, change our business practices or take other actions at a level, or in a manner, that would adversely impact our business.

We face heightened levels of economic risk associated with new investment activities. We recently have made a number of investments in businesses that are not directly related to our traditional lending activities to, or associated with, the underserved consumer credit market. In addition, some of these investments that we have made and may make in the future are or will be in debt or equity securities of businesses over which we exert little or no control, which likely exposes us to greater risks of loss than investments in activities and operations that we control. We make only those investments we believe have the potential to provide a favorable return. However, because some of the investments are outside of our core areas of expertise, they entail risks beyond those described elsewhere in this Report. As occurred with respect to certain such investments in 2012 and 2011, these risks could result in the loss of part or all of our investments.

Because we outsource account-processing functions that are integral to our business, any disruption or termination of that outsourcing relationship could harm our business. We generally outsource account and payment processing, and in 2015, we paid Total System Services, Inc. $7.1 million for these services. If these agreements were not renewed or were terminated or the services provided to us were otherwise disrupted, we would have to obtain these services from an alternative provider. There is a risk that we would not be able to enter into a similar agreement with an alternate provider on terms that we consider favorable or in a timely manner without disruption of our business.

If we are unable to protect our information systems against service interruption our operations could be disrupted and our reputation may be damaged. We rely heavily on networks and information systems and other technology, that are largely hosted by third-parties to support our business processes and activities, including processes integral to the origination and collection of loans and other financial products, and information systems to process financial information and results of operations for internal reporting purposes and to comply with regulatory financial reporting and legal and tax requirements. Because information systems are critical to many of our operating activities, our business may be impacted by hosted system shutdowns, service disruptions or security breaches. These incidents may be caused by failures during routine operations such as system upgrades or user errors, as well as network or hardware failures, malicious or disruptive software, computer hackers, rogue employees or contractors, cyber-attacks by criminal groups, geopolitical events, natural disasters, failures or impairments of telecommunications networks, or other catastrophic events. If our information systems suffer severe damage, disruption or shutdown and our business continuity plans do not effectively resolve the issues in a timely manner, we could experience delays in reporting our financial results, and we may lose revenue and profits as a result of our inability to collect payments in a timely manner. We also could be required to spend significant financial and other resources to repair or replace networks and information systems.

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Unauthorized or unintentional disclosure of sensitive or confidential customer data could expose us to protracted and costly litigation, and civil and criminal penalties. To conduct our business, we are required to manage, use, and store large amounts of personally identifiable information, consisting primarily of confidential personal and financial data regarding our customers across all operations areas. We also depend on our IT networks and systems, and those of third parties, to process, store, and transmit this information. As a result, we are subject to numerous U.S. federal and state laws designed to protect this information. Security breaches involving our files and infrastructure could lead to unauthorized disclosure of confidential information.

We take a number of measures to ensure the security of our hardware and software systems and customer information. Advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries in the field of cryptography or other developments may result in the technology used by us to protect data being breached or compromised. In the past, consumer finance companies have been the subject of sophisticated and highly targeted attacks on their information technology. An increasing number of websites have reported breaches of their security.

If any person, including our employees or those of third-party vendors, negligently disregards or intentionally breaches our established controls with respect to such data or otherwise mismanages or misappropriates that data, we could be subject to costly litigation, monetary damages, fines, and/or criminal prosecution. We do not maintain cyber-security insurance liability coverage and as such we are exposed to the financial risk and losses associated with such incidents. Any unauthorized disclosure of personally identifiable information could subject us to liability under data privacy laws. Further, under credit card rules and our contracts with our card processors, if there is a breach of credit card information that we store, we could be liable to the credit card issuing banks for their cost of issuing new cards and related expenses. In addition, if we fail to follow credit card industry security standards, even if there is no compromise of customer information, we could incur significant fines. Security breaches could also harm our reputation with our customers, which could potentially cause decreased revenues, the loss of existing merchant credit partners, or difficulty in adding new merchant credit partners.

Internet and data security breaches also could impede us from originating loans over the Internet, cause us to lose customers or otherwise damage our reputation or business. Consumers generally are concerned with security and privacy, particularly on the Internet. As part of our growth strategy, we have originated loans over the Internet. The secure transmission of confidential information over the Internet is essential to maintaining customer confidence in our products and services offered online.

Advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries or other developments could result in a compromise or breach of the technology used by us to protect customer application and transaction data transmitted over the Internet. In addition to the potential for litigation and civil penalties described above, security breaches could damage our reputation and cause customers to become unwilling to do business with us, particularly over the Internet. Any publicized security problems could inhibit the growth of the Internet as a means of conducting commercial transactions. Our ability to solicit new loans over the Internet would be severely impeded if consumers become unwilling to transmit confidential information online.

Also, a party that is able to circumvent our security measures could misappropriate proprietary information, cause interruption in our operations, damage our computers or those of our users, or otherwise damage our reputation and business.

Regulation in the areas of privacy and data security could increase our costs. We are subject to various regulations related to privacy and data security/breach, and we could be negatively impacted by these regulations. For example, we are subject to the safeguards guidelines under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The safeguards guidelines require that each financial institution develop, implement and maintain a written, comprehensive information security program containing safeguards that are appropriate to the financial institution’s size and complexity, the nature and scope of the financial institution’s activities and the sensitivity of any customer information at issue. Broad-ranging data security laws that affect our business also have been adopted by various states. Compliance with these laws regarding the protection of customer and employee data could result in higher compliance and technology costs for us, as well as potentially significant fines and penalties for non-compliance. Further, there are various other statutes and regulations relevant to the direct email marketing, debt collection and text-messaging industries including the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The interpretation of many of these statutes and regulations is evolving in the courts and administrative agencies and an inability to comply with them may have an adverse impact on our business.

In addition to the foregoing enhanced data security requirements, various federal banking regulatory agencies, and as many as 48 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, have enacted data security regulations and laws requiring varying levels of customer notification in the event of a security breach.

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Also, federal legislators and regulators are increasingly pursuing new guidelines, laws and regulations that, if adopted, could further restrict how we collect, use, share and secure customer information, which could impact some of our current or planned business initiatives.

Unplanned system interruptions or system failures could harm our business and reputation. Any interruption in the availability of our transactional processing services due to hardware and operating system failures will reduce our revenues and profits. Any unscheduled interruption in our services results in an immediate, and possibly substantial, loss of revenues. Frequent or persistent interruptions in our services could cause current or potential customers to believe that our systems are unreliable, leading them to switch to our competitors or to avoid our websites or services, and could permanently harm our reputation.

Although our systems have been designed around industry-standard architectures to reduce downtime in the event of outages or catastrophic occurrences, they remain vulnerable to damage or interruption from earthquakes, floods, fires, power loss, telecommunication failures, computer viruses, computer denial-of-service attacks, and similar events or disruptions. Some of our systems are not fully redundant, and our disaster recovery planning may not be sufficient for all eventualities. Our systems also are subject to break-ins, sabotage, and intentional acts of vandalism. Despite any precautions we may take, the occurrence of a natural disaster, a decision by any of our third-party hosting providers to close a facility we use without adequate notice for financial or other reasons, or other unanticipated problems at our hosting facilities could cause system interruptions, delays, and loss of critical data, and result in lengthy interruptions in our services. Our business interruption insurance may not be sufficient to compensate us for losses that may result from interruptions in our service as a result of system failures.

Climate change and related regulatory responses may impact our business. Climate change as a result of emissions of greenhouse gases is a significant topic of discussion and may generate federal and other regulatory responses. It is impracticable to predict with any certainty the impact on our business of climate change or the regulatory responses to it, although we recognize that they could be significant. The most direct impact is likely to be an increase in energy costs, which would adversely impact consumers and their ability to incur and repay indebtedness. However, we are uncertain of the ultimate impact, either directionally or quantitatively, of climate change and related regulatory responses on our business.

Risks Relating to an Investment in Our Securities

The price of our common stock may fluctuate significantly, and this may make it difficult for you to resell your shares of our common stock when you want or at prices you find attractive. The price of our common stock on the NASDAQ Global Select Market constantly changes. We expect that the market price of our common stock will continue to fluctuate. The market price of our common stock may fluctuate in response to numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control. These factors include the following:


•	actual or anticipated fluctuations in our operating results;


•	changes in expectations as to our future financial performance, including financial estimates by securities analysts and investors;


•	the overall financing environment, which is critical to our value;


•	the operating and stock performance of our competitors;


•	announcements by us or our competitors of new products or services or significant contracts, acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital commitments;


•	changes in interest rates;


•	the announcement of enforcement actions or investigations against us or our competitors or other negative publicity relating to us or our industry;


•	changes in GAAP, laws, regulations or the interpretations thereof that affect our various business activities and segments;


•	general domestic or international economic, market and political conditions;


•	changes in ownership by executive officers, directors and parties related to them who control a majority of our common stock;


•	additions or departures of key personnel; and


•	future sales of our common stock and the transfer or cancellation of shares of common stock pursuant to a share lending agreement.

In addition, the stock markets from time to time experience extreme price and volume fluctuations that may be unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of companies. These broad fluctuations may adversely affect the trading price of our common stock, regardless of our actual operating performance.

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Future sales of our common stock or equity-related securities in the public market, including sales of our common stock pursuant to share lending agreements or short sale transactions by purchasers of convertible senior notes, could adversely affect the trading price of our common stock and our ability to raise funds in new stock offerings. Sales of significant amounts of our common stock or equity-related securities in the public market, including sales pursuant to share lending agreements, or the perception that such sales will occur, could adversely affect prevailing trading prices of our common stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through future offerings of equity or equity-related securities. Future sales of shares of common stock or the availability of shares of common stock for future sale, including sales of our common stock in short sale transactions by purchasers of our convertible senior notes, may have a material adverse effect on the trading price of our common stock.

We have the ability to issue preferred stock, warrants, convertible debt and other securities without shareholder approval. Our common stock may be subordinate to classes of preferred stock issued in the future in the payment of dividends and other distributions made with respect to common stock, including distributions upon liquidation or dissolution. Our articles of incorporation permit our Board of Directors to issue preferred stock without first obtaining shareholder approval. If we issued preferred stock, these additional securities may have dividend or liquidation preferences senior to the common stock. If we issue convertible preferred stock, a subsequent conversion may dilute the current common shareholders’ interest. We have similar abilities to issue convertible debt, warrants and other equity securities.

Our executive officers, directors and parties related to them, in the aggregate, control a majority of our common stock and may have the ability to control matters requiring shareholder approval. Our executive officers, directors and parties related to them own a large enough share of our common stock to have an influence on, if not control of, the matters presented to shareholders. As a result, these shareholders may have the ability to control matters requiring shareholder approval, including the election and removal of directors, the approval of significant corporate transactions, such as any reclassification, reorganization, merger, consolidation or sale of all or substantially all of our assets and the control of our management and affairs. Accordingly, this concentration of ownership may have the effect of delaying, deferring or preventing a change of control of us, impede a merger, consolidation, takeover or other business combination involving us or discourage a potential acquirer from making a tender offer or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us, which in turn could have an adverse effect on the market price of our common stock.

The right to receive payments on our convertible senior notes is subordinated to the rights of our existing and future secured creditors. Our convertible senior notes are unsecured and are subordinate to existing and future secured obligations to the extent of the value of the assets securing such obligations. As a result, in the event of a bankruptcy, liquidation, dissolution, reorganization or similar proceeding of our company, our assets generally would be available to satisfy obligations of our secured debt before any payment may be made on the convertible senior notes. To the extent that such assets cannot satisfy in full our secured debt, the holders of such debt would have a claim for any shortfall that would rank equally in right of payment (or effectively senior if the debt were issued by a subsidiary) with the convertible senior notes. In such an event, we may not have sufficient assets remaining to pay amounts on any or all of the convertible senior notes.

As of December 31, 2015, Atlanticus Holdings Corporation had outstanding: $61.1 million of secured indebtedness, which would rank senior in right of payment to the convertible senior notes; $38.5 million of senior unsecured indebtedness in addition to the convertible senior notes that would rank equal in right of payment to the convertible senior notes; and no subordinated indebtedness. Included in senior secured indebtedness are certain guarantees we have executed in favor of our subsidiaries. For more information on our outstanding indebtedness, See Note 9, "Notes Payable," to our consolidated financial statements included herein.

Our convertible senior notes are junior to the indebtedness of our subsidiaries. Our convertible senior notes are structurally subordinated to the existing and future claims of our subsidiaries’ creditors. Holders of the convertible senior notes are not creditors of our subsidiaries. Any claims of holders of the convertible senior notes to the assets of our subsidiaries derive from our own equity interests in those subsidiaries. Claims of our subsidiaries’ creditors will generally have priority as to the assets of our subsidiaries over our own equity interest claims and will therefore have priority over the holders of the convertible senior notes. Consequently, the convertible senior notes are effectively subordinate to all liabilities, whether or not secured, of any of our subsidiaries and any subsidiaries that we may in the future acquire or establish. Our subsidiaries’ creditors also may include general creditors and taxing authorities. As of December 31, 2015, our subsidiaries had total liabilities of approximately $138.6 million (including the $61.1 million of senior secured indebtedness mentioned above), excluding intercompany indebtedness. In addition, in the future, we may decide to increase the portion of our activities that we conduct through subsidiaries.

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Note Regarding Risk Factors

The risk factors presented above are all of the ones that we currently consider material. However, they are not the only ones facing our company. Additional risks not presently known to us, or which we currently consider immaterial, may also adversely affect us. There may be risks that a particular investor views differently from us, and our analysis might be wrong. If any of the risks that we face actually occurs, our business, financial condition and operating results could be materially adversely affected and could differ materially from any possible results suggested by any forward-looking statements that we have made or might make. In such case, the trading price of our common stock or other securities could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment. We expressly disclaim any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

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ITEM 1B.	UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

None



ITEM 2.	PROPERTIES

We lease 335,372 square feet of office space in Atlanta, Georgia for our executive offices and the primary operations of our Credit and Other Investments segment. We have sub-leased 255,110 square feet of this office space. Our Auto Finance segment principally operates from 9,600 square feet of leased office space in Lake Mary, Florida, with additional offices and branch locations in various states and territories. Our operations in the U.K., which are within our Credit and Other Investments segment, include approximately 2,140 of aggregate square feet of leased space in Crawley. We believe that our facilities are suitable to our business and that we will be able to lease or purchase additional facilities as our needs, if any, require.



ITEM 3.	LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

We are involved in various legal proceedings that are incidental to the conduct of our business. There are currently no pending material legal proceedings.



ITEM 4.	MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

None

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PART II



ITEM 5.	MARKET FOR REGISTRANT'S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

Our common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “ATLC.” The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the high and low sales prices per share of our common stock as reported on the NASDAQ Global Select Market. As of March 15, 2016, there were 51 record holders of our common stock, which does not include persons whose stock is held in nominee or “street name” accounts through brokers, banks and intermediaries.




2014	High	Low
1st Quarter 2014	$3.59	$1.96
2nd Quarter 2014	$3.24	$2.24
3rd Quarter 2014	$2.96	$1.80
4th Quarter 2014	$2.77	$1.15

2015	High	Low
1st Quarter 2015	$3.10	$2.08
2nd Quarter 2015	$3.86	$2.03
3rd Quarter 2015	$4.02	$3.40
4th Quarter 2015	$3.64	$2.88

The closing price of our common stock on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on March 22, 2016 was $3.20.

Pursuant to a share repurchase plan authorized by our Board of Directors on May 9, 2014, we are authorized to repurchase 5,000,000 shares of our common stock through June 30, 2016, of which 4,892,760 shares remained authorized for repurchase as of December 31, 2015. During the three months ended December 31, 2015, we did not repurchase any shares under our Board-authorized repurchase plan. There were 26,117 shares returned to us during the three months ended December 31, 2015 by employees in satisfaction of withholding tax requirements. These returned shares are permitted outside the scope of our Board-authorized repurchase plan. We will continue to evaluate our stock price relative to other investment opportunities and, to the extent we believe that the repurchase of our stock represents an appropriate return of capital, we will repurchase shares of our stock.



ITEM 6.	SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

As a “smaller reporting company,” as defined by Item 10 of Regulation S-K, we are not required to provide this information.

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ITEM 7.	MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

The following discussion should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included therein, where certain terms (including trust, subsidiary and other entity names and financial, operating and statistical measures) have been defined.

This Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations includes forward-looking statements. We base these forward-looking statements on our current plans, expectations and beliefs about future events. There are risks, including the factors discussed in “Risk Factors” in Item 1A and elsewhere in this Report, that our actual experience will differ materially from these expectations. For more information, see “Cautionary Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" at the beginning of this Report.

OVERVIEW

We utilize proprietary analytics and a flexible technology platform to provide various credit and related financial services and products to or associated with the financially underserved consumer credit market. Currently, within our Credit and Other Investments segment, we are applying the experiences gained and infrastructure built from funding over $25 billion in consumer loans over our 19-year operating history to originate a range of consumer loan products through our primary consumer brand, Fortiva. As part of this brand, we market Fortiva Retail Credit, Fortiva Personal Loans and Fortiva Credit Cards through multiple channels, including retail point-of-sale, direct mail solicitation, Internet-based marketing and partnerships with third parties who have relationships with our core customers. In our point-of-sale channel, we partner with retailers and service providers in various industries across the U.S. to offer Fortiva Retail Credit to their customers for the purchase of a variety of goods and services including consumer electronics, furniture, elective medical procedures, educational services and home-improvements. Our flexible technology platform allows us to integrate our paperless process and instant decision-making capabilities with our partners' technology infrastructure. These products are often extended to customers who may have been declined under traditional financing options. We specialize in providing this "second-look" credit service. Additionally, we are able to market our general purpose Fortiva Personal Loans and Fortiva Credit Cards directly to consumers through additional channels, which enables us to reach consumers through a diverse origination platform that includes direct mail, Internet-based marketing and through partnerships. Our technology platform and proprietary analytics enable us to make instant credit decisions utilizing hundreds of inputs, from multiple sources and thereby offer credit to consumers overlooked by traditional providers of credit. By offering a range of products through a multitude of channels, we seek to provide the right type of credit, whenever and wherever the consumer has a need.

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ascribing value to these investments at this time would be speculative. Based on the performance and/or marketability of these investments in future periods, we could have material gains for our remaining ownership in these or other investment assets.

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CONSOLIDATED RESULTS OF OPERATIONS



							Income
	For the Twelve Months Ended December 31,						Increases (Decreases)
(In Thousands)	2015			2014			from 2014 to 2015
Total interest income	$	69,917		$	73,676		$	(3,759	)
Interest expense	(18,330		)	(24,052		)	5,722
Fees and related income on earning assets:
Fees on credit products	6,907			18,662			(11,755		)
Changes in fair value of loans and fees receivable recorded at fair value	6,265			14,460			(8,195		)
Changes in fair value of notes payable associated with structured financings recorded at fair value	1,262			(7,418		)	8,680
Rental revenue	36,032			58,457			(22,425		)
Other	2,716			4,669			(1,953		)
Other operating income:
Servicing income	5,004			4,910			94
Other income	553			2,084			(1,531		)
Gain on repurchase of convertible senior notes	—			12,068			(12,068		)
Equity in income equity-method investees	2,780			6,983			(4,203		)
Total	$	113,106		$	164,499		$	(51,393	)
(Net recovery of) losses upon charge off of loans and fees receivable recorded at fair value, net of recoveries	(38,878		)	(4,852		)	34,026
Provision for losses on loans and fees receivable recorded at net realizable value	26,608			30,828			4,220
Other operating expenses:
Salaries and benefits	19,825			19,777			(48		)
Card and loan servicing	37,071			48,599			11,528
Marketing and solicitation	2,235			2,381			146
Depreciation, primarily related to rental merchandise	40,778			69,096			28,318
Other	21,932			25,975			4,043
Net income	1,706			7,327			(5,621		)
Net loss (income) attributable to noncontrolling interests	7			(150		)	157
Net income attributable to controlling interests	1,713			7,177			(5,464		)

Year Ended December 31, 2015, Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2014

Total interest income. Total interest income consists primarily of finance charges and late fees earned on our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance products, credit card and auto finance receivables. Period-over-period results reflect continued growth in our auto finance receivables and our point-of-sale finance and direct-to-consumer products, offset, however, by continued net liquidations of our historical credit card receivable portfolios over the past year. We are currently experiencing continued growth in our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance products and our CAR receivables—growth which we expect to result in net period over period growth in our total interest income for these operations over the next few quarters. Future periods' growth is also dependent on the addition of new retail partners for our point-of-sale operations as well as continued growth within existing partnerships and continued growth within our direct-to-consumer finance product. This

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growth was delayed late in the first quarter of 2014 as a significant retail partner underwent a product shift that resulted in the suspension of new account originations with us for both our installment lending product as well as our rent-to-own product. Despite anticipated increases in our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance products, continued net liquidations of our historic credit card receivables will continue to offset expected increases and could continue to result in overall net declines in interest income period over period.

Interest expense. Variations in interest expense are due to our debt facilities being repaid commensurate with net liquidations of the underlying credit card, auto finance and installment loan receivables that serve as collateral for the facilities offset by new borrowings associated with growth in our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance products and CAR operations as evidenced within Note 9, “Notes Payable,” to our consolidated financial statements. We anticipate additional debt financing over the next few quarters as we continue to grow, and as such, we expect our quarterly interest expense to be above that experienced in the prior periods for these operations. Offsetting this growth in interest expense, in addition to the net liquidations of facilities associated with our credit card portfolios, will be reductions in interest costs associated with convertible senior notes that have been repurchased and canceled. In November 2014, we repurchased $46.1 million aggregate principal amount of 5.875% convertible senior notes due 2035 ("5.875% convertible senior notes"). In connection with this repurchase, we borrowed $20.0 million under a secured term loan from a related party. See "Related Party Transactions" below for more information.

Fees and related income on earning assets. The significant factors affecting our differing levels of fees and related income on earning assets include:


•	Declines in rental revenue due to the aforementioned product shift at a significant retail partner that resulted in the suspension of new account originations with us for both our installment lending product as well as our rent-to-own product, and for which rental sales volumes are expected to continue to decline as we plan to significantly limit new originations in 2016;


•	Reductions in fees on credit products, principally associated with the net liquidations of credit card receivables in the U.K.;


•	Recoveries of $4.4 million on investments in consumer finance technology platforms in excess of their carrying value in our "Other" category in 2014 with no corresponding recovery in 2015;


•	The effects of changes in the fair values of credit card receivables recorded at fair value and notes payable associated with structured financings recorded at fair value as described below; and


•	The above declines were partially offset by the resolution of an outstanding dispute that resulted in the recovery of approximately $2.0 million associated with a receivable that was fully reserved in a prior period.

We expect a diminishing level of fee income for 2016 because we do not anticipate additional credit card originations in the U.K. Further, given expected future net liquidations of our credit card receivables for which we use fair value accounting, we expect our change in fair value of credit card receivables recorded at fair value and our change in fair value of notes payable associated with structured financings recorded at fair value amounts to gradually diminish (absent significant changes in the assumptions used to determine these fair values) in the future. These amounts, however, are subject to potentially high levels of volatility if we experience changes in the quality of our credit card receivables or if there are significant changes in market valuation factors (e.g., interest rates and spreads) in the future. Such volatility will be muted somewhat, however, by the offsetting nature of the receivables and underlying debt being recorded at fair value and with the expected reductions in the face amounts of such outstanding receivables and debt as we experience further credit card receivables liquidations and associated debt amortizing repayments. Further significant declines are expected in our rental revenue as we changed our underwriting and approval criteria surrounding originations within various merchandise categories that comprised a significant component of new originations in the third quarter of 2015 and we expect to significantly limit new originations in 2016. As such, we do not expect our rental revenue to contribute meaningfully to our 2016 revenues. Offsetting these declines is the aforementioned growth we are currently experiencing associated with our point-of-sale, direct-to-consumer finance and credit card products with which we expect continued expansion in 2016.

Servicing income. We earn servicing income by servicing loan portfolios for third parties (including our equity-method investees). Unless and/or until we grow the number of contractual servicing relationships we have with third parties or our current relationships grow their loan portfolios, we will not experience significant growth and income within this category, and we currently expect to experience limited growth relative to growth experienced in prior periods.

Other income. Historically included within our other income category are ancillary and interchange revenues, which are now relatively insignificant for us due to our historical credit card account closures and net credit card receivables portfolio liquidations. Absent portfolio acquisitions or continued growth with our new credit card offering, we do not expect significant

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ancillary and interchange revenues in the future. Also included within our other income category are certain reimbursements we receive in respect of one of our portfolios.

Gain on repurchase of convertible senior notes. In July 2014, we repurchased $80,000 aggregate principal amount of outstanding 5.875% convertible senior notes for $25,200. In November 2014, we repurchased $46.1 million aggregate principal amount of 5.875% convertible senior notes for $19.1 million plus accrued interest. The purchases resulted in an aggregate gain of $12.1 million (net of the notes’ applicable share of deferred costs, which were written off in connection with the repurchase). Upon acquisition, all notes were retired.

As mentioned elsewhere in this Report, we plan to continue to evaluate and pursue a variety of activities, including the repurchase of our remaining 5.875% convertible senior notes, gains on the repurchase of which (if any) would impact this income category.

Equity in income of equity-method investees. Because our equity-method investees use the fair value option to account for their financial assets and liabilities, changes in fair value estimates can cause some volatility in the earnings of these investees. Because of continued liquidations in their financial assets (a credit card receivables portfolio held by one equity-method investee and structured financing notes held by the other), absent additional investments in our existing or in new equity-method investees in the future, we expect gradually declining effects from our equity-method investments on our operating results. Further, in December 2014, we consolidated on our financial statements one of our equity-method investees subsequent to our distribution of certain assets to an unrelated third-party partner for their interest in the entity.

(Net recovery of) losses upon charge off of loans and fees receivable recorded at fair value. This account reflects charge offs (net of recoveries) of the face amount of credit card receivables we record at fair value on our consolidated balance sheet. We have experienced a general trending decline in, and we expect future trending declines in, these charge offs as we continue to liquidate our historical credit card receivables. Additionally, net losses in both periods reflect the effects of reimbursements received in respect of one of our portfolios. In 2015 and 2014, these reimbursements exceeded the charge-offs experienced within the portfolio as the reimbursements are not directly associated with the timing of actual charge offs. The timing of these reimbursements cannot be reliably determined and as such we may not continue to experience similar positive impacts on future quarters.

Provision for losses on loans and fees receivable recorded at net realizable value. Our provision for losses on loans and fees receivable recorded at net realizable value covers, with respect to such receivables, changes in estimates regarding our aggregate loss exposures on (1) principal receivable balances, (2) finance charges and late fees receivable underlying income amounts included within our total interest income category, and (3) other fees receivable. We have experienced a period-over-period decrease in this category between 2014 and 2015 due to the previously mentioned declines in volumes associated with our installment lending product. Additionally, testing associated with our credit card product in the U.K. resulted in slightly higher provisions through the first quarter of 2014, but, given that we have discontinued new originations with this product in the U.K., we expect declines in provisions associated with this product offering. Offsetting these declines, we expect growth in new product receivables recorded at net realizable value to result in increases in our provisions for losses on loans and fees receivable recorded at net realizable value (as was experienced in the third quarter of 2015) in future quarters—such increases predominantly expected to reflect the effects of volume associated with our point-of-sale, direct-to-consumer and credit card finance product offerings (i.e., growth of new product receivables), rather than credit quality changes or deterioration. See Note 2, “Significant Accounting Policies and Consolidated Financial Statement Components,” to our consolidated financial statements and the discussions of our Credit and Other Investments and Auto Finance segments for further credit quality statistics and analysis.

Total other operating expense. Total other operating expense variances for the year ended December 31, 2015, relative to the year ended December 31, 2014, reflect the following:


•	card and loan servicing expenses that were lower in 2015 based on lower originations for our rent-to-own products when compared to the same periods in 2014 as well as continued net liquidations in our credit card portfolios which declined from $93.9 million outstanding to $53.8 million outstanding at December 31, 2014 and 2015, respectively;

•

slight decreases in marketing costs for the year as our new product offerings require less direct-to-consumer marketing expenses than under our historical credit card operations coupled with reduced originations in these programs as discussed above, offset by expansions we have recently made in our marketing efforts that have resulted in increased marketing costs and are expected to result in increases in period over period costs for 2016;


•	decreased depreciation primarily associated with declines in originations under our rent-to-own program, totaling $38.6 million and $63.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively, as well as

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impairments of $2.7 million associated with software development costs in 2014 as planned uses for this software were discontinued with no corresponding impairment in 2015; and

•

decreases in other expenses due to a £3.0 million ($4.7 million) accrual in 2014 related to a provision associated with a review in the U.K. by HM Revenue and Customs ("HMRC") associated with filings by one of our U.K. subsidiaries to reclaim VAT that it paid on its inputs and that it believed were and are eligible to be reclaimed with an additional £0.4 million ($0.6 million) accrual in 2015. In February of 2016, we received correspondence from HMRC stating that it (1) had chosen to discontinue its review of our U.K. subsidiary’s VAT filings with no changes to the returns as filed by our U.K. subsidiary, and (2) would be refunding VAT refund claims made by our U.K. subsidiary that had been suspended during the HMRC review. As of the date of this report, we have received substantially all of such refunds, and we will be reversing in the first quarter of 2016 the £3.4 million ($5.0 million) of VAT review-related liabilities that we had accrued on our December 31, 2015 consolidated balance sheet.

Offsetting these declines are:


•	general increases in other expenses including customer acquisition, underwriting costs and third party costs associated with ongoing information technology upgrades; and


•	slightly higher 2015 salaries and benefits costs resulting from growth in our new credit product offerings.

A portion of our operating costs are variable based on the levels of accounts we market and receivables we service (both for our own account and for others) and the pace and breadth of our search for, acquisition of and introduction of new business lines, products and services. However, a number of our operating costs are fixed and until recently have comprised a larger percentage of our total costs based on the ongoing contraction of our credit card and auto finance loans and fees receivable levels. This trend is gradually reversing, however, as we continue to grow our earning assets (including loans and fees receivable) based principally on growth of our point-of-sale finance product offerings and to a lesser extent, growth within our CAR operations. We continue to perform extensive reviews of all areas of our businesses for cost savings opportunities to better align our costs with our portfolio of managed receivables.

Notwithstanding our cost-control efforts and focus, we expect increased levels of expenditures associated with growth in our point-of-sale, direct-to-consumer and credit card product operations. While we have greater control over our variable expenses, it is difficult (as explained above) for us to appreciably reduce our fixed and other costs associated with an infrastructure (particularly within our Credit and Other Investments segment) that was built to support levels of managed receivables that are significantly higher than both our current levels and the levels that we expect to see in the near future. At this point, our Credit and Other Investments segment cash inflows are sufficient to cover its direct variable costs and a portion, but not all, of its share of overhead costs (including, for example, corporate-level executive and administrative costs and our convertible senior notes interest costs). As such, if we are unable to contain overhead costs or expand revenue-earning activities to levels commensurate with such costs, then, depending upon the earnings generated from our Auto Finance segment and our liquidating credit card portfolios, we may experience continuing pressure on our ability to achieve consistent profitability.

Noncontrolling interests. We reflect the ownership interests of noncontrolling holders of equity in our majority-owned subsidiaries as noncontrolling interests in our consolidated statements of operations. Unless we enter into significant new majority-owned subsidiary ventures with noncontrolling interest holders in the future, we expect to have negligible noncontrolling interests in our majority-owned subsidiaries and negligible allocations of income or loss to noncontrolling interest holders in future quarters.

Income Taxes. We experienced an effective income tax expense rate of 51.7% for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to an effective income tax benefit rate of 126.8% for the year ended December 31, 2014. Our effective income tax expense rate for the year ended December 31, 2015 reflects in part, the establishment of a valuation allowance against our U.K.-related deferred tax assets. Our effective income tax benefit rate for the year ended December 31, 2014 resulted principally from (1) changes in valuation allowances against income statement-oriented federal, foreign and state deferred tax assets with the most significant benefits related to the complete release of all federal tax-related valuation allowances and (2) the reversal of excess prior year interest accruals on our then-accrued prior year liabilities for uncertain tax positions, such reversal of excess interest accruals resulting from a favorable settlement (relative to accrued prior year liabilities for uncertain tax positions) reached with the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) in December 2014 and the favorable resolution of accrued prior year liabilities for uncertain state tax positions.

We report potential accrued interest and penalties related to both our accrued liabilities for uncertain tax positions and unpaid tax liabilities within our income tax benefit or expense line item on our consolidated statements of operations. We likewise report the reversal of such accrued interest and penalties within the income tax benefit or expense line item to the

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extent that we resolve our liabilities for uncertain tax positions or our unpaid tax liabilities in a manner favorable to our accruals therefor. Considering both the aforementioned accruals and reversals, we experienced net charges for interest and penalties of $0.3 million in 2015. During the year ended December 31, 2014, the effect of interest and penalties on our income tax benefit was a $8.9 million net increase in our income tax benefit (representing the net of the release of $11.2 million of prior year interest and penalty accruals associated with then-uncertain tax liabilities, $0.3 million of new accruals in 2014 associated with uncertain tax liabilities in 2014, and $2.0 million of accrued interest and penalties related to unpaid tax liabilities).

As referenced above, in December 2014, we reached a settlement with the IRS concerning the tax treatment of net operating losses that we incurred in 2007 and 2008 and carried back to obtain refunds of federal income taxes paid in earlier years dating back to 2003. The original agreed federal income tax assessment of $9.1 million from the settlement (which excluded interest), now stands at $7.3 million after the effects of (1) the IRS’s application of a $1.0 million overpayment from our 2014 federal income tax return against the assessed balance and (2) a $0.8 million offsetting claim that we made on an amended return in 2015 as permitted under the terms of the settlement and that was approved by the IRS also in 2015. Also as permitted under the settlement, we recently made additional claims on amended returns — claims which, if accepted, would eliminate all of the remaining $7.3 million outstanding assessment and result in a $0.6 million refund to us. The expected effect of our amended return filings is two-fold. First, it is our belief that the IRS will not pursue collections of the amounts for which we have asserted offsetting claims (i.e., all of the remaining $7.3 million assessment) until the final disposition of our amended return filings. Second, should the IRS accept some or all of the additional claims we have made, we would experience reversals of interest and penalty accruals we are currently making associated with the unpaid tax assessment; these accruals totaled $2.8 million as of December 31, 2015. Currently, the IRS is examining our additional amended return claims.

Our settlement with the IRS materially enhanced our 2014 reported income tax benefits in two ways as noted above. First, we released into 2014 income tax benefit prior year tax, interest and penalty liability accruals associated with then-uncertain tax positions that were resolved in a significantly favorable manner relative to the liabilities accrued therefor. Second, we reclassified to deferred tax liabilities as of December 31, 2014 significant levels of liabilities that had been classified as current liability accruals for uncertain tax positions as of December 31, 2013, thereby eliminating the need for valuation allowances that existed as of December 31, 2013 against net deferred tax assets at that date.

Credit and Other Investments Segment

Our Credit and Other Investments segment includes our activities relating to investments in and servicing of our Fortiva Retail Credit ("point-of-sale" operations), Fortiva Personal Loans and Fortiva Credit Cards (collectively our "direct-to-consumer" operations) and our various credit card receivables portfolios, as well as other product testing and investments that generally utilize much of the same infrastructure.

The types of revenues we earn from our products and services primarily include finance charges, fees and the accretion of discounts associated with our point-of-sale product offerings. Also, while insignificant currently, revenues also have included credit card fees associated with (1) our sale of ancillary products such as memberships, subscription services and debt waiver, and (2) interchange fees representing a portion of the merchant fee assessed by card associations based on cardholder purchase volumes underlying credit card receivables.

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We record (i) the finance charges, discount accretion and late fees assessed on our Credit and Other Investments segment credit products in the interest income - consumer loans, including past due fees category on our consolidated statements of operations, (ii) the rental revenue, over-limit, annual, activation, monthly maintenance, returned-check, cash advance and other fees in the fees and related income on earning assets category on our consolidated statements of operations, and (iii) the charge offs (and recoveries thereof) within our provision for losses on loans and fees receivable on our consolidated statements of operations (for all credit product receivables other than those for which we have elected the fair value option) and within losses upon charge off of loans and fees receivable recorded at fair value on our consolidated statements of operations (for all of our other receivables for which we have elected the fair value option). Additionally, we show the effects of fair value changes for those credit card receivables for which we have elected the fair value option as a component of fees and related income on earning assets in our consolidated statements of operations.

Depreciation expense associated with rental merchandise (totaling $38.6 million and $63.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively) for which we receive rental revenue is included as a component of our overall depreciation in our consolidated statements of operations. We expect continued reductions in our depreciation of rental merchandise as we have made changes in our underwriting and approval criteria surrounding originations in various merchandise categories that comprised a significant component of new originations in the third quarter of 2015 and we expect to significantly limit new originations for this product in 2016. This change in underwriting and approval criteria and corresponding reduction in new originations also will result in significant reductions of our rental revenue as current rental contracts expire and are not renewed.

We historically have originated and purchased credit portfolios through subsidiary entities. If we control through direct ownership or exert a controlling interest in the entity, we consolidate it and reflect its operations as noted above. If we exert significant influence but do not control the entity, we record our share of its net operating results in the equity in income of equity-method investees category on our consolidated statements of operations.

Managed Receivables

We make various references within our discussion of the Credit and Other Investments segment to our managed receivables. In calculating managed receivables data, we include within managed receivables those receivables we manage for our consolidated subsidiaries, but we exclude from managed receivables any noncontrolling interest holders’ shares of the receivables. Additionally, we include within managed receivables only our economic share of the receivables that we manage for our equity-method investees.

Financial, operating and statistical data based on aggregate managed receivables are important to any evaluation of the performance of our credit portfolios, including our underwriting, servicing and collection activities and our valuing of purchased receivables. In allocating our resources and managing our business, management relies heavily upon financial data and results prepared on this “managed basis.” Analysts, investors and others also consider it important that we provide selected financial, operating and statistical data on a managed basis because this allows a comparison of us to others within the specialty finance industry. Moreover, our management, analysts, investors and others believe it is critical that they understand the credit performance of the entire portfolio of our managed receivables because it reveals information concerning the quality of loan originations and the related credit risks inherent within the portfolios.

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Reconciliation of the managed receivables data to our GAAP financial statements requires: (1) an understanding that our managed receivables data are based on billings and actual charge offs as they occur, without regard to any changes in our allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable or any changes in the fair value of loans and fees receivable and their associated structured financing notes; (2) inclusion of our economic share of (or equity interest in) the receivables we manage for our equity-method investees; (3) removal of any noncontrolling interest holders’ shares of the managed receivables underlying our GAAP consolidated results; (4) treatment of the transaction in which our 50%-owned equity-method investee acquired our structured financing trust notes (a) as a deemed sale of the trust receivables at their face amount, (b) followed by the 50%-owned equity-method investee’s deemed repurchase of such receivables for consideration equal to the discounted purchase price that it paid for the notes, and (c) as though the difference between the deemed face amount and the deemed discounted repurchase price of the receivables is to be treated as credit quality discount to be accreted into managed earnings as a reduction of net charge offs over the remaining life of the receivables; and (5) the exclusion from our managed receivables data of certain reimbursements received in respect of one of our portfolios which resulted in pre-tax income benefits within our total interest income, fees and related income on earning assets, losses upon charge off of loans and fees receivable recorded at fair value, net of recoveries, other income, servicing income, and equity in income of equity-method investees line items on our consolidated statements of operations totaling approximately $10.7 million for the three months ended December 31, 2015, $11.4 million for the three months ended September 30, 2015, $10.7 million for the three months ended June 30, 2015, $12.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2015, $8.0 million for the three months ended December 31, 2014, $2.7 million for the three months ended September 30, 2014, $3.7 million for the three months ended June 30, 2014, and $3.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2014. This last category of reconciling items above is excluded because it does not bear on our performance in managing our credit card portfolios, including our underwriting, servicing and collection activities and our valuing of purchased receivables; moreover, it is difficult to determine the future effects of any such reimbursements that may be received.

We typically have purchased credit card receivables portfolios at substantial discounts. In our managed basis statistical data, we apply a portion of these discounts against receivables acquired for which charge off is considered likely, including accounts in late stages of delinquency at the date of acquisition; this portion is measured based on our acquisition date estimate of the shortfall of cash flows expected to be collected on the acquired portfolios relative to the face amount of receivables represented within the acquired portfolios. We refer to the balance of the discount for each purchase not needed for credit quality as accretable yield, which we accrete into total yield in our managed basis statistical data using the interest method over the estimated life of each acquired portfolio. As of the close of each financial reporting period, we evaluate the appropriateness of the credit quality discount component and the accretable yield component of our acquisition discount based on actual and projected future cash flows.

Asset quality. Our delinquency and charge-off data at any point in time reflect the credit performance of our managed receivables. The average age of the accounts underlying our receivables, the timing of portfolio purchases, the success of our collection and recovery efforts and general economic conditions all affect our delinquency and charge-off rates. The average age of the accounts underlying our receivables portfolio also affects the stability of our delinquency and loss rates. We consider this delinquency and charge-off data in our determination of the fair value of our credit card receivables underlying formerly off-balance-sheet securitization structures, as well as our allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable in the case of our other credit product receivables that we report at net realizable value. Our strategy for managing delinquency and receivables losses consists of account management throughout the customer relationship. This strategy includes credit line management and pricing based on the risks. See also our discussion of collection strategies under the “How Do We Collect from Our Customers?” in Item 1, “Business.”

The following table presents the delinquency trends of the receivables we manage within our Credit and Other Investments segment, as well as charge-off data and other managed receivables statistics (in thousands; percentages of total):

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	At or for the Three Months Ended
	2015								2014
	Dec. 31		Sept. 30		Jun. 30		Mar. 31		Dec. 31		Sept. 30		Jun. 30		Mar. 31
Period-end managed receivables	$152,528		$151,055		$142,338		$140,660		$157,145		$186,564		$200,147		$215,182
Percent 30 or more days past due	11.5	%	10.5	%	11.8	%	10.1	%	13.6	%	11.2	%	11.2	%	12.0	%
Percent 60 or more days past due	7.9	%	7.2	%	8.8	%	7.5	%	9.8	%	8.3	%	8.1	%	9.2	%
Percent 90 or more days past due	5.4	%	5.0	%	4.9	%	5.4	%	6.9	%	5.8	%	5.7	%	6.7	%
Average managed receivables	$152,983		$143,946		$139,401		$146,792		$173,553		$194,272		$206,657		$227,109
Total yield ratio	35.2	%	41.3	%	38.1	%	38.3	%	63.3	%	42.6	%	38.4	%	45.4	%
Combined gross charge-off ratio	16.8	%	21.5	%	17.4	%	23.8	%	21.4	%	21.4	%	25.5	%	23.8	%
Adjusted charge-off ratio	12.9	%	16.5	%	13.2	%	19.2	%	16.4	%	17.7	%	21.3	%	19.8	%

Managed receivables levels. The 2014 quarterly declines in our period-end and average managed receivables (when compared to the same quarters in prior period) reflect the net liquidating state of our historical credit card receivables portfolios given our closure of substantially all credit card accounts underlying the portfolios. Nevertheless, because of the receivables growth we have experienced and expect to continue to experience over the coming quarters associated with our Fortiva finance offerings, we experienced overall quarterly growth throughout 2015. Managed receivables declines in the fourth quarter of 2014 were exaggerated by our distribution of certain assets to an unrelated third-party partner in a joint venture for its interest. Growth in future periods largely is dependent on the addition of new retail partners for our point-of-sale operations as well as the timing of solicitations within our direct-to-consumer Fortiva operations. Based on this, we expect managed receivables levels to grow modestly from current levels throughout 2016 in conjunction with planned solicitation mailings and the expected addition of U.S. credit card originations which we are currently testing.

Delinquencies. Delinquencies have the potential to impact net income in the form of net credit losses. Delinquencies also are costly in terms of the personnel and resources dedicated to resolving them. We intend for the account management strategies we use on our portfolios to manage and, to the extent possible, reduce the higher delinquency rates that can be expected in a more mature managed portfolio such as ours. These account management strategies include conservative credit line management, purging of inactive accounts and collection strategies intended to optimize the effective account-to-collector ratio across delinquency categories. We measure the success of these efforts by measuring delinquency rates. These rates exclude accounts that have been charged off.

Given that the vast majority of credit card accounts related to our historical credit card receivables have been closed and there has been no significant new activity for these accounts in the past several quarters, we have noted declines in our delinquency statistics of our managed credit card receivables (when compared to the same quarters in prior period). The initial trend of increasing delinquency rates noted above is primarily due to growth in our point-of-sale finance operations, which experience higher delinquency rates than those of our liquidating credit card portfolios. Additionally, our historical credit card originations in the U.K. have experienced higher than average delinquency rates. As these U.K. credit card receivables continue to liquidate, the associated higher delinquencies will impact our overall delinquency rates to a lesser degree as evidenced by the slight declines in the third and fourth quarters of 2015.

We expect our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance and other new product offerings to become a larger component of our managed receivables base, given the acceleration of growth in these products. Further, we expect our delinquency rates to increase slightly (when compared to periods during which credit cards made up a larger portion of our managed receivables) as the risk profiles (and thus expected returns) for these receivables are higher than that experienced under our current mix of largely mature credit card receivables underlying closed credit card accounts. Additionally, seasonal payment patterns on these receivables are similar to those experienced with our historical credit card originations and we expect those patterns to continue. For example, delinquency rates historically are lower in the first quarter of each year as seen above due to the benefits of seasonally strong payment patterns associated with year-end tax refunds for most of our customers.

Total yield ratio. As noted previously, the mix of our managed receivables has shifted away from certain higher-yielding credit card receivables. Those particular originated receivables have higher delinquency rates and late and over-limit

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fee assessments than do our other portfolios, and thus have higher total yield ratios as well. Additionally, our total yield ratio has been adversely affected over the past several quarters by our Non-U.S. Acquired Portfolio acquisition. Its total yields are below average compared to our other portfolios although the impacts of this portfolio are declining as its receivables continue to liquidate.

Offsetting the historical impacts noted above is growth in our newer, higher yielding products, including our point-of-sale finance product. While this growth has contributed to increases in our total yield ratio, we expect this growth will slow or even modestly reverse the trend of our declining charge-off rates as discussed above because we expect these accounts to season, mature, and charge off at higher rates than we currently experience on our liquidating pool of credit card receivables associated with closed credit card accounts. We anticipate continued growth in our higher yielding point-of-sale products over the next few quarters and continued accretive effects of this growth on our total yield ratios.

Although we have seen generally improving total yield ratio trend-lines, our first, third and fourth quarter 2014 total yield ratios were also positively impacted by the decline in the managed receivables base discussed above as well as recoveries on investments in securities in excess of their carrying value and our repurchase of convertible senior notes in the fourth quarter of 2014. Similarly, our third quarter 2015 total yield ratio was positively impacted by the recovery of approximately $2.0 million associated with a receivable that was fully reserved in a prior period. Absent these items, our total yield ratio would have been 35.8%, 41.6%, 38.0% and 35.6% in the third quarter of 2015 and the first, third and fourth quarters of 2014, respectively.

Combined gross charge-off ratio and Adjusted charge-off ratio. We charge off our Credit and Other Investments segment receivables when they become contractually more than 180 days past due or 120 days past due for the point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance products. For our rent-to-own products, we charge off receivables and impair associated rental merchandise if the customer has not made a payment within the previous 90 days. However, if a customer makes a payment greater than or equal to two minimum payments within a month of the charge-off date, we may reconsider whether charge-off status remains appropriate. For all of our products, we charge off receivables within 30 days of notification and confirmation of a customer’s bankruptcy or death. However, in some cases of death, we do not charge off receivables if there is a surviving, contractually liable individual or an estate large enough to pay the debt in full.

Certain of our prior originated credit card offerings have higher charge offs relative to their average managed receivables balances, than do our other portfolios. Due to the recent higher rate of decline in these particular originated receivables relative to all of our other outstanding credit card receivables, as well as the longer weighted average age and maturity of our remaining managed receivables portfolio, all things being equal, one would expect reduced charge-off ratios for these receivables. However, this trend has been muted to some degree simply due to a change in the mix of our receivable balances due to growth within our point-of-sale finance operations that have higher charge-off rates than the liquidating credit card portfolios as well as increased charge-offs associated with credit card origination efforts in the U.K. The decline we experienced in the second quarter of 2015 in both our combined and adjusted gross charge-off ratios was largely due to the seasonal beneficial impacts associated with customer payments experienced in the first quarter of 2015. Additionally, negatively impacting the charge-off ratios in the first quarter of 2015 (and thus magnifying the decline in charge-off ratios noted in the second quarter) were higher than anticipated charge-offs associated with one of our retail channels.

The continued growth in our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance operations continues to result in higher charge-off ratios than those experienced historically. In the next few quarters, we expect increasing charge off rates on a period-over-period comparison basis. This expectation is based on (1) the age, maturity and stability of our portfolio of generally liquidating receivables associated with closed credit card accounts, (2) higher expected charge off rates on our new product offerings, offset by lower charge offs associated with historical credit card originations in the U.K. due to the cessation of marketing efforts for this product, (3) the low charge-off ratios experienced in the second quarter of 2015 as discussed above and (4) an overall decline in the managed receivables base as discussed above.

Rental Merchandise

The following table presents certain trends associated with our merchandise leasing activities within our Credit and Other Investments segment (in thousands; percentages of total):

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			At or for the three months ended
	2015								2014
	Dec. 31		Sept. 30		Jun. 30		Mar. 31		Dec. 31		Sept. 30		Jun. 30		Mar. 31
Period-end rental merchandise, net of accumulated amortization	$4,666		$9,230		$12,006		$10,357		$14,177		$12,268		$11,082		$22,052
Average rental merchandise, net of accumulated amortization	$7,023		$10,789		$11,045		$12,186		$13,292		$11,845		$15,485		$29,047
Other (loss) income ratio	3.3	%	(28.7	)%	(17.6	)%	(78.0	)%	(50.3	)%	37.9	%	(21.4	)%	(45.1	)%

Average rental merchandise. Rental merchandise offerings are a diminishing part of our point-of-sale finance suite of products. Our merchandise leasing activities accelerated late in 2013, and prior to that quarter, we had no significant experience or trends with this particular type of product. As is noted in the table above, our rental merchandise has declined from levels experienced at year end 2013. Key drivers of this decline include: 1) depreciation of existing rental merchandise coupled with a decline in new originations due to the disruption of new account originations discussed above; 2) accelerated depreciation of certain rental merchandise due to early payoffs of outstanding rental contracts related to early payment incentives and seasonally strong payment patterns associated with year-end tax-refunds for most of our customers and 3) accelerated depreciation of certain rental merchandise due to impairments associated with accounts where the customer has not made a payment within the previous 90 days. We expect continued reductions in our outstanding period-end rental merchandise given the third quarter 2015 changes we made in our underwriting and approval criteria surrounding originations within various merchandise categories that comprised a significant component of new originations. While we believe that rental merchandise offerings continue to offer a valuable payment option for our retail partners and their customers, this change in underwriting and approval criteria also will result in significant reductions of our rental revenue as current rental contracts expire and are not renewed and we expect to significantly limit new originations in 2016.

Other (loss) income ratio. The numerator of our other (loss) income ratio equals gross revenues associated with our leasing activities less depreciation of our rental merchandise. The denominator of our other (loss) income ratio equals average rental merchandise as disclosed in the table above. The timing of new account originations significantly impacts our quarterly ratios either through rapid growth or a period of slow growth, as occurred during the second quarter of 2014 for the reasons discussed above. The disruption in new account originations and the impact of early payoffs mentioned above resulted in an other loss ratio for the first and second quarters of 2014, as our rental merchandise balance and related payments declined. As a customer's previous rental payments (which are treated as rental revenues and included as a component of our other income ratio in the period they are credited to a customer's account) are applied when determining an early payoff amount, these early payoff amounts are often for less than the remaining book value of the associated depreciable asset, negatively impacting our other (loss) income ratio. This trend reversed in the third quarter of 2014 as our fourth quarter 2013 and first quarter 2014 vintages substantially passed their early payoff and peak charge-off periods. The loss ratios we experienced in the fourth quarter of 2014 and throughout 2015 were similarly due to higher than anticipated early payoffs and charge-offs on accounts originated in prior periods. The lower other (loss) income ratios experienced in the second and third quarters of 2015 were largely attributable to the continued seasoning of larger historic vintages and continued improvements to both our consumer underwriting and retail merchant agreements, both of which impact the amount of receivables originated with any particular merchant. Due to the decline in originations, we experienced a positive other income ratio in the fourth quarter of 2015 as larger historic vintages passed their early payoff and peak charge-off periods. Based on the aforementioned declines in our rental merchandise originations, we expect our other income ratio to continue to improve as existing vintages season and new originations are expected to decline.

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Auto Finance Segment

Our Auto Finance segment historically included a variety of auto sales and lending activities.

Our original platform, CAR, acquired in April 2005, principally purchases and/or services loans secured by automobiles from or for, and also provides floor-plan financing for, a pre-qualified network of independent automotive dealers and automotive finance companies in the buy-here, pay-here used car business. We have expanded these operations to also include certain installment lending products in addition to our traditional loans secured by automobiles. While not currently material, these loans could represent a meaningful investment in the future.

Additionally, our ACC platform acquired during 2007 historically purchased retail installment contracts from franchised car dealers. We ceased origination efforts within the ACC platform during 2009 and outsourced the collection of its portfolio of auto finance receivables. In February 2015, we sold our remaining interest in the ACC portfolio of receivables for an immaterial amount.

Collectively, as of December 31, 2015, we served more than 590 dealers through our Auto Finance segment in 34 states, the District of Columbia and two U.S. territories.

Managed Receivables Background

For reasons set forth above within our Credit and Other Investments segment discussion, we also provide managed receivables-based financial, operating and statistical data for our Auto Finance segment. Reconciliation of the auto finance managed receivables data to our GAAP financial statements requires an understanding that our managed receivables data are based on billings and actual charge offs as they occur, without regard to any changes in our allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable.

Analysis of Statistical Data

Financial, operating and statistical metrics for our Auto Finance segment are detailed (in thousands; percentages of total) in the following table:



				At or for the Three Months Ended
	2015												2014
	Dec. 31			Sept. 30			Jun. 30			Mar. 31			Dec. 31			Sept. 30			Jun. 30			Mar. 31
Period-end managed receivables	$	77,833		$	75,428		$	78,342		$	73,371		$	69,832		$	68,102		$	64,000		$	59,440
Percent 30 or more days past due	14.0		%	13.3		%	13.5		%	10.7		%	14.5		%	14.3		%	14.6		%	11.0		%
Percent 60 or more days past due	5.5		%	5.3		%	5.6		%	4.4		%	5.5		%	5.7		%	5.1		%	4.4		%
Percent 90 or more days past due	2.5		%	2.6		%	2.5		%	2.1		%	2.5		%	2.7		%	1.8		%	1.9		%
Average managed receivables	$	76,413		$	75,987		$	77,182		$	72,258		$	68,418		$	66,428		$	62,475		$	60,949
Total yield ratio	38.3		%	38.2		%	37.6		%	39.2		%	39.1		%	39.2		%	39.1		%	38.5		%
Combined gross charge-off ratio	3.3		%	3.0		%	1.9		%	0.5		%	4.7		%	2.2		%	0.5		%	1.0		%
Recovery ratio	1.6		%	1.3		%	0.6		%	1.5		%	3.3		%	1.5		%	2.1		%	2.1		%

Managed receivables. For all of the periods set forth above, only CAR continues to purchase/originate loans, but until the second quarter of 2014, it had not done so at growth levels significant enough to consistently offset the gradual liquidation of our ACC portfolios’ managed receivables. ACC managed receivables are liquidated at this point, and we are beginning to see and expect stability in the level of our managed receivables, with growth through receivable purchase opportunities in the U.S. and U.S. territories, as occurred during 2014 and which continued through 2015. Although we are expanding our CAR operations, the Auto Finance segment faces strong competition from other specialty finance lenders, as well as the indirect effects on us of our buy-here, pay-here dealership customers' competition with more traditional franchise dealerships for

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consumers interested in purchasing automobiles. We expect managed receivable levels to continue to grow slightly from current levels during 2016 as we continue to expand our operations in the U.S. and U.S. territories.

Delinquencies. Current delinquency levels we are experiencing represent what we would expect going forward with some marginal increases noted within the overall buy-here pay-here market. Delinquency rates historically are lower in the first quarter of each year as seen above due to the benefits of seasonally strong payment patterns associated with year-end tax refunds for most of our customers. We are not concerned with modest fluctuations in delinquency rates and do not believe they will have a significantly positive or adverse impact on our results of operations; even at slightly elevated rates, we earn significant yields on CAR’s receivables and have significant dealer reserves (i.e., retainages or holdbacks on the amount of funding CAR provides to its dealer customers) to protect against meaningful credit losses.

Total yield ratio. We have experienced modest fluctuations in our total yield ratio largely impacted by the relative mix of receivables in our various products offered by CAR as some shorter term product offerings tend to have higher yields. Slightly depressing the overall total yield ratio is the growth we continue to experience in the average managed receivables levels which negatively impacts the ratio ahead of the positive impacts of associated billed yield on this growth. Yields on our CAR products over the last few quarters are consistent with our expectations and we expect our total yield ratio to remain in line with current experience. Excluded from our total yield ratio is the resolution of an outstanding dispute that resulted in the recovery of approximately $2.0 million associated with a receivable that was fully reserved in a prior period.

Combined gross charge-off ratio and recovery ratio. We charge off auto finance receivables when they are between 120 and 180 days past due, unless the collateral is repossessed and sold before that point, in which case we will record a charge off when the proceeds are received. The combined gross charge-off ratio represents an annualized fraction the numerator of which is the aggregate amounts of finance charge, fee and principal losses from customers unwilling or unable to pay their receivables balances, as well as from bankrupt and deceased customers, less current-period recoveries (including recoveries from dealer reserve offsets), and the denominator of which is average managed receivables. Because our ACC receivables have declined and are now largely insignificant relative to our total portfolio of auto finance receivables, our combined gross charge-off ratio declined significantly in the first quarter of 2014. Additionally benefiting the second quarter of 2014 were larger than expected recoveries associated with our ACC receivables that further reduced our combined gross charge-off ratio. The rise in our combined gross charge-off ratio in the fourth quarter of 2014 was due to specific dealer related losses that accounted for substantially all of the increase for the quarter. While we anticipate our charge-offs to be incurred ratably across our portfolio of dealers, specific dealer related losses are difficult to predict and can negatively influence our combined gross charge-off ratio as was seen in the fourth quarter of 2014. We continually re-assess our dealers and will take appropriate action if we believe a particular dealer's risk characteristics adversely change. Significantly all charge offs we experienced in the first and second quarters of 2015 were offset by available dealer reserves resulting in lower charge-off ratios for those periods. While we have appropriate dealer reserves to mitigate losses across the majority of our pool of receivables, the timing of recognition of these reserves as an offset to charge offs is largely dependent on various factors specific to each of our dealer partners including ongoing purchase volumes, outstanding balances of receivables and current performance of outstanding loans. As such, the timing of charge off offsets is difficult to predict, however we believe that these reserves are adequate to offset any loss exposure we may incur. Additionally, the products we issue in the U.S. territories do not have dealer reserves with which we can offset losses. As our investments in these loans grow we expect that gross charge-off rates will climb slightly over existing rates. We expect our recovery rate to fluctuate modestly from quarter to quarter due to the timing of the sale of repossessed autos.

LIQUIDITY, FUNDING AND CAPITAL RESOURCES

Until the third quarter of 2013, we experienced net liquidations of our managed receivables at faster rates than we were able to reduce our costs. This resulted from the significant level of fixed infrastructure costs that had been designed to support our significant legacy credit card lending operations. Our infrastructure costs are still somewhat elevated, and while we had in the past been focused on cost reduction, our primary focus now is on growing our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer finance offerings so that our revenues from these product offerings can cover our infrastructure costs and return us to consistent profitability. This growth was delayed late in the first quarter of 2014 as a significant retail partner in our point-of-sale operations underwent a product shift that resulted in the temporary suspension of new account originations with us for our retail installment lending product. This disruption lasted into the second quarter of 2014; however, growth through new and existing retail channels has resulted in quarterly growth of the total managed receivables levels.

Accordingly, we will continue to focus in the coming quarters on (i) containing costs (as opposed to our previous focus on reducing expenses) (ii) obtaining new retail partners and channels to continue growth of our point-of-sale finance offerings (iii) continuing growth in our direct-to-consumer operations and (iv) obtaining the funding necessary to meet capital

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needs required by the growth of our new product offerings and to cover our infrastructure costs until our new product offerings generate enough revenues and cash flows to cover such costs.

All of our Credit and Other Investments segment’s structured financing facilities are expected to amortize down with collections on the receivables within their underlying trusts and should not represent significant refunding or refinancing risks to our consolidated balance sheet. Additionally, we do not expect any imminent refunding or financing needs associated with our 5.875% convertible senior notes given their maturity in 2035. In May 2015 we redeemed the remainder of the outstanding 3.625% convertible senior notes. As such, the only facilities that could represent significant refunding or refinancing needs as of December 31, 2015 are those associated with the following notes payable in the amounts indicated (in millions):



Revolving credit facility (expiring October 4, 2017) that is secured by the financial and operating assets of our CAR operations	$	28.9
Senior secured term loan from related parties (expiring November 22, 2016) that is secured by certain assets of the Company with an annual rate equal to 9.0%	20.0
Total	$	48.9

Further details concerning the above debt facilities are provided in Note 9, “Notes Payable,” and Note 10, “Convertible Senior Notes,” to our consolidated financial statements included herein. Based on the state of the debt capital markets, the performance of our assets that serve as security for the above facilities, and our relationships with lenders, we view imminent refunding or refinancing risks with respect to the above facilities as low in the current environment, and we believe that the quality of our new product offering assets should allow us to raise more capital through increasing the size of our facilities with our existing lenders and attracting new lending relationships.

We reached a settlement with the IRS concerning the tax treatment of net operating losses that we incurred in 2007 and 2008 and carried back to obtain refunds of federal income taxes paid in earlier years dating back to 2003. The original agreed federal income tax assessment of $9.1 million from the settlement (which excluded interest), now stands at $7.3 million after the effects of (1) the IRS’s application of a $1.0 million overpayment from our 2014 federal income tax return against the assessed balance and (2) a $0.8 million offsetting claim that we made on an amended return in 2015 as permitted under the terms of the settlement and that was approved by the IRS. Also as permitted under the settlement, we recently made additional claims on amended returns — claims which, if accepted, would eliminate all of the remaining $7.3 million outstanding assessment and result in a $0.6 million refund to us. The expected effect of our amended return filings is two-fold. First, it is our belief that the IRS will not pursue collections of the amounts for which we have asserted offsetting claims (i.e., all of the remaining $7.3 million assessment) until the final disposition of our amended return filings. Second, should the IRS accept some or all of the additional claims we have made, we would experience reversals of interest and penalty accruals we are currently making associated with the unpaid tax assessment; these accruals totaled $2.8 million as of December 31, 2015. Currently, the IRS is examining our additional amended return claims.

At December 31, 2015, we had $51.0 million in unrestricted cash held by our various business subsidiaries. Because the characteristics of our assets and liabilities change, liquidity management has been a dynamic process for us, driven by the pricing and maturity of our assets and liabilities. We historically have financed our business through cash flows from operations, asset-backed structured financings and the issuance of debt and equity. Details concerning our cash flows for the twelve months ended December 31, 2015 are as follows:

•

During the twelve months ended December 31, 2015, we generated $0.9 million of cash flows from operations compared to the use of $20.7 million of cash flows from operations during the twelve months ended December 31, 2014. The decrease in use was principally related to 1) reductions in purchases of rental merchandise associated with our point-of-sale finance operations, 2) cost reductions we implemented throughout 2014, 3) collections associated with reimbursements received in respect of one of our portfolios, and 4) the receipt of approximately $2.0 million in the third quarter of 2015 as a result of the resolution of an outstanding dispute. These decreases in cash used were offset by decreases in collections associated with our credit card finance charge receivables in the twelve months ended December 31, 2015 relative to the same period in 2014, given diminished receivables levels.

•

During the twelve months ended December 31, 2015, we generated $14.5 million of cash from our investing activities, compared to generating $29.2 million of cash from investing activities during the twelve months ended December 31, 2014. This decrease is primarily due to increasing levels of investments in our point-of-sale and direct-to-consumer assets relative to the same period in 2014 and the shrinking size of our liquidating credit card portfolios and corresponding payments from customers. Offsetting these declines are the subsequent cash returns on our increasing investments in point-of-sale and direct to consumer receivables as well as reductions in our restricted cash levels, both of which contributed positively to our cash generated from investing activities.

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•

During the twelve months ended December 31, 2015, we used $3.6 million of cash in financing activities, compared to our use of $18.4 million of cash in financing activities during the twelve months ended December 31, 2014. In both periods, the data reflect net repayments of debt facilities corresponding with net declines in our loans and fees receivable that serve as the underlying collateral for the facilities (principally credit card and auto loans and fees receivable). Offsetting our use of cash in financing activities for both years are borrowings associated with our new credit products, net of repayments on those facilities.

Beyond our immediate financing efforts discussed throughout this Report, we will continue to evaluate debt and equity issuances as a means to fund our investment opportunities. We expect to take advantage of any opportunities to raise additional capital if terms and pricing are attractive to us. Any proceeds raised under these efforts or additional liquidity available to us could be used to fund (1) the acquisition of additional financial assets associated with our point-of-sale, direct-to-consumer finance and credit card origination activities as well as the acquisition of credit card receivables portfolios, (2) further repurchases of our 5.875% convertible senior notes and common stock, and (3) investments in certain financial and non-financial assets or businesses. Pursuant to a share repurchase plan authorized by our Board of Directors on May 9, 2014, we are authorized as of December 31, 2015 to repurchase an additional 4,892,760 shares of our common stock through June 30, 2016.

CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS, COMMITMENTS AND OFF-BALANCE-SHEET ARRANGEMENTS

Commitments and Contingencies

We do not currently have any off-balance-sheet arrangements; however, we do have certain contractual arrangements that would require us to make payments or provide funding if certain circumstances occur, which we refer to as contingent commitments. We do not currently expect that these contingent commitments will result in any material amounts being paid by us. See Note 11, “Commitments and Contingencies,” to our consolidated financial statements included herein for further discussion of these matters.

RECENT ACCOUNTING PRONOUNCEMENTS

See Note 2, “Significant Accounting Policies and Consolidated Financial Statement Components,” to our consolidated financial statements included herein for a discussion of recent accounting pronouncements.

CRITICAL ACCOUNTING ESTIMATES

We have prepared our financial statements in accordance with GAAP. These principles are numerous and complex. We have summarized our significant accounting policies in the notes to our consolidated financial statements. In many instances, the application of GAAP requires management to make estimates or to apply subjective principles to particular facts and circumstances. A variance in the estimates used or a variance in the application or interpretation of GAAP could yield a materially different accounting result. It is impracticable for us to summarize every accounting principle that requires us to use judgment or estimates in our application. Nevertheless, we describe below the areas for which we believe that the estimations, judgments or interpretations that we have made, if different, would have yielded the most significant differences in our consolidated financial statements.

On a quarterly basis, we review our significant accounting policies and the related assumptions, in particular, those mentioned below, with the audit committee of the Board of Directors.

Measurements for Loans and Fees Receivable at Fair Value and Notes Payable Associated with Structured Financings at Fair Value

Our valuation of loans and fees receivable, at fair value is based on the present value of future cash flows using a valuation model of expected cash flows and the estimated cost to service and collect those cash flows. We estimate the present value of these future cash flows using a valuation model consisting of internally developed estimates of assumptions third-party market participants would use in determining fair value, including estimates of net collected yield, principal payment rates, expected principal credit loss rates, costs of funds, discount rates and servicing costs. Similarly, our valuation of notes payable associated with structured financings, at fair value is based on the present value of future cash flows utilized in repayment of the outstanding principal and interest under the facilities using a valuation model of expected cash flows net of the contractual service expenses within the facilities. We estimate the present value of these future cash flows using a valuation model consisting of internally developed estimates of assumptions third-party market participants would use in determining fair value,

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including: estimates of net collected yield, principal payment rates and expected principal credit loss rates on the credit card receivables that secure the non-recourse notes payable; costs of funds; discount rates; and contractual servicing fees.

The estimates for credit losses, payment rates, servicing costs, contractual servicing fees, costs of funds, discount rates and yields earned on credit card receivables significantly affect the reported amount of our loans and fees receivable, at fair value and our notes payable associated with structured financings, at fair value on our consolidated balance sheet, and they likewise affect our changes in fair value of loans and fees receivable recorded at fair value and changes in fair value of notes payable associated with structured financings recorded at fair value categories within our fees and related income on earning assets line item on our consolidated statement of operations.

Allowance for Uncollectible Loans and Fees

Through our analysis of loan performance, delinquency data, charge-off data, economic trends and the potential effects of those economic trends on our customers, we establish an allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable as an estimate of the probable losses inherent within those loans and fees receivable that we do not report at fair value. To the extent that actual results differ from our estimates of uncollectible loans and fees receivable, our results of operations and liquidity could be materially affected.

Rental Merchandise

Our rental merchandise includes consumer electronics, furniture, jewelry and other consumer goods that we initially record on our consolidated balance sheets at our cost. After our initial recording of the rental merchandise at cost, we reduce its carrying value for depreciation thereof. We depreciate our rental merchandise over contract rental periods, 12 months (monthly agreements) or 26 periods (bi-weekly agreements) under a $-0- salvage value assumption. These assumptions are periodically adjusted based on actual results and impairments as they occur. We follow this method to match, as closely as practicable, the recognition of depreciation expense with revenues associated with our customers' use of the rental merchandise. Currently, we do not maintain any levels of rental merchandise beyond what actually has been rented to our customers under our contracts with them.

Revenue Recognition for Rental Merchandise

Our rent-to-own terms with our customers typically provide for 26, non-refundable, bi-weekly rental payments over a contract period of 12 months. The customer can take ownership of the merchandise by exercising a purchase option or making all required rental payments. We accrue periodic billed rental amounts (net of allowances for uncollectible billings) into revenues over the rental period to which the billed amounts relate, and we defer recognition in revenues of any advanced customer rental payments until the rental period in which they are properly recognizable under the terms of the contract. Additionally, we do not recognize a receivable for future periods' rental obligations due to us from our customers as our customers can terminate their rental agreements at any time with no further obligation to us, other than the return of rental merchandise.

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ITEM 7A.	QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK

As a “smaller reporting company,” as defined by Item 10 of Regulation S-K, we are not required to provide this information.



ITEM 8.	FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

See the Index to Financial Statements in Item 15, “Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules.”



ITEM 9.	CHANGES IN AND DISAGREEMENTS WITH ACCOUNTANTS ON ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE

None.



ITEM 9A.	CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

As of December 31, 2015, an evaluation of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rule 13a-15(e) under the Act) was carried out on behalf of Atlanticus Holdings Corporation and our subsidiaries by our management and with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer (principal executive officer) and Chief Financial Officer (principal financial officer). Based upon the evaluation, our principal executive officer and principal financial officer concluded that these disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of December 31, 2015.

Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Management of Atlanticus Holdings Corporation is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting (as such term is defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Act) for Atlanticus Holdings Corporation and our subsidiaries. Our management conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2015, based on the framework in Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (“COSO”) Internal Control-Integrated Framework (2013 framework).

Based on our evaluation under the COSO 2013 framework, management has concluded that internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 31, 2015.

This Annual Report does not include an attestation report of our independent public accounting firm regarding internal control over financial reporting. Management’s report is not subject to attestation by our independent public accounting firm pursuant to SEC rules that permit us to provide only management’s report in this Annual Report.

Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

During the quarter ended December 31, 2015, no change in our internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Act) occurred that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Limitations on Controls

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.



ITEM 9B.	OTHER INFORMATION

None.

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PART III



ITEM 10.	DIRECTORS, EXECUTIVE OFFICERS AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

The information required by this Item will be set forth in our Proxy Statement for the 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders in the sections entitled “Proposal One: Election of Directors,” “Executive Officers of Atlanticus,” “Section 16(a) Beneficial Ownership Reporting Compliance” and “Corporate Governance” and is incorporated by reference.



ITEM 11.	EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION

The information required by this Item will be set forth in our Proxy Statement for the 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders in the section entitled “Executive and Director Compensation” and is incorporated by reference.



ITEM 12.	SECURITY OWNERSHIP OF CERTAIN BENEFICIAL OWNERS AND MANAGEMENT AND RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS

The information required by this Item will be set forth in our Proxy Statement for the 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders in the sections entitled “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management” and "Equity Compensation Plan Information" and is incorporated by reference.



ITEM 13.	CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED TRANSACTIONS, AND DIRECTOR INDEPENDENCE

The information required by this Item will be set forth in our Proxy Statement for the 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders in the sections entitled “Related Party Transactions” and “Corporate Governance” and is incorporated by reference.



ITEM 14.	PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTANT FEES AND SERVICES

The information required by this Item will be set forth in our Proxy Statement for the 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders in the section entitled “Auditor Fees” and is incorporated by reference.

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PART IV



ITEM 15.	EXHIBITS AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT SCHEDULES

The following documents are filed as part of this Report:

1. Financial Statements

INDEX TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS



	Page
Report of Independent Public Accounting Firm	F-1
Consolidated Balance Sheets as of December 31, 2015 and 2014	F-2
Consolidated Statements of Operations for the Years Ended December 31, 2015 and 2014	F-3
Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income for the Years Ended December 31, 2015 and 2014	F-4
Consolidated Statements of Equity for the Years Ended December 31, 2015 and 2014	F-5
Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the Years Ended December 31, 2015 and 2014	F-6
Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements as of December 31, 2015 and 2014	F-7

2. Financial Statement Schedules

None.

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3. Exhibits



Exhibit Number	Description of Exhibit	Incorporated by Reference from Atlanticus’ SEC Filings Unless Otherwise Indicated(1)
3.1	Articles of Incorporation	June 8, 2009, Proxy Statement/Prospectus, Annex B
3.1(a)	Articles of Amendment to Articles of Incorporation	November 30, 2012, Form 8-K exhibit 3.1
3.2	Amended and Restated Bylaws (as amended through November 30, 2012)	November 30, 2012, Form 8-K exhibit 3.2
4.1	Form of common stock certificate	Filed herewith
4.2	Indenture dated November 23, 2005 with U.S. Bank National Association, as successor to Wachovia Bank, National Association	November 28, 2005, Form 8-K, exhibit 4.1
4.3	Supplemental Indenture dated June 30, 2009 with U.S. Bank National Association, as successor to Wachovia Bank, National Association	July 7, 2009, Form 8-K, exhibit 4.2
10.1	Stockholders Agreement dated as of April 28, 1999	January 18, 2000, Form S-1, exhibit 10.1
10.2†	2014 Equity Incentive Plan	April 15, 2014, Definitive Proxy Statement on Schedule 14A, Appendix A
10.2(a)†	Form of Restricted Stock Agreement–Directors	May 15, 2014, Form 8-K, exhibit 10.2
10.2(b)†	Form of Restricted Stock Agreement–Employees	May 15, 2014, Form 8-K, exhibit 10.3
10.2(c)†	Form of Stock Option Agreement–Directors	May 15, 2014, Form 8-K, exhibit 10.4
10.2(d)†	Form of Stock Option Agreement–Employees	May 15, 2014, Form 8-K, exhibit 10.5
10.2(e)†	Form of Restricted Stock Unit Agreement–Directors	May 15, 2014, Form 8-K, exhibit 10.6
10.2(f)†	Form of Restricted Stock Unit Agreement–Employees	May 15, 2014, Form 8-K, exhibit 10.7
10.3†	Amended and Restated Employee Stock Purchase Plan	April 16, 2008, Definitive Proxy Statement on Schedule 14A, Appendix B
10.4†	Amended and Restated Employment Agreement for David G. Hanna	December 29, 2008, Form 8-K, exhibit 10.1
10.5†	Amended and Restated Employment Agreement for Richard W. Gilbert	December 29, 2008, Form 8-K, exhibit 10.3
10.6†	Employment Agreement for Jeffrey A. Howard	March 28, 2014, Form 10-K, exhibit 10.7
10.7†	Employment Agreement for William R. McCamey	March 28, 2014, Form 10-K, exhibit 10.8
10.8†	Outside Director Compensation Package	November 13, 2015, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.1
10.9	Amended and Restated Note Purchase Agreement, dated March 1, 2010, among Merrill Lynch Mortgage Capital Inc., CCFC Corp. (formerly CompuCredit Funding Corp.), Atlanticus Services Corporation (formerly CompuCredit Corporation), and CompuCredit Credit Card Master Note Business Trust	June 25, 2010, Form 8-K/A, exhibit 10.1
10.10	Share Lending Agreement	November 22, 2005, Form 8-K, exhibit 10.1
10.10(a)	Amendment to Share Lending Agreement	March 6, 2012, Form 10-K, exhibit 10.12(a)

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Exhibit Number	Description of Exhibit	Incorporated by Reference from Atlanticus’ SEC Filings Unless Otherwise Indicated(1)
10.11	Agreement relating to the Sale and Purchase of Monument Business, dated April 4, 2007	August 1, 2007, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.1
10.11(a)	Account Ownership Agreement for Partridge Acquired Portfolio Business Trust, dated April 4, 2007, with R Raphael & Sons PLC	August 1, 2007, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.2
10.11(b)	Receivables Purchase Agreement for Partridge Acquired Portfolio Business Trust, dated April 4, 2007, with R Raphael & Sons PLC	August 1, 2007, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.3
10.11(c)	Receivables Purchase Agreement for Partridge Acquired Portfolio Business Trust, dated April 4, 2007, with Partridge Funding Corporation	August 1, 2007, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.4
10.11(d)	Master Indenture for Partridge Acquired Portfolio Business Trust, dated April 4, 2007, among Partridge Acquired Portfolio Business Trust, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch and CIAC Corporation (formerly CompuCredit International Acquisition Corporation)	August 1, 2007, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.5
10.11(e)	Series 2007-One Indenture Supplement for Partridge Acquired Portfolio Business Trust, dated April 4, 2007	August 1, 2007, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.6
10.11(f)	Transfer and Servicing Agreement for Partridge Acquired Portfolio Business Trust, dated April 4, 2007, among Partridge Funding Corporation, CIAC Corporation (formerly CompuCredit International Acquisition Corporation), Partridge Acquired Portfolio Business Trust and Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas	August 1, 2007, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.7
10.12	Assumption Agreement dated June 30, 2009 between Atlanticus Holdings Corporation (formerly CompuCredit Holdings Corporation) and Atlanticus Services Corporation (formerly CompuCredit Corporation)	July 7, 2009, Form 8-K, exhibit 10.1
10.13	Loan and Security Agreement, dated October 4, 2011 among CARS Acquisition LLC, et al and Wells Fargo Preferred Capital, Inc.	March 6, 2012, Form 10-K, exhibit 10.16(a)
10.13(a)	First Amendment to Loan and Security Agreement	August 13, 2013, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.1
10.13(b)	Second Amendment and Joinder to Loan and Security Agreement	August 13, 2013, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.2
10.13(c)	Third Amendment to Loan and Security Agreement	March 28, 2014, Form 10-K, exhibit 10.15(c)
10.13(d)	Fourth Amendment to Loan and Security Agreement	March 28, 2014, Form 10-K, exhibit 10.15(d)
10.13(e)	Fifth Amendment to Loan and Security Agreement	August 14, 2014, Form 10-Q, exhibit 10.1
10.13(f)	Agreement by Atlanticus Holdings Corporation (formerly CompuCredit Holdings Corporation) in favor of Wells Fargo Preferred Capital, Inc.	March 6, 2012, Form 10-K, exhibit 10.16(a)
10.14	Loan and Security Agreement, dated November 26, 2014, by and among Atlanticus Holdings Corporation, Certain Subsidiaries Named Therein, and Dove Ventures, LLC	March 6, 2015, Form 10-K, exhibit 10.15
10.14(a)	First Amendment to Loan and Security Agreement, dated November 23, 2015	Filed herewith
21.1	Subsidiaries of the Registrant	Filed herewith
23.1	Consent of BDO USA, LLP	Filed herewith
31.1	Certification of Principal Executive Officer pursuant to Rule 13a-14(a)	Filed herewith
31.2	Certification of Principal Financial Officer pursuant to Rule 13a-14(a)	Filed herewith
32.1	Certification of Principal Executive Officer and Principal Financial Officer pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350	Filed herewith

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Exhibit Number	Description of Exhibit	Incorporated by Reference from Atlanticus’ SEC Filings Unless Otherwise Indicated(1)
101.INS	XBRL Instance Document	Filed herewith
101.SCH	XBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document	Filed herewith
101.CAL	XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document	Filed herewith
101.LAB	XBRL Taxonomy Extension Label Linkbase Document	Filed herewith
101.PRE	XBRL Taxonomy Presentation Linkbase Document	Filed herewith
101.DEF	XBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document	Filed herewith


†	Management contract, compensatory plan or arrangement.


(1)	Documents incorporated by reference from SEC filings made prior to June 2009 were filed under CompuCredit Corporation (now Atlanticus Services Corporation) (File No. 000-25751), our predecessor issuer.

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SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, the Registrant has duly caused this Report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized, in the City of Atlanta, State of Georgia, on March 30, 2016.



	Atlanticus Holdings Corporation

By:	/s/ David G. Hanna
	David G. Hanna Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, this Report has been signed below by the following persons in the capacities and on the dates indicated.




Signature	Title	Date

/s/David G. Hanna David G. Hanna	Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board (Principal Executive Officer)	March 30, 2016

/s/ William R. McCamey William R. McCamey	Chief Financial Officer (Principal Financial Officer)	March 30, 2016

/s/ Mitchell C. Saunders Mitchell C. Saunders	Chief Accounting Officer (Principal Accounting Officer)	March 30, 2016

/s/ Jeffrey A. Howard Jeffrey A. Howard	Director	March 30, 2016

/s/ Deal W. Hudson Deal W. Hudson	Director	March 30, 2016

/s/ Mack F. Mattingly Mack F. Mattingly	Director	March 30, 2016

/s/ Thomas G. Rosencrants Thomas G. Rosencrants	Director	March 30, 2016

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Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

The Board of Directors

Atlanticus Holdings Corporation

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Atlanticus Holdings Corporation (the "Company") as of December 31, 2015 and 2014 and the related consolidated statements of operations, comprehensive income, equity, and cash flows for the years then ended. These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial statements based on our audits.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States). Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement. The Company is not required to have, nor were we engaged to perform, an audit of its internal control over financial reporting. Our audits included consideration of internal control over financial reporting as a basis for designing audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we express no such opinion. An audit also includes examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements, assessing the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall financial statement presentation. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of Atlanticus Holdings Corporation at December 31, 2015 and 2014, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the years then ended, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

/s/ BDO USA, LLP

Atlanta, Georgia

March 30, 2016

F-1

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Atlanticus Holdings Corporation and Subsidiaries

Consolidated Balance Sheets

(Dollars in thousands)



	December 31, 2015			December 31, 2014
Assets
Unrestricted cash and cash equivalents	$	51,033		$	39,925
Restricted cash and cash equivalents	20,547			22,741
Loans and fees receivable:
Loans and fees receivable, net (of $16,721 and $15,730 in deferred revenue and $21,474 and $19,957 in allowances for uncollectible loans and fees receivable at December 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014, respectively)	141,949			105,897
Loans and fees receivable, at fair value	6,353			18,255
Loans and fees receivable pledged as collateral under structured financings, at fair value	20,353			34,905
Rental merchandise, net of depreciation	4,666			14,177
Property at cost, net of depreciation	5,686			7,036
Investments in equity-method investees	10,123			15,833
Deposits	825			1,589
Prepaid expenses and other assets	19,194			7,997
Total assets	$	280,729		$	268,355
Liabilities
Accounts payable and accrued expenses	$	51,722		$	39,968
Notes payable, at face value	90,000			78,749
Notes payable to related parties	20,000			20,000
Notes payable associated with structured financings, at fair value	20,970			36,511
Convertible senior notes	64,783			64,752
Income tax liability	22,303			20,933
Total liabilities	269,778			260,913
Commitments and contingencies (Note 11)
Equity
Common stock, no par value, 150,000,000 shares authorized: 15,332,041 shares issued and outstanding (including 1,459,233 loaned shares to be returned) at December 31, 2015; and 15,308,971 shares issued and outstanding (including 1,459,233 loaned shares to be returned) at December 31, 2014	—			—
Additional paid-in capital	211,083			210,519
Accumulated other comprehensive loss	(600		)	(1,841		)
Retained deficit	(199,524		)	(201,237		)
Total shareholders’ equity	10,959			7,441
Noncontrolling interests	(8		)	1
Total equity	10,951			7,442
Total liabilities and equity	$	280,729		$	268,355

See accompanying notes.

F-2

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Atlanticus Holdings Corporation and Subsidiaries

Consolidated Statements of Operations

(Dollars in thousands, except per share data)



	For the Twelve Months Ended December 31,
	2015			2014
Interest income:
Consumer loans, including past due fees	$	69,830		$	73,330
Other	87			346
Total interest income	69,917			73,676
Interest expense	(18,330		)	(24,052		)
Net interest income before fees and related income on earning assets and provision for losses on loans and fees receivable	51,587			49,624
Fees and related income on earning assets	53,182			88,830
Net recovery of (losses upon) charge off of loans and fees receivable recorded at fair value, net of recoveries	38,878			4,852
Provision for losses on loans and fees receivable recorded at net realizable value	(26,608		)	(30,828		)
Net interest income, fees and related income on earning assets	117,039			112,478
Other operating income:
Servicing income	5,004			4,910
Other income	553			2,084
Gain on repurchase of convertible senior notes	—			12,068
Equity in income of equity-method investees	2,780			6,983
Total other operating income	8,337			26,045
Other operating expense:
Salaries and benefits	19,825			19,777
Card and loan servicing	37,071			48,599
Marketing and solicitation	2,235			2,381
Depreciation, primarily related to rental merchandise	40,778			69,096
Other	21,932			25,975
Total other operating expense	121,841			165,828
Income (loss) before income taxes	3,535			(27,305		)
Income tax (expense) benefit	(1,829		)	34,632
Net income	1,706			7,327
Net loss (income) attributable to noncontrolling interests	7			(150		)
Net income attributable to controlling interests	$	1,713		$	7,177
Net income attributable to controlling interests per common share—basic	$	0.12		$	0.51
Net income attributable to controlling interests per common share—diluted	$	0.12		$	0.51

See accompanying notes.

F-3

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Atlanticus Holdings Corporation and Subsidiaries

Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income

(Dollars in thousands)



	For the Twelve Months Ended December 31,
	2015			2014
Net income	$	1,706		$	7,327
Other comprehensive income (loss):
Foreign currency translation adjustment	(50		)	(1,758		)
Reclassifications of foreign currency translation adjustment to consolidated statements of operations	1,849			—
Income tax (expense) benefit related to other comprehensive income (loss)	(558		)	654
Comprehensive income	2,947			6,223
Comprehensive loss (income) attributable to noncontrolling interests	7			(150		)
Comprehensive income attributable to controlling interests	$	2,954		$	6,073

See accompanying notes.

F-4

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Atlanticus Holdings Corporation and Subsidiaries

Consolidated Statements of Equity

For the Twelve Months Ended December 31, 2015 and 2014

(Dollars in thousands)



	Common Stock
	Shares Issued		Amount		Additional Paid-In Capital			Accumulated Other Comprehensive Loss			Retained Deficit			Noncontrolling Interests			Total Equity
Balance at December 31, 2013	15,594,325		$	—	$	210,315		$	(737	)	$	(208,414	)	$	(6	)	$	1,158
Compensatory stock issuances, net of forfeitures	61,868		—		—			—			—			—			—
Distributions to owners of noncontrolling interests	—		—		—			—			—			(143		)	(143		)
Amortization of deferred stock-based compensation costs	—		—		1,432			—			—			—			1,432
Redemption and retirement of shares	(347,222	)	—		(257		)	—			—			—			(257		)
Tax effects of stock-based compensation costs	—		—		(971		)	—			—			—			(971		)
Other comprehensive loss	—		—		—			(1,104		)	7,177			150			6,223
Balance at December 31, 2014	15,308,971		$	—	$	210,519		$	(1,841	)	$	(201,237	)	$	1		$	7,442
Stock options exercises and proceeds related thereto	3,334		—		8			—			—			—			8
Compensatory stock issuances, net of forfeitures	106,334		—		—			—			—			—			—
Distributions to owners of noncontrolling interests	—		—		—			—			—			(2		)	(2		)
Amortization of deferred stock-based compensation costs	—		—		846			—			—			—			846
Redemption and retirement of shares	(86,598	)	—		(259		)	—			—			—			(259		)
Tax effects of stock-based compensation plans	—		—		(31		)	—			—			—			(31		)
Other comprehensive income	—		—		—			1,241			1,713			(7		)	2,947
Balance at December 31, 2015	15,332,041		$	—	$	211,083		$	(600	)	$	(199,524	)	$	(8	)	$	10,951

See accompanying notes.

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Atlanticus Holdings Corporation and Subsidiaries

Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows

(Dollars in thousands)



	For the Twelve Months Ended December 31,
	2015			2014
Operating activities
Net income	$	1,706		$	7,327
Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by (used in) operating activities:
Depreciation of rental merchandise	38,565			63,148
Depreciation, amortization and accretion, net	2,000			4,927
Losses upon charge off of loans and fees receivable recorded at fair value	7,440			14,183
Provision for losses on loans and fees receivable	26,608			30,828
Interest expense from accretion of discount on convertible senior notes	481			637
Income from accretion of discount associated with receivables purchases	(40,777		)	(33,774		)
Unrealized gain on loans and fees receivable and underlying notes payable held at fair value	(7,527		)	(7,042		)
Income from equity-method investments	(2,780		)	(6,983		)
Gain on repurchase of convertible senior notes	—			(12,068		)
Changes in assets and liabilities:
(Increase) decrease in uncollected fees on earning assets	(2,962		)	3,132
Increase (decrease) in income tax liability	719			(34,705		)
Decrease in deposits	764			319
Increase (decrease) in accounts payable and accrued expenses	12,752			(4,907		)
Additions to rental merchandise	(29,053		)	(48,473		)
Other	(7,072		)	2,717
Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities	864			(20,734		)
Investing activities
Decrease (increase) in restricted cash	2,167			(3,892		)
Proceeds from equity-method investees	8,490			12,009
Investments in earning assets	(271,061		)	(218,656		)
Proceeds from earning assets	275,825			243,807
Purchases and development of property, net of disposals	(884		)	(4,068		)
Net cash provided by investing activities	14,537			29,200
Financing activities
Noncontrolling interests distributions, net	(2		)	(143		)
Purchase and retirement of outstanding stock	(259		)	(257		)
Proceeds from borrowings	164,897			115,545
Repayment of borrowings	(168,208		)	(133,545		)
Net cash used in financing activities	(3,572		)	(18,400		)
Effect of exchange rate changes on cash	(721		)	(1,014		)
Net increase (decrease) in unrestricted cash	11,108			(10,948		)
Unrestricted cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period	39,925			50,873
Unrestricted cash and cash equivalents at end of period	$	51,033		$	39,925
Supplemental cash flow information
Cash paid for interest	$	17,922		$	24,421
Net cash income tax payments	$	1,117		$	73
Supplemental non-cash information
Issuance of stock options and restricted stock	$	532		$	931

See accompanying notes.

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Atlanticus Holdings Corporation and Subsidiaries

Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

December 31, 2015 and 2014


1.	Description of Our Business

Our accompanying consolidated financial statements include the accounts of Atlanticus Holdings Corporation (the “Company”) and those entities we control. We are primarily focused on providing financial services. Through our subsidiaries, we offer an array of financial products and services to consumers who may have been declined under traditional financing options. As discussed further below, we reflect our business lines within two reportable segments: Credit and Other Investments; and Auto Finance. See also Note 3, “Segment Reporting,” for further details.

Within our Credit and Other Investments segment, we originate consumer loans through multiple channels, including retail point-of-sale, direct solicitation and most recently through testing of domestic credit card originations through third-party financial institutions. These products are all offered through our Fortiva brand. In our Fortiva Retail Credit (our "point-of-sale" operations) channel, we partner with retailers and service providers in various industries across the United States ("U.S.") to provide credit to their customers for the purchase of goods and services. These services are often extended to customers who may have been declined under traditional financing options. We specialize in providing this "second look" credit service in various industries across the U.S. Additionally, we are able to market our general purpose Fortiva Personal Loans and Fortiva Credit Cards (collectively, our direct-to-consumer operations) directly to consumers through additional channels enabling us to reach consumers through a diverse origination platform which includes direct mail, Internet-based marketing and through partnerships.

Using our infrastructure and technology platform, we also provide loan servicing activities, including underwriting, marketing, customer service and collections operations for third parties.

Additionally, we report within our Credit and Other Investments segment the income earned from an investment in an equity-method investee that holds credit card receivables for which we are the servicer. Prior to December 2014 we also included income from an additional equity-method investee that held structured financing notes underlying credit card receivables for which we were the servicer. This investee was consolidated on our financial statements as of December 31, 2014 subsequent to our distribution of certain assets to an unrelated third-party partner for their interest.


2.	Significant Accounting Policies and Consolidated Financial Statement Components

The following is a summary of significant accounting policies we follow in preparing our consolidated financial statements, as well as a description of significant components of our consolidated financial statements.

Basis of Presentation and Use of Estimates

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We prepare our consolidated financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the U.S. (“GAAP”), under which we are required to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities as of the date of our consolidated financial statements, as well as the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during each reporting period. We base these estimates on information available to us as of the date of the financial statements. Actual results could differ materially from these estimates. Certain estimates, such as credit losses, payment rates, costs of funds, discount rates and the yields earned on credit card receivables, significantly affect the reported amount of credit card receivables that we report at fair value and our notes payable associated with structured financings, at fair value; these estimates likewise affect the changes in these amounts reflected within our fees and related income on earning assets line item on our consolidated statements of operations. Additionally, estimates of future credit losses have a significant effect on loans and fees receivable, net, as shown on our consolidated balance sheets, as well as on the provision for losses on loans and fees receivable within our consolidated statements of operations.

We have eliminated all significant intercompany balances and transactions for financial reporting purposes.

Unrestricted Cash and Cash Equivalents

Unrestricted cash and cash equivalents consist of cash, money market investments and overnight deposits. We consider all highly liquid cash investments with low interest rate risk and original maturities of three months or less to be cash equivalents. Cash equivalents are carried at cost, which approximates market. We maintain unrestricted cash and cash equivalents for general operating purposes and to meet our longer term debt obligations. The majority of these cash balances are not insured.

Restricted Cash

Restricted cash as of December 31, 2015 and 2014 includes certain collections on loans and fees receivable, the cash balances of which are required to be distributed to noteholders under our debt facilities. Our restricted cash balances also include minimum cash balances held in accounts at the request of certain of our business partners.

Loans and Fees Receivable

Our loans and fees receivable include: (1) loans and fees receivable, net; (2) loans and fees receivable, at fair value; and (3) loans and fees receivable pledged as collateral under structured financings, at fair value.

Loans and Fees Receivable, Net. Our loans and fees receivable, net, currently consist of receivables carried at net realizable value associated with (a) originated United Kingdom ("U.K.") credit cards and U.S. point-of-sale financing and other credit products currently being marketed within our Credit and Other Investments segment and (b) our Auto Finance segment’s operations. Our Credit and Other Investments segment loans and fees receivable generally are unsecured, while our Auto Finance segment loans and fees receivable generally are secured by the underlying automobiles in which we hold the vehicle title.

As applicable, we show loans and fees receivable net of both an allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable and unearned fees (or “deferred revenue”). For example, our point-of-sale and auto finance loans and fees receivable include principal balances and associated fees and interest due from customers which are earned each period a loan is outstanding, net of the unearned portion of loan discounts which we recognize over the life of each loan.

For our loans and fees receivable carried at net realizable value (i.e., as opposed to those carried at fair value), we determine the necessary allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable by analyzing some or all of the following: historical loss rates; current delinquency and roll-rate trends; vintage analyses based on the number of months an account has been in existence; the effects of changes in the economy on our customers; changes in underwriting criteria; and estimated recoveries. A considerable amount of judgment is required to assess the ultimate amount of uncollectible loans and fees receivable, and we continuously evaluate and update our methodologies to determine the most appropriate allowance necessary.

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Components of our loans and fees receivable, net (in millions) are as follows:



	Balance at December 31, 2014			Additions			Subtractions			Balance at December 31, 2015
Loans and fees receivable, gross	$	141.6		$	334.9		$	(296.4	)	$	180.1
Deferred revenue	(15.7		)	(41.8		)	40.8			(16.7		)
Allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable	(20.0		)	(26.6		)	25.1			(21.5		)
Loans and fees receivable, net	$	105.9		$	266.5		$	(230.5	)	$	141.9



	Balance at December 31, 2013			Additions			Subtractions			Balance at December 31, 2014
Loans and fees receivable, gross	$	134.7		$	285.4		$	(278.5	)	$	141.6
Deferred revenue	(13.3		)	(36.2		)	33.8			(15.7		)
Allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable	(24.2		)	(30.8		)	35.0			(20.0		)
Loans and fees receivable, net	$	97.2		$	218.4		$	(209.7	)	$	105.9

As of December 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014, the weighted average remaining accretion period for the $16.7 million and $15.7 million, respectively, of deferred revenue reflected in the above tables was 11 months for both periods presented.

A roll-forward (in millions) of our allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable by class of receivable is as follows:



For the Twelve Months Ended December 31, 2015	Credit Cards			Auto Finance			Other Unsecured Lending Products			Total
Allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable:
Balance at beginning of period	$	(2.7	)	$	(1.2	)	$	(16.1	)	$	(20.0	)
Provision for loan losses	(1.7		)	(2.2		)	(22.7		)	(26.6		)
Charge offs	3.7			2.6			21.5			27.8
Recoveries	(0.5		)	(0.9		)	(1.3		)	(2.7		)
Balance at end of period	$	(1.2	)	$	(1.7	)	$	(18.6	)	$	(21.5	)



As of December 31, 2015	Credit Cards			Auto Finance			Other Unsecured Lending Products			Total
Allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable:
Balance at end of period individually evaluated for impairment	$	—		$	(0.1	)	$	(1.3	)	$	(1.4	)
Balance at end of period collectively evaluated for impairment	$	(1.2	)	$	(1.6	)	$	(17.3	)	$	(20.1	)
Loans and fees receivable:
Loans and fees receivable, gross	$	5.2		$	76.0		$	98.9		$	180.1
Loans and fees receivable individually evaluated for impairment	$	—		$	0.2		$	1.5		$	1.7
Loans and fees receivable collectively evaluated for impairment	$	5.2		$	75.8		$	97.4		$	178.4

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For the Twelve Months Ended December 31, 2014	Credit Cards			Auto Finance			Other Unsecured Lending Products			Total
Allowance for uncollectible loans and fees receivable:
Balance at beginning of period	$	(11.6	)	$	(1.4	)	$	(11.2	)	$	(24.2	)
Provision for loan losses	(8.8		)	(0.9		)	(21.1		)	(30.8		)
Charge offs	18.1			2.5			16.8			37.4
Recoveries	(0.4		)	(1.4		)	(0.6		)	(2.4		)
Balance at end of period	$	(2.7	)	$	(1.2	)	$	(16.1	)	$	(20.0	)

As of December 31, 2014

Credit Cards