Newly Public Collection Agency Performant Reports Good Results in Q3

Performant Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: PFMT) late Monday released its first quarterly financial report since going public in August. The company reported significant growth in revenues and net income and provided some detail about student loan account volume placed for collection.

Livermore, Calif.-based Performant reported net income of $6.4 million – $0.13 per share – for the third quarter of 2012, an increase of 23.6 percent from the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $18.3 million, up 15 percent compared to the prior year period.

Revenues increased to $53.4 million, an increase of 27.1 percent compared to the prior year period.

Performant, which specializes in student loan recoveries, said that Student Lending revenues grew 2.5 percent during the third quarter to $33 million. Student Loan Placement Volume during the quarter totaled $1.3 billion, a decrease of 16.9 percent compared to the prior year period primarily due to the ongoing system conversion at the Department of Education, which has delayed placements to the company and all other recovery vendors. Placements received from the Department of Education have accelerated since the end of the third quarter with total placements for the month of October exceeding $600 million.

Healthcare revenues grew 170.8 percent during the third quarter to $13.5 million.

“Through our differentiated operating model and technology platform we achieved robust revenue, adjusted EBITDA and EPS growth,” said Lisa Im, Performant’s CEO. “We operate in several large markets with strong growth profiles and during the third quarter we performed up to our expectations in all of the markets in which we provide our services. The Healthcare market delivered the strongest growth and continues to develop into a larger portion of our business. Finally, we are very excited to have completed our initial public offering in August, which provides our company with greater financial flexibility for future growth opportunities as we move forward.”