Element Financial reported financial results for the three months and year ending December 31, 2015. For the three months ended December 31, 2015, after tax adjusted operating income was $143.5 million versus $55.4 million for the same period last year. Free operating cash flow was $161.5 million compared to $71.8 million for the same period last year.

“This quarter provides investors with a first look at Element’s Fleet management business with the acquired GE portfolio fully loaded into these results,” said Bradley Nullmeyer, Element’s president. “The process of integrating the acquired GE fleet operations is now well advanced and we are pleased report that we now expect to achieve $100 million of savings from this integration. As a result, our fleet business enters 2016 with an adjusted ROAA of 3.2% and is on track to exit the year at 4% plus.”

Overall, new originations amounted to $2.5 billion for the three-month period ended December 31, 2015 representing a 47% increase over the $1.7 billion reported for the same period last year. Fleet Management accounted for $1.62 billion of Q4 originations, while the Rail Finance vertical contributed $198 million. Aviation Finance accounted for $306 million of Q4 originations, while the Commercial and Vendor vertical accounted for $422 million. Full year origination volumes amounted to $7.7 billion, which was well ahead of plan with respect to the company’s previous full-year guidance of $6.5 billion of new originations during 2015, and represented an increase of 63% over the prior year.

Financial revenue for Q4/15 was $409.2 million, or 8.3%of average earning assets versus $175.7 million or 8.2% of average earning assets in the same period last year. Management fees and other revenue included in financial revenue amounted to $123.9 million during the fourth quarter of 2015 versus $54.8 million in the same period last year, representing an increase of 126%.

Interest expense was $119.5 million for Q4/15 compared to $50 million for the same period last year. The average cost of borrowing was 2.69% during Q4/15 versus 2.53% reported during the previous quarter and 2.66% for the same period last year. The cost increase, in each case, was due to the use of more expensive acquisition bank financing to fund the purchase of the GE Fleet operations in September, with less expensive and permanent financing for these assets put in place during late December.

Net financial income for the Q4/15 was $289.7 million versus $125.7 million for the same period last year. Adjusted operating expenses for the quarter were $128.2 million, or 2.61% of average earning assets, versus $53.8 million, or 2.52% of average earning assets, in the same period last year. The relative cost increase largely due to the higher cost base of Element Fleet to provide services that generate service fee income in addition to net yields from leasing activities.

Total earning assets increased to $20.5 billion at December 31, 2015 versus $19.3 billion as at the end of the preceding quarter and $9.0 billion as at the end of the same period last year. The year-over-year increase was due largely to the acquisition of the GE Fleet operations during Q3/15, representing $7.8 billion of earning assets.

“I am extremely pleased with the reception received from all of our stakeholders to the announcement we made last month that we are separating Element into two stand-alone public entities,” said Steven Hudson, Element’s CEO. “From this process will emerge the world’s largest publicly traded fleet management company with stable growth, pristine credit quality and recurring high-margin fee income as well as a high-growth commercial finance business that will transition by the end of the year to an asset management business with a strong investment-grade balance sheet.”