Marlin reported Q3/18 net income of $5.9 million, up 78.8% from net income of $3.3 million a year ago. Q3 net income on an adjusted basis was $6.4 million compared with $4.9 million a year ago.

Total origination volume (excluding referral volume) was $173.1 million, up 17% year over year. Direct origination volume of $35.5 million was up 51% year over year.

Other highlights included:

• Net interest and fee income of $23.8 million was slightly from $23.1 million in Q3/17.
• Net Investment in loans and leases totaled $970.4 million, up 9% from a year ago and total managed assets ended the third quarter at $1.1 billion, up 18% from a year ago.
• Total origination yield of 12.77% was up 53 basis points from the prior quarter and up 59 basis points year-over-year.
• Annualized net charge-offs of 1.90%, compared with 1.84% in the prior quarter and 1.73% in the third quarter last year.
• Provision for credit losses of $4.9 million compared with $4.3 million in the prior quarter and $5.7 million in the third quarter last year

Commenting on the results, Jeffrey A. Hilzinger, Marlin’s president and CEO, said, “The third quarter was another productive period for Marlin highlighted by solid growth in origination volume, continued stable credit quality, strong earnings performance, the successful completion of an asset-backed securitization transaction and an important strategic acquisition to augment our organic growth initiatives. Excluding referral volume, total origination volume was $173.1 million for the quarter compared with $147.4 million last year, resulting in a year-over-year increase of 17.4%. This increase included strong growth from both our Equipment Finance and Working Capital Loan products as well as from our Direct origination channel. In addition, as part of Marlin’s capital markets activities, we referred or sold $43.5 million of leases and loans that were better suited for our capital markets partners’ balance sheets. Due to these origination and capital markets activities, our Net Investment in Leases and Loans increased to $970.4 million, up 9% from a year ago and our total managed assets grew to approximately $1.1 billion, an increase of 18% from last year. Our ability to achieve this robust growth while maintaining our disciplined underwriting standards and stable portfolio performance is evidence of how core risk management is to Marlin’s culture. At the bottom line, earnings expanded sharply on both a sequential quarter and year-over-year basis.”

Hilzinger concluded, “Consistent with our stated strategy of augmenting organic growth with strategic corporate development activities, late in the quarter we announced the acquisition of Fleet Financing Resources—or FFR. FFR, a broker platform that originated approximately $75 million in 2017, is a well-established originator focused on financing commercial transportation equipment that brings significant domain expertise to the Company while also substantially accelerating the growth of our existing commercial transportation equipment finance business. We expect the transaction to be accretive to Marlin’s earnings per share in 2018 and to generate strong returns on invested capital over time by accelerating our growth and further leveraging the Company’s fixed infrastructure costs.”