Office closure expected to reduce operating expenses by approximately
$2.0 million per year
WARREN, Mich., Oct 04, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Asset Acceptance Capital Corp. (NASDAQ: AACC),
a leading purchaser and collector of charged-off consumer debt, today
announced that it will be closing its Chicago, Illinois, collections
office. Once substantially completed, the closing of the office will
reduce the Company's operating expenses by approximately $2.0 million
per year.
Rion
Needs, President and CEO, Asset Acceptance Capital Corp. noted,
"Today we announced the difficult decision to close our Chicago,
Illinois office. As we stated on our second quarter 2010 conference
call, we continue to evaluate our asset base, which includes
rationalizing underperforming assets. To date, our Chicago office has
consistently had some of the lowest productivity rates and the highest
level of attrition within our network. Given our recent efforts to
increase our total network capacity, we are able to shift the existing
inventory in Chicago to our remaining AACC offices and agency partners.
We anticipate that this action will favorably impact overall
profitability and productivity without sacrificing top-line collections."
Needs continued, "While we will continue to identify strategies to
further improve our cost structure and grow collections throughout our
business, there are no immediate plans for additional office
consolidation at this time. The savings we anticipate to realize from
the Chicago office consolidation are expected to be redeployed to
further our long-term initiatives to drive growth and improve
profitability throughout our business."
In connection with closing the Chicago collections office, the Company
will incur approximately $1.1 million in restructuring charges during
the fourth quarter, which include employee termination benefits,
contract termination fees for the remaining lease payments on the
Chicago, Illinois office, accelerated depreciation and other exit costs.
The employee termination benefits, contract termination costs and other
exit costs will require an outlay of cash of approximately $1.0 million,
while non-cash charges are estimated at $0.1 million.
About Asset Acceptance Capital Corp.
For more than 45
years, Asset Acceptance has provided credit originators, such as
credit card issuers, consumer finance companies, retail merchants,
utilities and others an efficient alternative in recovering defaulted
consumer debt. For more information, please visit www.AssetAcceptance.com.
Asset Acceptance Capital Corp. Safe Harbor
Statement
This press release contains certain statements, including the Company's
plans and expectations regarding its operating strategies, charged-off
receivables, collections and costs, which are forward-looking statements
and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements
include reference to the Company's presentations and webcasts. These
forward-looking statements reflect the Company's views, expectations and
beliefs at the time such statements were made with respect to such
matters, as well as the Company's future plans, objectives, events,
portfolio purchases and pricing, collections and financial results such
as revenues, expenses, income, earnings per share, capital expenditures,
operating margins, financial position, expected results of operations
and other financial items. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees
of future performance and involve certain risks, uncertainties and
assumptions ("Risk Factors") that make the timing, extent, likelihood
and degree of occurrence of these matters difficult to predict. Words
such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "intends,"
"should," "could," "will," variations of such words and similar
expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.
There are a number of factors, many of which are beyond the Company's
control, which could cause actual results and outcomes to differ
materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. These
Risk Factors include the Risk Factors discussed under "Item 1A Risk
Factors" in the Company's most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K
and in other SEC filings, in each case under a section titled "Risk
Factors" or similar headings and those discussions regarding risk
factors as well as the discussion of forward-looking statements in such
sections are incorporated herein by reference. Other Risk Factors exist,
and new Risk Factors emerge from time to time that may cause actual
results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking
statements. Factors that could affect our results and cause them to
materially differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements
include the following:
-
instability in the financial markets and a prolonged economic
recession limiting our ability to access capital and to acquire and
collect on charged-off receivable portfolios;
-
our ability to maintain existing, and to secure additional financing
on acceptable terms;
-
a decrease in collections if changes in or enforcement of debt
collection laws impair our ability to collect, including any unknown
ramifications from the recently passed Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform
and Consumer Protection Act;
-
failure to comply with government regulation, including our ability to
successfully conclude the on-going FTC matter;
-
our ability to purchase charged-off receivable portfolios on
acceptable terms and in sufficient amounts;
-
a decrease in collections as a result of negative attention or news
regarding the debt collection industry and debtors' willingness to pay
the debt we acquire;
-
the costs, uncertainties and other effects of legal and administrative
proceedings impacting our ability to collect on judgments in our favor;
-
ongoing risks of litigation in our litigious industry, including
individual and class actions under consumer credit, collections and
other laws;
-
our ability to substantiate our application of tax rules against
examinations and challenges made by tax authorities;
-
our ability to make reasonable estimates of the timing and amount of
future cash receipts and values and assumptions underlying the
calculation of the net impairment charges for purposes of recording
purchased receivable revenues;
-
our ability to respond to changes in technology to remain competitive,
including our ability to successfully complete the conversion of our
legacy debt collection platform to a different software system;
-
our ability to successfully hire, train, integrate into our
collections operations and retain in-house account representatives;
-
our ability to successfully seek opportunities to diversify beyond
collecting on our purchased receivables portfolios;
-
our ability to acquire and to collect on charged-off receivable
portfolios in industries in which we have little or no experience;
-
any significant and unanticipated changes in circumstances leading to
goodwill impairment or other impairment of intangible asset, which, in
turn, could adversely impact earnings and reduce our net worth; and
-
other unanticipated events and conditions that may hinder our ability
to compete.
Given these risks and uncertainties, investors should not place undue
reliance on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual
results. Furthermore, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to
update, amend or clarify forward-looking statements.

SOURCE: Asset Acceptance Capital Corp.
FD
Victoria Sivrais, 312-553-6715
victoria.sivrais@fd.com