Axactor is a pan-European debt collector with operations in Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Axactor was established in late 2015 and has grown to become one of the ten-largest players in the industry, with support from its cornerstone- and co-investor Geveran. Its core business areas are purchased debt and 3PC (third-party collection), focusing on well-developed NPL markets with a legal environment beneficial for collection. Through its streamlined “One Axactor” operating model, it has developed a scalable, no legacy and low-complexity NPL platform.
We believe that Axactor and the industry as a whole will benefit from an increased supply of NPLs, further increasing the imbalance in the NPL market, leading to a prolonged period of lower NPL prices and thus increased IRRs. In addition, we see strong opportunities for growth within 3PC (third-party collection), which is capital light and highly recurring revenue. On a more company-specific note, Axactor might be attractive to private equity, given its best-in-class scalability. In addition, we anticipate improved funding cost, phased-out REOs, lowered tax-rate and increased scale to further increase earnings.
Investment risk, macro risk and regulatory risk are the biggest risks in the Axactor investment case. We see investment risk as the largest risk as we estimate that the company will have high capex going forward, and an investment into a ‘bad’ portfolio and/or company could have a detrimental impact on earnings in the coming years. Furthermore, changes in the macro environment could affect cash collection and the 3PC business.
