Subprime lender Southern Auto Finance Co. is “moving to the west,” Chief Executive George Fussell told Auto Finance News. The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based lender is boosting its presence in California, a market it entered in February, and has started originating loans in Oregon and Washington.
“It’s really demographic,” Fussell said, noting that immigration, migration, healthcare, construction, and hospitality are the “drivers” behind the expansion strategy. “The Sun Belt has always been a strong market for us because it has all those qualities, but [so does] the Pacific Northwest, specifically California,” he said. Safco operates in 38 states.
Safco has grown the number of dealers it works with in California to 100, from 30 in February. So far, the lender works with about 30 lenders in Washington and Oregon. Fussell said Safco “never really went to the third time zone because we would have to staff differently, servicing hours would have to be different, some of it had to do with money, credit line-wise, but the timing was right.”
Additionally, Safco is increasing its presence in the Midwest, a region in which the company is “fairly prominent,” targeting “areas like Ohio and Indiana,” Fussell said. Safco is relying on inside sales reps and those in the field, along with a pass-through agreement with Ally Financial established in October 2018, to help boost presence in those regions.
The recent expansion is a move to regain the portfolio size the subprime lender once had, Fussell said. “Scale is incredibly important these days,” he said. “The small [lenders] have sort of gone away, and the big keep getting bigger, so you have to battle that. We believe we can make it up with customer service on the dealer side.”
