Credit Acceptance Corp. had $2.3 billion of loans outstanding at midyear, according to an earnings report filed July 30. In the second quarter, Southfield, Mich.-based CAC originated 50,913 loans via 4,960 dealers. Year over year, origination volume was up 4.5%, while CAC’s active-dealer count grew 10.6%. Overall, CAC continues to face a “difficult competitive environment,” said Senior Vice President and Treasurer Douglas Busk during an earnings call this week.
“That will get better at some point, but it goes in cycles, and it’s probably likely to get worse before it gets better,” Busk said. “That’s been the history, and it’s difficult to know the exact timing. But we’re in a period now where there’s lots of capital, and there are certainly loans that are being written that we wouldn’t want to write based on the economics of those loans, so we just have to be patient until the tides turn, which they eventually will.”