Global Lending Services doubled its origination volume — for the second straight year — to $1.1 billion in 2018, Chief Executive Steve Thibodeau told Auto Finance News. The subprime lender’s origination volume had doubled to $558 million in 2017.
Thibodeau attributed the portfolio growth to the company’s expanding dealership network, which increased 30%, to 8,000 franchised dealers. This time last year, GLS worked with 5,000 dealers.
Part of growing dealer numbers, Thibodeau said, is “dialing in the program and making it better for dealers.” That includes giving dealers more opportunities to sell back-end products, such as warranties, and make more profit per loan with flat fees.
“If I think about how we doubled over the last couple of years, each year it’s twofold,” Thibodeau said. “We get more dealers enrolled. The more dealers that get involved, the more applications we get to see, the more opportunities we get.”
Then, add the opportunity for dealers to make more money on each loan, “so each dealer wants to do an extra deal with you and that kind of feeds on itself,” he added.
GLS also expanded its sales organizations to more than 50 sales representatives from 25 the year prior. Doubling the sales organization has helped the lender add dealership partners, Thibodeau said.
Thibodeau hopes to double GLS’s originations will double again this year. Conservatively, though, he estimated 50% to 60% growth, to $1.5 billion or $1.6 billion. With that, he anticipates growing the number of dealerships to 12,000 over the next 12 to 18 months.
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