While the latest “pause” from the Federal Reserve has markets rallying in anticipation of rate cuts next year, for borrowers rates remain high. And, if the Fed does begin cutting next year, it’s highly doubtful that rates will come down anywhere near as fast as they were raised over the past year.
That leaves a multitude of borrowers still scrambling for creative financing options in the short term, and likely for most of 2024 as well. One company that has shifted its business strategy to address the needs of borrowers in this environment is Medallion Financial (MFIN – Get Rating).
Medallion was originally focused on lending for taxi medallions, thus the “Medallion” moniker. But with the explosion of ride sharing companies like Uber (UBER – Get Rating) and Lyft (LYFT – Get Rating), it maintains a small medallion business, but now focuses more on recreational lending, home improvement lending, and commercial lending.
The company has been executing well on its new strategy, reporting record net income in its latest quarter. According to Medallion President Andrew Murstein, “…earnings of nearly $41 million for the first nine months of the year were up 32% compared to last year.” Recreation loans, which make up 61% of Medallion’s loan portfolio, grew 15% in the quarter YoY.
Net interest income grew 16% to $48 million, compared to $42 million in the prior year’s quarter. And net assets grew to an all time high of $2.6 billion, also a 16% increase in the quarter YoY.
Even with those numbers Medallion, trading around $9, has a very attractive valuation. Shares trade at only 4.1x earnings and 6.8x projected earnings. The price to sales ratio is also a lowly 0.92x sales, and the company trades at an extremely low 1.8x free cash flow.
Medallion was able to raise its dividend in the latest quarter by…
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