Visit www.OpportunityAtOportun.com to Download the Presentation
NEW YORK, June 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Findell Capital Partners, LP, (together with its affiliates, "Findell," "we" or "us") one of the largest stockholders of Oportun Financial Corporation $(OPRT)$ ("Oportun" or the "Company"), today released an investor presentation highlighting the urgent need for additional independence and consumer finance industry expertise in the Company's boardroom.
In the presentation, Findell outlines what it sees as the legacy Board of Directors' (the "Board") failure to effectively oversee management and instill accountability:
-- CEO Raul Vazquez turned Oportun's simple lending business into a
money-losing fintech platform -- destroying nearly $1.5 billion of
stockholder capital in the process -- by exploding its cost per loan,
massively increasing its net charge-offs and pursuing disastrous
acquisitions, including the approximately $211 mm purchase of Hello Digit,
Inc.
-- As a result of these strategic missteps, the Company's revenue and
earnings deteriorated, leading to a roughly 76% collapse in the stock
price from September 2019 through March 2023.
-- Oportun has severely underperformed its closest public peer, OneMain
Holdings, Inc., in terms of net charge-offs, OpEx ratio and stock price
performance.
-- Management's long-term targets for return on assets ("ROA") and return on
equity ("ROE") are subpar and conceal the Company's weak annual
percentage rate and overly high leverage.
-- Not a single legacy Board member has lending experience, let alone
subprime lending experience. Several directors also appear to us to have
conflicts of interest based on their previous working relationships with
each other and with Mr. Vazquez, as described in the presentation.
-- Despite the Company's poor performance under their oversight, the legacy
directors have remained on the Board for years -- even when failing to
receive a majority of votes in favor of their election -- and continue to
control the Board's committees and other leadership positions.
Findell also notes how the addition of independent lending expertise has benefited Oportun over the past two years and details the Company's opportunities for value creation:
-- Our engagement -- including the appointment of Scott Parker and Richard
Tambor, two Findell-identified directors with lending expertise -- led to
positive operating and governance changes, including a 61% reduction in
OpEx per loan and a more than 206% total stockholder return.
-- The election of independent director candidate Warren Wilcox, who has
highly relevant expertise in subprime lending and a deep understanding of
Oportun's business, will help eliminate the legacy directors' control of
the Board and lead to better oversight of the Company.
-- Oportun has ample room to reduce its corporate overhead by $80 mm and run
at an OpEx ratio of less than 12%, which would bring the Company more in
line with competitors.
-- The Company should remove its self-imposed 36% interest rate cap, which
has driven significant underperformance and prevented Oportun from
serving large swaths of customers.
-- Oportun should target pre-tax ROA of 8-10% while maintaining a
conservative leverage ratio to yield >40% ROE.
-- Findell believes Oportun could achieve more than $22 per share1 if it
reasonably reduces annual operating expenses to $325 mm by the end of
2026 and does not dilute stockholders any further.
***
We urge stockholders to vote FOR the election of Warren Wilcox and AGAINST the reelection of failed CEO Raul Vazquez on the WHITE proxy card. Visit www.OpportunityAtOportun.com to learn more.
Contact:
Findell Capital Management, LLC
88 Pine Street, 22nd Fl.
New York, NY 10005
info@findell.us
OR
Saratoga Proxy Consulting LLC
John Ferguson
info@saratogaproxy.com
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(1) Assuming a pre-tax ROA of 8-10%, $3 billion in outstanding loans and a market multiple of 6-7X earnings.
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/findell-capital-releases-presentation-on-oportun-financial-302482852.html
SOURCE Findell Capital Management, LLC
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 16, 2025 16:37 ET (20:37 GMT)