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JCAP, Jefferson Capital Inc.
Jefferson Capital, Inc. is a Delaware corporation headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
And its subsidiaries in the U.S., Canada, the U.K and Latin America, provide debt recovery solutions and other related services across a broad range of consumer receivables, including credit card, secured and unsecured automotive, utilities, telecom, and other receivables.
Purchases portfolios of receivables from a diverse client base, including Fortune 500 creditors, banks, fintech origination platforms, telecommunications providers, credit card issuers, and auto finance companies.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Next report By 11/13 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 45 days of period end · has filed ~45 days after · the wire records it on arrival
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What it is
- Revenue is led by United States (73%) and Canada (12%), with 2 more segments behind.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run about 51% through the cycle, a wide margin for the work it does — whether that reflects a durable edge or one that can fade is what the record weighs. That margin has held in a narrow 51%–52% band over the years, so steadiness itself is the evidence — the lever is unit growth and cost discipline, not a moving line. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has run in the teens (median 13%, above 15% in 1 of 3 years). Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →The biggest segment, United States, is also where the profit is made: 73% of revenue and 72% of segment operating profit.
- United States73%$450M72% of profit
- Canada12%$72M17% of profit
- United Kingdom8%$51M4% of profit
- Latin America7%$40M8% of profit
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
Revenue up 16.3% year over year; operating income down 6.0%
figures computed from the filing's XBRL
The record, 2023–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMJun 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||
| $323M | $433M | $613M | $660M | RevenueRevenue |
| $164M | $220M | $316M | $302M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 50.8% | 50.8% | 51.6% | 45.8% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $121M | $138M | $218M | — | Pretax incomePretax |
| $112M | $129M | $188M | $155M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 8% | 6% | 14% | 20% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||
| $120M | $168M | $269M | $221M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $2M | $3M | $5M | $4M | Depreciation & amortizationD&A |
| $6M | $37M | $58M | $28M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $6M | $0 | $0 | $0 | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| $31M | $36M | $63M | $61M | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| ($403M) | ($542M) | ($402M) | — | Investing cash flowInv. cash |
| $290M | $389M | $150M | — | Financing cash flowFin. cash |
| ($1M) | $3M | ($7M) | — | Exchange-rate effectFX |
| $5M | $18M | $9M | — | Change in cashΔ cash |
| 52% | 13% | 12% | 11% | ROICROIC |
| 37% | 34% | 39% | 33% | Return on equityROE |
| 27% | 24% | 26% | 20% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | ||||
| $14M | $36M | $23M | $20M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $17M | $12M | $17M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| — | $17M | $12M | $17M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $2M | $2M | — | Net PP&ENet PP&E |
| $57M | $58M | $58M | $58M | GoodwillGoodwill |
| — | $1.7B | $2.1B | $2.1B | Total assetsAssets |
| — | $1.2B | $1.8B | $1.8B | Total debtDebt |
| — | $1.2B | $1.7B | $1.7B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| 3.4× | 2.9× | 3.0× | 2.6× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| — | $1.3B | $1.6B | — | Total liabilitiesTotal liab. |
| $304M | $383M | $476M | $476M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| — | 0.0% | 2.8% | 5.2% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | ||||
| — | 0K | 60.0M | 55.6M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| — | — | $10.22 | $11.87 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| — | — | $3.13 | $2.79 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| — | — | $1.06 | $1.09 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| — | — | $7.93 | $8.57 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Share counts before TTM are restated ×2 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedEach year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Will it survive?
- AdequateOperating income $316M ÷ interest expense $106M
What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
- How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $1.7B · 5.5× operating profitHeavy net debtCash $23M − debt $1.8B
What this means
Netting $23M of cash and short-term investments against $1.8B of debt leaves $1.7B owed, about 5.5× a year's operating profit. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Solid through the cycle3-yr median, range 12%–52%; 12% latest = NOPAT $272M ÷ invested capital $2.2BIndustry peers: median 8%
What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 3 years (it ran 12% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 30%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Cash-backedCash from ops $269M ÷ net income $188M
What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.
How is the cash used?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? —Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
The promise and the pay packet
- Is the buyback buying ownership, or mopping up? 2.8%Stock pay, share count unreadStock compensation $17M (fiscal 2025), 2.8% of revenue · no repurchases
What this means
Stock handed to employees is a real cost paid in the owner's own currency: it is charged against profit, but the shares it creates are permanent. Many companies repurchase stock at the same time, which looks like a return of capital and often is not — if the count barely moves, the cash merely cancelled the pay packet and bought the owner nothing. The three states worth telling apart are a count genuinely shrinking, a count standing still despite large repurchases, and a count rising because the issuance was never offset at all.
Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 1 met
Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.
- Adequate size MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $613M
What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
- Strong liquidity —Current ratio ≥ 2× · —
What this means
Current assets / liabilities not in the data yet.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $2.49/share (latest year $3.27), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $8.29/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.
- Insider ownership8.3%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$17M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 2.8% of revenue, equal to 5.4% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Revenue recognition as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Consumer Finance
The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each column names the period it is read over, and a median resting on fewer than three years carries that count beside it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.
| Company | Revenuelatest FY, USD | Gross marginmedian over the record | Op. marginmedian over the record | ROICmedian over the record | Owner earn. marginmedian over the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CACCCredit Acceptance Corporation | $2.3B | — | 45.7% | 10% | 54% |
| ATLCAtlanticus Holdings Corporation | $2.0B | 91% | 22.9% | 10% | 30%4y |
| ECPGEncore Capital Group Inc | $1.8B | — | 37.4% | 8% | 18% |
| EZPWEZCORP Inc. Class A Non Voting | $1.3B | 59% | 7.7% | 6% | 7% |
| PRAAPRA Group Inc. | $1.2B | — | 33.5% | 6% | 4% |
| RMRegional Management Corp. | $646M | — | 21.6% | 6% | 43% |
| JCAPJefferson Capital Inc. | $613M | — | 50.8% | 13% | — |
| WRLDWorld Acceptance Corporation | $585M | — | 16.9% | 8% | 44% |
| Group median | — | — | 28.2% | 8% | — |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFJefferson Capital Inc. is profitable, but its owner-earnings base could not be formed from this filing’s tagged data (operating cash flow or capital spending is missing), so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.
Enter a price to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.
Manual order: ← JBTM its page in the Manual JCI →
Industry order: ← FCFS the Consumer Finance chapter LPRO →