Navient Corporation (NASDAQ:NAVI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Richard Shane: Okay. Got it. And if you would indulge one last question. I’m trying to see where the green shoots will be in terms of growth. And clearly, it’s going to be on the in-school consumer lending. Can you talk a little bit more about your go-to-market there? Is it traditional being on preferred lending list? Is it omnichannel? And when you think about the growth in 2023, is it a function of higher penetration for the existing institutions or adding new institutions? And I apologize for such a long question.

Jack Remondi: Sure. But this market is definitely the marketplace and how students and families secure financing for paying for college has been changing. So it has moved from almost universally through the financial aid office and a requirement to be on their preferred lender list. Two, some online activities, some referral activity, the in-school €“ the financial aid office continues to be an important channel. So our go-to-market strategy is really driven by those different segments. And we try to target our marketing activities and the outreach that we make, whether it be digital, mail or financial aid office with different approaches for those different market segments. One area that we see as a significant new opportunity for us is working with high school students and their families and the guidance offices of high schools through our Going Merry products by building relationships with those consumers, helping them complete the FAFSA, helping them compare their different award letters that they received from college on acceptance, helping them lower their need to borrow through scholarship opportunities is an opportunity for us to build those relationships.

And if and when they do need private student loans, be there for them with that additional product as well. So these are different ways we’re kind of targeting our opportunities in the in-school marketplace. And with the doubling of originations next year, we expect to continue to grow our market share in that space. We mentioned we grew 52% this year, which we think is 10x the market rate. So it’s a very high-growth opportunity for us, albeit just starting off a relatively small origination base.

Richard Shane: Great. Hey, thank you so much for the answers.

Operator: And our next question coming from the line of Giuliano Bologna from Compass Point. Your line is open.

Giuliano Anderes-Bologna: Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. One thing I was curious about was when we look at the FFELP NIM outlook, the 100 basis points to 110 basis points implies 105, and that’s roughly, call it, 10 basis points above the original outlook when you guys are going into 2022 €“ for 2022. And there was a discussion, I believe, in the last two quarters about how you guys were able to hedge out some of your floor income during the lows from a rate perspective and if that was having a benefit on a flow-through basis. I’m curious how we should think about that impact? And if there’s any kind of duration to those hedges that might roll off in a higher rate environment and how that could impact FFELP NIM as we move throughout 2023 and into 2024?

Joe Fisher: Sure. So two of the things here in terms of benefits. So one, we’re completely hedged for 2023 as it relates to the floor income. On the benefit that we’ve seen that I’ve been talking about the last several quarters, that has to do more so with the fact that we have increased our fixed rate funding in 2021 compared to what we have done historically. So that benefit will continue to offset the component of the unhedged floor income that has declined over the last, call it, four quarters here. So we’ve seen the benefits from that funding environment continued throughout this year. We expect that benefit to continue into 2023. As we enter into 2024 and we look at our interest rate assumptions, we’ll see if there’s opportunities there to swap the floating. But otherwise, we feel very confident based off of the current curves of achieving that 100 basis point to 110 basis point range.

Giuliano Anderes-Bologna: That’s great. Thank you. All right. I appreciate it and I’ll jump back in the queue.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question coming from the line of with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Analyst: Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I know you mentioned that you’re paying off the $1 billion of notes due in January with cash today. I guess, you guys still have the $1.2 billion of unsecured maturities through the first half of 2024. Can you just talk about your appetite and kind of the attractiveness of refinancing that in the high-yield market currently seems to have opened up a little bit? And then can you remind us of how much capacity you have to refinance a portion of that in the ABS market?

Joe Fisher: Sure. So we have €“ as I said before, we have $1.5 billion of cash on hand. We provided our cash flow projections on the private portfolio and the FFELP portfolio in our earnings deck. So you can see the cash being generated there to meet upcoming maturities as well as we have $1.6 billion of unencumbered FFELP and private assets that we have the ability to tap into an additional $5.2 billion of over collateralization. So we have a number of funding mechanisms available to us to address maturities in 2023 and 2024 and beyond. Your comment about the unsecured markets starting to come back positively, that’s certainly something that we keep an eye on. And as we’ve done in the past and you can look at it more recently in 2021, we’ve been opportunistic.

So should there be an opportunity available to us in an attractive market, we may refinance that through unsecured debt. Otherwise, we’ll look at the other options that we have available to us, whether that’s cash on hand or the other elements that I just mentioned.

Unidentified Analyst: Hey, thanks. And then, I guess, given the delay in the CFPB resolution, as the judge entered senior status last year, have you guys had conversations with the rating agencies on potential upgrades? I know that lawsuit was kind of a point for some of the rating agencies. But just wondering now that, that’s kind of been delayed if there’s been an ability to kind of get beyond that or the conversation has been a nonstarter given the current regulatory environment?