Is a major player in auto loans preparing for the worst? (EP4)
发布时间 2023-04-09 23:14:21 来源
Emergency pod today. I did not plan on recording this. It's a beautiful day outside. Sun is shining, birds are chirping, but there is a lot going on. Is Capital One preparing for a crisis in its auto division? Let me be clear. My goal with this podcast is to share data and anecdotes that I'm exposed to so that you can be exposed to them as well. This is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
今天我录制了一期紧急播客，本不计划这样做的。外面天气很好，阳光明媚，鸟儿叽叽喳喳，但是有很多事情正在发生。Capital One是否正在为其汽车部门的危机做出准备？让我明确一点，我录制这个播客的目的是分享我接触到的数据和故事，以便您也能获得了解。这仅供信息参考，不应作为投资决策的基础。
Capital One has historically been an incredible partner to dealers. They've been extremely active into auto business and I wish them all the best, but I'd be lying if I said that I'm not somewhat concerned based on the recent actions they've taken and some of the signals that I'm seeing. Let's start with some quick context about what's happened over the past three years. Well, as you all know, the car business has exploded. Rates have been at record lows. Margins have expanded. Stimulus checks were rampant. Everyone and their mother was buying cars.
Capital One历史上一直是车行的一个难以置信的合作伙伴。他们对汽车行业非常活跃，我祝他们一切顺利，但如果我说我不担心他们最近采取的行动和我所见到的一些信号，我会撒谎的。让我们先来快速了解一下过去三年发生的事情背景。众所周知，汽车行业蓬勃发展。利率处于历史低位，利润空间扩大了，刺激支票泛滥。每个人和他们的母亲都在买车。
The auto loan rejection rate as reported by Bloomberg was near 1% throughout 2021. Almost every single person was getting approved for an auto loan. Pretty crazy when you think about it. Today, that's back up to around 9% and 10%, but needless to say, we clearly had lots of originations over the last couple of years, loan originations that is, and many people that shouldn't have been approved for a loan were approved for a loan. Capital One is an interesting story because they used to have this reputation of being one of the most prestigious lenders for used car dealers. They were very selective and very tough to get, but it seems like throughout 2020 and 2021 that went away.
彭博报道的汽车贷款拒绝率在2021年几乎为1%。几乎每个人都能获得汽车贷款。当你想想这个事实时，感觉相当疯狂。现在，这个拒绝率已经回升到大约9%和10%，但毋庸置疑的是，在过去几年中我们有很多贷款发放，许多本不该获得贷款的人却被批准了贷款。
Capital One是一个有趣的故事，因为它曾经拥有给二手车经销商提供贷款的最负盛名的贷款人之一的声誉。他们非常挑剔，很难得到他们的贷款，但似乎在2020年和2021年期间这种情况消失了。
Capital One began signing up dealers that I would have never imagined in my entire career as a dealer they would work with. It took us years to court Capital One to work with us before we began growing and we were still a small dealership. Fast forward to 2021, it was evident that Capital One was just solely focused on or extremely focused on growing its business at the detriment of its standards to a certain extent. Now, let me be clear. Partnering with smaller sidelines or small mom and pop dealers is not a bad thing. We weren't that positioned one time and we grew out of it and partnering with great lenders was one of the big reasons why.
Capital One开始与我作为经销商从未想象过会合作的经销商签署协议。我们花了好几年时间与Capital One建立业务关系，才开始发展壮大，但我们还是一个小规模的经销商。快进到2021年，很明显Capital One只是专注于或过度专注于扩大业务规模，而有时会牺牲一定的标准。现在，让我明确一点，与小型经销商合作并不是什么坏事。我们曾经也处于这样的位置上，通过与优秀的借贷机构合作，我们才得以发展壮大。
But there is a certain cohort of independent dealers and there's a certain cohort of franchise dealers that don't operate with the best practices and maybe have loose processes, but there's always a certain cohort of independent or non-franchised dealers and franchise dealers for that matter that have very loose operations and are probably riskier on the lending spectrum as opposed to others. And so I think the first thing that I think the first point where I started questioning what is happening was when I spoke with other dealers and when we got to chatting about lending and again, I'm referred to the last couple of years where we began to notice how capitol 1 was pretty much lower standards and almost willing to work with any dealer under the sun.
但是有一些独立经销商和一些连锁经销商并没有采用最佳实践，可能存在松散的流程。总的来说，总是会有一些独立的或非连锁店的经销商和连锁经销商是非常松散并且在贷款的风险谱上可能更加危险。因此，当我与其他经销商交谈并开始谈论贷款时，我开始质疑的第一点是，在过去几年中，我们开始注意到 Capital One 几乎降低了标准，几乎愿意与任何经销商合作。
Yes, this isn't anecdote. Yes, it's my own experience. No, it's not rooted in data, but take it for what it's worth because I'm going to share with you a lot more and you'll see where this all goes. On September 17, 2022, I tweeted a thread and I want to share it out with you here. And it goes, at least two major auto lenders have started aggressively purging dealer parms over the past two weeks. Here's what no one is talking about. Over the past three years, the car business has been so strong that dealer loan portfolios were buoyed by large volumes of new originations. But now the party's over. Dealers are no longer originating new loans at record volumes, leaving the older loans, quote, to fend for themselves. Naturally, this is starting to create dispersion in dealer loan performance.
是的，这不是个轶事。是的，这是我的经历。不，它不是基于数据，但是请根据它的价值来接受，因为我将与你们分享更多，你们将看到这一切的发展。在2022年9月17日，我发了一串推文，我想在这里与你们分享一下。它说，至少有两家主要的汽车贷款机构在过去两周内开始积极清除经销商的参数。以下是没有人谈论的问题。在过去三年中，汽车业务非常强劲，经销商贷款组合受到了大量新发放的贷款的支撑。但现在派对结束了。经销商不再以创纪录的数量发放新贷款，留下老旧的贷款“自谋生路”。自然地，这开始在经销商贷款表现中产生差异。
But there's more. You'd think purging dealers is common practice, right? Wrong. It typically only happens with a small subsect of underperformers. Bottom line, lenders are tightening and they're tightening fast. Right. So around that time, I already started realizing that something is changing and that lenders may be starting to wake up. But it wasn't too pronounced yet. No one was being too aggressive and auto lending was still pretty accessible.
但事实上还有更多。你可能认为清除经销商是常见做法，对吗？错了。通常这只针对一小部分表现不佳的人。总之，贷方正在加紧并加紧得很快。对。那个时候，我已经开始意识到，一些变化正在发生，贷方可能开始警觉。但还没有太明显。没有人过于激进，汽车贷款仍然相当容易获得。
Fast forward to December, I tweeted another thread where I spoke about the loose standards of certain lenders. And near the end of December, I won't forget, I remember seeing Capital One approvals for consumers, right? So when a consumer wants to buy a car, they have to get approved and they go through a process and there's some conversion rate.
快进到12月份，我发了一条推文，谈到了某些放贷人宽松的标准。在12月底，我还记得看到Capital One为消费者批准了一些贷款，对吧？所以当消费者想要购买汽车时，他们必须获得批准并经过一些过程，还有一定的转化率。
Well, we started noticing that Capital One is just not approving as many consumers or if they are at extremely unattractive terms. And so that was the first point where I began saying, Hmm, Capital One is an extremely sophisticated lender. They have some of the best analytics in the industry. They're extremely innovative and forward thinking.
我们开始注意到，Capital One并没有批准很多客户，或者说他们给出的条件非常不具有吸引力。这是我开始质疑Capital One的第一个原因。Capital One是一家非常先进的贷款机构，他们拥有业内最顶尖的分析技术，极为创新和前瞻。
Someone who recently DM me and claims to be one of Capital One's former employees mentioned Capital One analyzes everything. Every tap is logged, spending patterns are analyzed, balances are tracked, the linkages are tracked. If it can be quantified and analyzed, they do it. And he's right, I have never worked at Capital One clearly, but I've seen their technology, I've spoken with some of their executives and I know how they work and think.
最近有人私信我称自己是Capital One的前员工，提到Capital One会对所有数据进行分析。每一次操作都会被记录，消费模式会被分析，余额会被追踪，所有链接也会被追踪。只要能量化和分析，他们都会做。他说得对，虽然我从未在Capital One工作过，但我见过他们的技术，与他们的高管交流过，我了解他们的工作和思维方式。
And if they started tightening their belt around December faster than ally or earlier than ally earlier in Santanderra and other peers, there had to have been a good reason for it for them to get so conservative early than others. But there's more.
如果他们在12月开始比其他同行更快地收紧裤带，早于Santanderra和其他同行，那么他们必须有一个充分的理由，在比其他人更早地变得保守。但这还不是全部。
Around the same time, I spoke with more Capital One employees. And on January 27, I put out a newsletter where I spoke about all the changes and restructuring happening with him, Capital One. Capital One, in January, Capital One began moving many of its leaders from the dealer technology and products division to the help me catch up division. And the purpose of the help me catch up division is to work with the link wing consumers. So why would they do this? Well, clearly it's an affirmation of what to expect in the market or what Capital One is seeing because there are propping up their division that works with the link wing consumers.
大约在同一时间，我与更多的Capital One员工交谈。并且在1月27日，我发出了一份通讯，在其中谈到了他们，Capital One正在发生的所有变化和重组。在1月份，Capital One开始将许多领导人从经销商技术和产品部门调动到帮助我赶上部门。帮助我赶上部门的目的是与链接翼客户合作。那么他们为什么要这样做呢？显然这是对市场或Capital One所看到的预期的肯定，因为他们正在支持与链接翼客户合作的部门。
At the same time in December, we started seeing that loans delinquent by more than 60 days began increasing. And that has continued steadily increasing since then. Now, I want to be clear, the majority of the auto loan market is still in pretty decent shape. But there are certain pockets of the auto loan market that are underperforming a lot more than others.
同时，在去年12月，我们开始看到超过60天逾期的贷款开始增加。从那时起，这种趋势一直稳步增长。现在，我想要明确的是，大多数汽车贷款市场的情况还是相当不错的。但是，汽车贷款市场中确实存在一些表现较差的领域。
One example of this is auto loans that are 60 plus days delinquent. Now, I want to be clear, the majority of the auto loan market is still in pretty decent shape. But it's definitely trending the wrong way. Severe delinquencies or auto loans that are 60 plus days delinquent have recently reached a record high of 1.9 percent and that's 1.9 percent relative to the entire loan base. And so that's higher than even 0.9.
这其中的一个例子是60多天拖欠的汽车贷款。现在我想要明确一点，大部分的汽车贷款市场仍然表现得相当不错。但是情况明显朝着错误的方向发展。严重的逾期拖欠或是60多天拖欠的汽车贷款最近已经达到了创纪录的1.9%，而这1.9%是相对于整个贷款基数而言的。因此，这比0.9%还要高。
Now, the silver lining, if you will, is that the default rate has not risen at the same proportion yet. And so that could be for many reasons. I won't get into that right now. But the point is, I'm keeping a very close eye on it. And it's clear that capital one is as well.
现在，可以说一线希望的是，违约率还没有按照同等比例上升。这可能有很多原因，我现在不详细介绍。但是重点是，我非常关注这一点，而Capital One也很明显正在密切关注。
But let's move forward to the next point. The latest news that I've heard now is that capital one is getting out of the inventory floor plan business. I spoke with franchise dealers. I spoke with independent dealers. And it's very clear by now that this is a widespread issue.
但让我们继续谈下一个问题。我最近听到的最新消息是Capital One正在退出库存车辆计划业务。我与特许经销商和独立经销商交谈过，目前非常明显，这已经是一个普遍存在的问题。
I first heard about this a couple weeks back. But I always like to wait and see and speak with other people to see if something is isolated to a certain pocket region or sub-sective dealers or if it's truly a widespread issue. And by this point, it's clear that this is not an isolated incident. Rather, capital one is pulling floor plans from its dealers. And with from the dealers I've spoken with, they've given them 90 days to refive that.
几个星期前我第一次听说这件事，但我总是喜欢观望并和其他人交流，以确定是否仅局限于某个特定地区或特定经销商，或者这是一个真正普遍的问题。到了现在，很明显这不是一个孤立事件。相反，Capital One 正从其经销商那里收回库存计划。根据我与经销商交谈的情况，他们已经给予经销商 90 天的时间来重新安排。
Now, let me explain to you why this is a problem, right? We're in an increasing interest rate environment. Lenders are clearly tightening. I wanted the Wall Street Journal just put out an article actually today about how lending has gotten so much tighter in the past quarter and it's tougher to get loans.
现在，让我向您解释为什么这是一个问题，好吗？我们正处于逐渐上升的利率环境中。贷方显然在 tightening（紧缩）。今天我看到《华尔街日报》刚刚发表了一篇文章，讲述了过去一个季度贷款越来越难的现象。
And imagine being a deal right now. You have all this inventory. That's on line of credit also known as floor plan with capital one. And you have 90 days to go refinance that. Now, it's not impossible, but it's also not the easiest thing, especially if you have meaningful scale or if you're a multi-store group or maybe you have 10 stores, 20 stores or whatnot.
现在假设你是一家交易公司，你需要处理大量的库存，这些库存都是通过向Capital One（一家金融公司）获得的信贷额度来购买的。你需要在90天内重新融资，这并不是不可能的事，但也不是最容易的事情，尤其是如果你的规模较大，或者你是一家多店铺集团，或者你有10家、20家店铺等等。
And so lots of dealers are now facing a very tough situation where they have to figure out, okay, what do we do? We either refinance this somehow. We have to find another lender that will take on the business. Hopefully it's at semi favorable terms because we're under pressure here. Or we take a really bad deal, pay it off with cash, which we probably don't have. Or of course, last resort, we have no choice but to liquidate the inventory.
因此，许多经销商现在面临着非常困难的情况，在这种情况下，他们必须想出怎么办。我们要么以某种方式重新融资，我们必须找到另一个能承担业务的贷方，希望利率条件相对优惠，因为我们现在很受压力。或者我们接受一个非常糟糕的交易，并用我们可能没有的现金来支付。当然，最后的选择是我们别无选择，只能清算库存。
So a very, very tough situation for many dealers. But again, another signal that's indicating that Capital One is getting a lot more conservative. And they're pushing out of the business in certain capacities.
对于许多经销商来说，这是非常艰难的情况。但是，这也是另一个信号，表明Capital One变得更加保守了。他们正在在某些方面退出业务。
Ally has been lending more aggressively, even Santana there at certain points, although they have tightened up. But Capital One has really tightened up to the point where in certain weeks, they're getting just a single digit percentage of all of our auto loan business. And again, compare that with certain, at a certain point, over 50% of our auto loan business. I think that clearly shows you how much they've tightened the belt.
艾利一直在更加积极地放贷，甚至有时还能和桑塔纳竞争，虽然他们现在也开始收紧了。但是卡普一公司真的已经到了紧缩到特定时间段他们只能获得我们汽车贷款生意中几个百分点的程度，与此相比，在某个时间点，他们曾获得我们汽车贷款生意的50%以上。我认为这清楚地展示了他们已经收紧了腰带的程度。
Another guy who DM me and claims to be a Capital One employee said something very interesting. And he mentioned that their lost mitigation teams at Capital One are preparing to cut ancient incentive programs to prepare for an increase in repos for the next 18 months. Originations and refight teams are slimming down periodically, but servicing teams are bolstering. Capital One is focused on mitigating incoming exposure.
一个私信给我并声称是Capital One员工的人说了一件非常有趣的事情。他提到该公司的追回团队正在准备削减古老的激励计划，以应对未来18个月的资产回收增加。贷款和重组团队周期性地缩减，但服务团队正在加强。Capital One公司专注于减轻即将到来的风险暴露。
And there's two ways to perceive this. Either they're taking an extremely conservative defensive stance, or they realize that they operated far too aggressively over the past couple of years. And now they're quickly trying to scramble and cut back in order to mitigate the losses that are to come.
有两种方式可以理解这个情况。一种是他们采取了极度保守的防御姿态，另一种是他们意识到自己在过去几年中过于激进，现在正急忙削减成本以减轻即将到来的损失。
All right, so let's recap all these different points because there's a lot going on here. Car business exploded over the past three years. Capital One operated very aggressively over the past six months. What we've seen is Capital One purging underperforming dealers, which while that seems like a normal practice was actually not being done and the opposite was done over the last couple of years.
好的，让我们回顾一下所有这些不同的要点，因为这里涉及了许多内容。汽车业务在过去三年里迅速增长。过去六个月，Capital One的经营非常积极。我们看到的是Capital One清理表现不佳的经销商，尽管这似乎是一种正常的做法，但事实上在过去几年中并没有这样做，相反是做了相反的事情。
Two, we've seen Capital One tight its auto lending business faster than any other bank or lender. Three, we're now seeing Capital One getting out of the inventory floor plan business. Probably the most aggressive stance they've taken thus far, but we'll have real implications on dealers and businesses in the months to come.
第二，我们看到Capital One比任何其他银行或借贷人更快地收紧其汽车贷款业务。第三，我们现在看到Capital One正在退出存货库存计划业务。这可能是他们迄今为止采取的最积极的立场，但在未来几个月对经销商和企业将产生实质性影响。
All three of those things are actions that we are not seeing from their peers. I spoke with two other people who DM me and claimed to be employees at Santa Deren Ally. And I mentioned that both of their companies are absolutely not cutting off dealers from their floor plans and they're not taking these similar actions as Capital One.
所有这三件事情都是我们没有从他们的同行那里看到的行动。我与两个私信给我的声称在Santa Deren Ally工作的人交谈过。我提到，他们公司都绝对没有从经销商的计划中削减，并且他们没有采取Capital One类似的行动。
So it's clear that either Capital One is the smartest lender in the room or well, I wouldn't say they're to dumbist, but they're definitely taking and insanely defensive posture in light of what they think is going to happen because Santa Deren Ally are simply not in the same boat as Capital One.
很明显，要么Capital One是最聪明的贷款人，要么，我不会说他们是最愚蠢的，但他们肯定在采取疯狂的防御姿态，因为他们认为Santa Deren Ally和Capital One并不处于同样的境地。
And so I'm going to keep you posted. I have a lot more information that's coming. I wanted to quickly share this podcast. So you have some background about what's happened and how we got to this point.
所以我会继续通知你们最新消息。我还有更多的信息要分享。我想快速分享一下这个播客。这样你们就可以了解到发生了什么，我们是如何到达这一地步的背景信息。