Heritage Global Inc. Q4 2025 Earnings Call - DebtX Acquisition Positioned to Be Accretive as Company Pushes for 2026 'Needle Mover' Year

Conference Call Operator: Hello and welcome everyone joining today’s Heritage Global Inc. fourth quarter 2025 and year-end conference. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. To register to ask a question at any time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please note this call is being recorded. We are standing by should you need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to John Nesbett of IMS Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

John Nesbett, Investor Relations, IMS Investor Relations: Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that this conference call contains forward-looking statements based on our current expectations and projections about future events and are subject to change based on various important factors. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this call. For more details on factors that could affect these expectations, please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now I’d like to turn the call over to Heritage Global’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ross Dove. Ross, go ahead.

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: Thank you, John, and welcome everyone to the call. We’re glad to have you. Just a few brief comments before I turn it over to Brian to drill down on the quarter and the year. 2025 is now in the rearview mirror. It was a good profitable year with lots of transactions, but just no needle movers. Some years you want to never end, but there are years we’re saying goodbye feels more than ready. 2025 felt mostly like we were rode hard and put to bed wet. 2026 feels like a break loose year is right here and right now. When that happens, it almost always follows with a period of larger transaction. As companies and lenders do not hold back asset flows year after year, they ultimately break loose.

What we’re seeing now is not just new deals entering the pipeline more aggressively than before, but many, many of the carry-over deals now starting to convert to transactions which really bodes well for the start of 2026 and beyond. Our own internal growth drivers are completely in place now and all the divisions we see expanding and we’re looking at more supply, more activity, and on that front, we’re adding business personnel across the board. We recently moved into a brand new shiny facility that we’re very excited and proud about, and that opens up space in our warehouse capacity to increase auction activity, and it also opens up office space to where we have room to add the personnel in an integrated situation where we can really work together as a team. That’s very exciting for all of us.

M&A remains a front burner and we’re aggressively looking at many, many opportunities. We’re very proud and excited that we did complete the DebtX acquisition. We’re now focused there on integrating the team with really optimistic goals that we did the right thing at the right time, and the CRE markets are under a lot of pressure to release loans in our marketplace and in their sweet spot. The goal for 2026 is to define it as the year of the needle mover. We’re putting all our feet on the gas, and we believe everyone that had two feet on the brakes is getting ready to move, and we’re getting ready to move with them. With that, I’ll turn it over to Brian, and I’ll add some additional comments afterwards. Have a great day. Brian.

Brian, Chief Financial Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: Thank you, Ross, and good afternoon, everyone. I’ll begin with a brief overview of our fourth quarter operating results before walking through our industrial and financial segment performance. Consolidated operating income was approximately $800 thousand in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to $1.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. It’s worth noting that included in the 2025 fourth quarter was approximately $400 thousand in expenses related to due diligence associated with our M&A efforts. Our industrial assets division reported operating income of approximately $1.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to approximately $800 thousand in the prior year quarter. Our financial assets division reported operating income of approximately $900 thousand in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to $1.9 million in the prior year quarter.

Our industrial assets division had a solid quarter as the division continued to capitalize on key auction and liquidation opportunities. ALT delivered a strong close to the year, reporting operating income of $538 thousand in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to $276 thousand in the prior year period. We saw a high volume of asset transactions in the quarter, although many were smaller in scale as companies continued to delay larger decisions amid ongoing economic uncertainty. Following the close of the quarter, we announced that HCP has opened its new San Diego facility, which consolidates HCP’s warehouse and operations and will serve as Heritage Global’s corporate headquarters.

The new purpose-built facility was designed to accelerate growth, increase operating efficiency, provide ability to add personnel and scale, and we’re confident it is the right space and location for us to drive our next phase of growth. Our financial assets division maintained strong profitability in the fourth quarter of 2025, although we saw lower revenues from recurring clients in our NLEX segment, reflecting fluctuations in charge-off volumes. With that said, consumer loan delinquencies such as credit card and auto remain at elevated levels, and we ultimately expect those delinquencies to translate to increased charge-offs moving forward. Subsequent to the quarter, we announced our acquisition of substantially all of the assets of The Debt Exchange, a leading full-service commercial and residential real estate loan sale brokerage and advisory platform.

DebtX integration has gone very smoothly and this addition further expands our capabilities and reach in our financial asset segment. We believe this acquisition will be accretive in calendar year 2026 with potential quarter-to-quarter variability. Moving forward, we remain focused on capitalizing on our pipeline of opportunities in driving continued profitability in the division. Additional consolidated financial results include the following. Revenue was $11.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to $10.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Adjusted EBITDA was $1.1 million compared to $2.1 million in the prior year period. Net income was approximately $300,000 or $0.01 per diluted share compared to a loss of approximately $200,000 or $0.01 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Fourth quarter 2025 net income was impacted by a non-cash tax allowance adjustment of $0.1 million related to expiring net operating loss carryforwards, compared to a non-cash adjustment of $1.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Our balance sheet is strong with stockholders’ equity of $67 million as of December 31, 2025, compared to $65.2 million at December 31, 2024, with net working capital of $18.1 million. Our cash balance reflects a total of $20.5 million as of December 31, 2025, and after removing amounts due to our clients or payables to sellers on our balance sheet, our net available cash balance was $13.2 million. At December 31, 2025, approximately $18.9 million of federal net operating loss carryforwards were unused and expired.

We expect to utilize our remaining net operating loss carryforwards of approximately $15.5 million and as such have removed the valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets. Lastly, we did not repurchase any shares in the fourth quarter of 2025 but intend to resume share repurchases moving forward. As a reminder, the company authorized a new share repurchase program on July 31st that authorizes the repurchase of up to $7.5 million in common stock for the next three years. Ross, I’ll turn it back over to you.

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: Thanks. I’ll just add one thought. When I look at everything with kind of a CEO dashboard, one of the most important things I look at is the sentiment of our business development team. They’re all very pumped up. They’re all very convinced they’re going to have a great year this year. I’ve talked to them individually one by one, and we enter very, very excited, closing out the first quarter that we’re in the right place at the right time and anxious to not just perform but outperform for you guys. Thank you all for joining, and I’m here and Brian’s here for any questions and we’re always easy to get a hold of. Thank you again.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. If you’d like to ask a question, press star one on your keypad. To leave the queue at any time, press star two. Once again, that’s star one to ask a question. We’ll pause for just a moment to allow anyone a chance to join the queue. We’ll take our first question from Mark Argento of Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Mark Argento, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Hey, guys. Congrats on the DebtX acquisition, and sounds like things are starting to progress nicely there and the overall business. Just kind of getting in the weeds on the acquisition. When you say you expect it to be accretive, is that on a net income basis, adjusted EBITDA basis? You know, I hate to, you know, split hairs, but would be helpful to at least better understand what accretive means.

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: Brian, I’ll let you handle that one.

Brian, Chief Financial Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: Yeah. We expect it to be accretive on an operating income basis as well as net income basis. We’ve disclosed a couple numbers just on the standalone DebtX 2025 result which, as a reminder, that wasn’t a part of our consolidated results, but they reported $800,000 in operating income in 2025. Even with adjustments that we’ll disclose in Q1 numbers, for pro forma purposes, it’ll still be, you know, that number will still be accretive if they were to make that, and we expect them to do more.

Mark Argento, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Got it. I know you mentioned some variability quarter to quarter, which is understandable. Is there any, you know, traditional seasonality to that business?

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: They generally have a very strong Q4, Mark. As you know, primarily their business is driven by lenders, by banks more than by specialty lenders. Their primary client is banks. There always seems to be, in the last 60 days, a desire to clean up, so to speak. Generally Q4 you’d expect to be their big quarter, sometimes over 50% of their revenue.

Mark Argento, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Got it. Okay, that’s helpful. In terms of the broader macro, you touched on a little bit, you know, you’re seeing default rates continue to work higher on the consumer. Obviously, you know, a lot of the headlines recently have been in and around private credit. There seems to be some disruption there. Do you guys have any exposure to that part of the market? Does DebtX get you any exposure there? How are you thinking about, you know, private credit and maybe that opportunity?

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: There’s a big opportunity right now. Obviously, it, the DebtX acquisition was tied to the problems in the CRE market and the amount of loans coming due that are struggling to get refinanced. A lot of those loans have transferred from the banks already to private credit, but there’s still gonna be a desire to take out, you know, the more struggling part of the portfolios. We see growth kind of overall right now, and not just the CRE with DebtX, but there was a lot of holdback in NLEX. We had a very profitable year, but not close to our record year. We just didn’t see as aggressive movement from the sellers as we anticipated. We think there’s a pent-up amount of assets to come to market.

Mark Argento, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Great. Well, I appreciate you answering questions. I’ll hop back in the queue.

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: Thank you, Mark.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. As a quick reminder, if you’d like to ask a question, you may press star one now. We’ll take our next question from George Sutton of Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: Hi, George.

George Sutton, Analyst, Craig-Hallum: Good afternoon, guys. Ross, I’m curious, as you talk about 2026 being the year of, hopefully some larger transactions, and I know you’ve already signed a large oil and gas deal. Can you just give us a picture of what you see relative to larger transactions and maybe a little sense on why did we not see it last year? Why would we see it differently this year?

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: I mean, I’m not gonna be like the general economist and try to outsmart the marketplace, as I can only tell you from, you know, my front row seat talking to clients. From my front row seat, there was a hesitation to make decisions. Just from a geopolitical to going back and forth on the tariffs and many other, you know, macro issues, people weren’t sure, you know, exactly what they wanted to do. I don’t wanna say that people don’t have a lot of assets they wanted to sell, but it just appeared that, yes, they would chip away at the smaller sales, the stuff that was really obviously declared surplus. On the larger transactions where maybe you have to replace the assets and you’re worried about the availability, maybe you’re not sure if you’re gonna, you know, expand or hold back.

There was just a general sentiment that not just Heritage saw, but I think everybody watching the economy saw many companies in a wait and see. In a wait and see, auctions are not your first move. They’re a tertiary move once you’ve had the other plans in place. We had a lot of people just say, "Call us back in a month, call us back in two months, call us back in three months." The good news is we didn’t really lose our conversion rate. It’s just that a lot of the transactions just didn’t happen that we thought were gonna happen. They’re starting to come back now. That’s why I say I feel positive, that I’ve never seen a year after year wait and see period where eventually people don’t commit. I feel good about 2026, George.

George Sutton, Analyst, Craig-Hallum: Well, let me ask a little more specifically. You know, you mentioned we’re about to close out Q1. Are we starting to see the indications of these larger deals? And again, I’ll point to the oil and gas transaction. I think that was happening earlier in the year.

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: Yeah, you’re starting to see.

George Sutton, Analyst, Craig-Hallum: Can you just give us any sense?

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: The signing of them. We’re gonna have a decent Q1 for sure on the industrial side. When I say decent, meaning, you know, I’m excited about the amount of auctions we’re doing in Q1, and some of them are of a larger nature. It looks good on the industrial side. On the financial side, it takes a little longer for the pickup in the curve, but, you know, all signs point to the amount of meetings they’re having and that they’re signing some new forward flows. I think you’ll see that pick up as the year goes on. Maybe a little bit slower than you’ll see the pickup in industrial. We’re busy on all fronts, and it feels like when you start a year busy, it usually stays busy all year, George. It usually doesn’t tail off.

George Sutton, Analyst, Craig-Hallum: One small question for Brian on the specialty lending side. It normally is a modest positive every quarter, and it was modestly negative this quarter. What do you account for that delta?

Brian, Chief Financial Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: The main reason why we’re kind of right around that break-even point or slightly under is the lack of funding. We’ve been only funding smaller loans on a self-funded basis without any partners and at a low level. In order to maintain profitability, we have to be able to and be willing to put more dollars out to work with new borrowers in 2026.

George Sutton, Analyst, Craig-Hallum: Gotcha. Okay. Thanks, guys.

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: Thank you, George.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. At this time, there are no further questions in queue. I will now turn the meeting back to management for closing remarks.

Ross Dove, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Global Inc.: Hi, it’s Ross. Thank you all once again for joining. We really appreciate it. If any of you have other questions, please, feel free to contact us at any time. We’re always open to chat, always look forward to chatting, and always look forward to talking and getting to know you guys. Feel free to reach out at any time. We’re hoping for a dynamic year. We’re putting all of our feet on the gas, like I said, and we’re optimistic. Hopefully you’re optimistic with us, and we appreciate you joining. Have a great evening.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. This brings us to the end of today’s meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.