Some finance companies might see success as the more originations, the better. That’s not quite the case at Consumer Portfolio Services as a strategy chairman and chief executive officer Brad Bradley thought would be successful during the worst part of the Great Recession nearly 10 years ago is turning out to be the case.

During the third quarter, CPS reported that it purchased $204.7 million of new contracts compared to $233.9 million during the second quarter of 2017 and $242.1 million during the third quarter of 2016. While those Q3 originations are lower than comparable timeframes, the pace is in line with where Bradley said, “We could probably run a very stable company.”

The Q3 purchases left the company’s managed receivables at $2.346 billion as of Sept. 30, an increase from $2.343 billion as of June 30 and $2.292 billion as of the close of last year’s third quarter.

During the company’s recent conference call, Bradley elaborated about why the originations cadence CPS has enjoyed for nearly three years works well for this subprime auto finance company.

“What’s interesting is in 2007, 2008, after getting whacked around in that recession, even though CPS is doing very, very well, I sort of said, ‘Geez, if we could get to $50 million originations a month, we could probably run a very stable company and be very successful.’ But we instead grew a whole bunch and got up into the ($100 million) for a while. But now after doing that we are sitting in that $70 to $75 million a month range and in fact doing exactly what I said.

“We’re running a very stable company or quite profitable,” he continued. “Our numbers all look good.”

CPS’ Q3 earnings came in at $4.7 million, or $0.17 per diluted share, as revenues ticked up by $1 million year-over-year to $109.5 million. The company’s total operating expenses also increased, rising by $5.3 million or 5.5 percent to $101.4 million.

When  it comes to vehicle installment contract performance, CPS indicated its annualized net charge-offs for the third quarter stood 7.96 percent of the average owned portfolio as compared to 6.69 percent at the same point in 2016.

CPS’ delinquencies greater than 30 days (including repossession inventory) constituted 10.27 percent of the total owned portfolio as of Sept. 30 as compared to 10.46 percent a year earlier.

So while other finance companies might be having arm-wrestling contests in the marketplace to gather as much paper as they can push through their systems, Bradley reiterated that CPS remains confident in its position.

“They’re trying to grow real fast in a competitive environment because car sales are down, which puts more pressure across the board. And I say this because CPS isn’t doing any of that. We reached a point where we can sort of buy what we want to buy, we don't have any pressure to grow,” Bradley said.

“Given the environment I just described and given where we stand as a company, it just doesn't seem like the right course to get out there and slug it out in an industry that’s going to have problems going forward,” he added later in the company’s conference call. “We think doing what we’re doing right and doing it for a while here is probably the best course.

“Having said that we are very opportunistic, we think there will be opportunities in the future and sort of keeping some dry powder, doing the things we're doing the way we are, we could be in a really good spot going forward,” Bradley went on to say.

And one other note from the company’s latest financial report, CPS’ board of directors this month approved an increase to the aggregate authorization to repurchase outstanding securities by $10 million.

During the third quarter, CPS purchased 1,189,660 shares of stock in the open market at an average price of $4.28. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, CPS purchased 2,292,070 shares at an average price of $4.51.