Earnings call transcript: SLM Corp Q1 2025 surpasses EPS expectations

Sallie Mae (SLM Corp) reported robust financial results for Q1 2025, with earnings per share (EPS) of $1.40, exceeding the forecasted $1.15. This performance marked a significant improvement from the prior year’s $1.27 EPS. The company’s revenue and strategic initiatives contributed to a positive market reaction, with SLM’s stock price rising 3.69% during regular trading hours and an additional 2.18% in aftermarket trading. According to InvestingPro data, five analysts have recently revised their earnings estimates upward for the upcoming period, suggesting continued momentum. The stock currently trades at an attractive P/E ratio of 10.3x relative to its near-term earnings growth potential.

Key Takeaways

• SLM Corp’s Q1 2025 EPS of $1.40 beat forecasts by 21.7%.
• Stock price increased by 3.69% in regular trading and 2.18% in aftermarket.
• Loan originations grew by 7.3% year-over-year.
• Non-interest expenses decreased by 4% compared to the previous year.
• The company reaffirmed its 2025 guidance.

Company Performance

SLM Corp demonstrated strong performance in Q1 2025, driven by higher loan originations and effective cost management. The company increased its loan originations to $2.8 billion, reflecting a 7.3% year-over-year growth. Additionally, SLM maintained a strong credit quality, with a delinquency rate of 3.6%, slightly down from 3.7% in Q4 2024.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $375 million in net interest income, down $12 million year-over-year.
• Earnings per share: $1.40, up from $1.27 in Q1 2024.
• Net interest margin: 5.27%, up 35 basis points from the previous quarter.
• Provision for credit losses: $23 million, up from $12 million in the prior year.

Earnings vs. Forecast

SLM Corp’s EPS of $1.40 significantly surpassed the forecast of $1.15, marking a positive surprise of 21.7%. This beat indicates the company’s strong operational execution and strategic focus on growth areas.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, SLM’s stock surged by 3.69% during regular trading hours, closing at $27.15. In aftermarket trading, the stock further increased by 2.18%, reaching $28.75. This upward movement reflects investor confidence in the company’s financial health and future prospects. InvestingPro analysis indicates the stock has demonstrated strong momentum, with a 28% price return over the past six months. The company maintains a "GOOD" overall Financial Health score, supported by particularly strong profitability metrics. Want deeper insights? Access the comprehensive Pro Research Report, available exclusively to InvestingPro subscribers.

Outlook & Guidance

SLM Corp reaffirmed its guidance for 2025, targeting moderate and predictable balance sheet growth. The company remains committed to its capital return strategy, including share buybacks, and maintains a cautious outlook due to macroeconomic uncertainties. InvestingPro data shows analyst consensus remains bullish, with price targets ranging from $27 to $34 per share. The company’s solid financial position is reflected in its healthy current ratio of 1.32 and strong Altman Z-Score of 5.43, indicating low financial distress risk. Discover more exclusive financial metrics and analysis with an InvestingPro subscription.

Executive Commentary

CEO John Witter remarked, "We’re off to a strong start for 2025," highlighting the company’s solid financial performance. He also noted, "We are encouraged by our early credit performance," emphasizing the strength of SLM’s credit quality. CFO Pete Graham added, "We continue to believe that over the longer term, low to mid 5% is an appropriate NIM target," underscoring the company’s strategic financial goals.

Risks and Challenges

• Potential impacts of federal student loan policy changes could affect SLM’s market position.
• Macroeconomic pressures and job market challenges for graduates may impact loan repayment rates.
• Changes in university funding could influence the demand for private education loans.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the potential impacts of federal student loan policy changes and the company’s extended grace program strategy. SLM executives addressed these concerns, confirming a stable student loan asset-backed securities (ABS) market and their preparedness for any policy shifts.

The company’s strong start to 2025, coupled with its strategic focus on growth and risk management, positions SLM Corp favorably for the remainder of the year.

Full transcript - SLM Corp (SLM) Q1 2025:

Conference Operator: Welcome to the Sallie Mae First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the prepared remarks. I would now like to turn the call over to Kate DeLacey, Senior Director and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kate DeLacey, Senior Director and Head of Investor Relations, Sallie Mae: Thank you, Margo. Good evening, and welcome to Sallie Mae’s first quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. It’s my pleasure to be here today with John Witter, our CEO Pete Graham, our CFO and Melissa Verdaugh, Managing Vice President of Strategic Finance. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. Before we begin, keep in mind our discussion will contain predictions, expectations and forward looking statements.

Actual results in the future may be materially different from those discussed here due to a variety of factors. Listeners should refer to the discussion of those factors in the company’s Form 10 ks and other filings with the SEC. For Sallie Mae, these factors include, among others, results of operations, financial conditions and or cash flows as well as any potential impacts of various external factors on our business. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any predictions, expectations or forward looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after today, Thursday, 04/24/2025. Thank you.

And now I’ll turn the call over to John.

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Thank you, Kate and Margo. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Sallie Mae’s first quarter twenty twenty five results. I’m pleased to report on a successful quarter and progress toward our 2025 goals. I hope you’ll take away three key messages today.

First, we’re off to a strong start for 2025. Second, we are encouraged by our early credit performance and third, we believe we have positive momentum for the rest of the year despite uncertainties and the broader macroeconomic environment. Let’s begin with the quarter’s results. GAAP diluted EPS in the first quarter was 1.4 per share as compared to $1.27 in the year ago quarter. Loan originations for the first quarter were $2,800,000,000 an increase of 7.3% from the year ago quarter, a strong start to 2025.

The credit quality of originations continues to be solid with incremental improvement compared to Q1 of twenty twenty four. Our cosigner rate for the first quarter was 93% compared to 91% in the year ago quarter and average FICO at approval was 7.53% for the first quarter compared to 7.48% in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. The first quarter also reflected strong credit quality. Net private education loan charge offs in Q1 were $76,000,000 representing 1.88% of average loans in repayment. This is down 26 basis points from the first quarter of twenty twenty positive credit performance in the first quarter of this year was driven by several key factors.

Seasonality played a role as the first quarter historically delivers stronger credit outcomes compared to the rest of the year. We also continue to see benefits from enhancements in our collection practices and the effectiveness of our expanded loss mitigation programs. While we are pleased with this early performance, we remain mindful of the uncertainty created by recent policy changes and their potential implications for the broader macroeconomic environment. Executed in the first quarter generated $188,000,000 in gains, a high single digit premium, an increase of $45,000,000 from our Q1 twenty twenty four sale. We expect to sell additional loans this year with market conditions dictating the timing and our private student loan portfolio growth targets dictating the volume.

For the first quarter of twenty twenty five, we continued our capital return strategy, repurchasing 1,000,000 shares at an average price of $29.65 per share. We have reduced the shares outstanding since we began this strategy in 2020 by 53% at an average price of $16.29 We expect to continue to programmatically and strategically buyback stock throughout the year. Pete will now take you through some additional financial highlights of the quarter. Pete, over to you.

Pete Graham, CFO, Sallie Mae: Thank you, John. Good evening, everyone. Let’s continue with a discussion of key drivers of earnings. For the first quarter of twenty twenty five, we earned $375,000,000 of net interest income. This is down $12,000,000 from the prior year quarter, but ahead of the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four by $13,000,000 During the first quarter, we completed a $500,000,000 unsecured bond transaction, which was used to redeem our November 2025 maturity.

Our net interest margin was 5.27% for the quarter, 35 basis points ahead of the prior quarter. We continue to believe that over the longer term, low to mid 5% is an appropriate NIM target. Our provision for credit losses was $23,000,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five, up from $12,000,000 in the prior year quarter. The increase was largely driven by loan growth related to the mini peak origination season and partially offset by $116,000,000 reserve release associated with the $2,000,000,000 loan sale completed during the quarter. Despite the higher provision, our allowance as a percentage of total private education loan exposure was 5.97%, slightly down from 5.99% in the year ago quarter.

This represented a 14 basis point increase from the fourth quarter, which is consistent with the seasonal impact of higher originations in the first quarter of the year. Our reserve rate has remained relatively consistent year over year, reflecting a balanced view of credit performance and the broader macroeconomic environment. While we are encouraged by the ongoing benefits from our loan modification programs and the continued strength in the credit quality of originations, we remain cautious. The economic outlook continues to be a key variable in our reserve modeling, and we will closely monitor any changes in the environment that could impact future estimates. Private education loans delinquent thirty days or more were 3.6% of loans in repayment, a decrease from 3.7 at the end of twenty twenty four, although higher than the 3.4% at the end of the year ago quarter.

We remain pleased with the performance of our enhanced loss mitigation programs, which we’ve now had the opportunity to observe over more than a full year. The volume of loan modification enrollments has decreased by approximately 50% from highs in the third quarter of twenty twenty four as we have optimized our eligibility criteria. We’re pleased with the trajectory of this program and the positive performance is an important step towards achieving our long term net charge off targets. First quarter non interest expenses were $155,000,000 compared to $150,000,000 in the prior quarter and $162,000,000 in the year ago quarter. This was a 4% decrease compared to the first quarter of twenty twenty four despite an increase in application and originations volume in the quarter.

Finally, our liquidity and capital positions remain solid. We ended the quarter with liquidity of 16.8% of total assets. At the end of the first quarter, total risk based capital was 12.9% and common equity Tier one capital was 11.6%. Another measure of loss absorption capacity of the balance sheet is GAAP equity plus loan loss reserves over risk weighted assets, which was a very strong 16.4%. We continue to believe we’re well positioned to grow our business and return capital to shareholders going forward.

I’ll now turn the call back to John.

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Thanks, Pete. I hope you agree that we executed well in the first quarter and that you share my belief that we have positive momentum for the full year of 2025. Let me close with a few comments on our 2025 guidance. As I mentioned earlier this evening, the strength of our first quarter origination season, the positive momentum in credit performance and the successful execution of our first loan sale this year reflect a solid start and meaningful progress toward our goals. While we remain confident in our trajectory and expect performance of our programs over the medium term, we also recognize the broader macroeconomic uncertainty that persists.

As such, we will continue to monitor developments closely and we’ll provide updates in future earnings calls as we gain greater clarity throughout the year. At this time, we are reaffirming the 2025 guidance that we shared on our last earnings call for all key metrics. With that, Pete, why don’t we go ahead and open up the call for some questions?

Conference Operator: We’ll take our first question from Jeff Adelson with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Jeff Adelson, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Yes. Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Your credit your charge offs did really well this quarter. I know you gave some color on the seasonality and you continue to be pleased with the loss mitigation programs. Would you attribute most of that outperformance versus what you’ve seen over the last few years to the loss mitigation programs you’re putting on?

Or is there anything else we should be aware of under the hood? And then, any sort of early color or anything you’re noticing or expecting from some of the impact to the government programs where recently we saw the announcement that the government is intending to turn back on collections and wage garnishment for those in default and there’s been a number that in the federal program have not been paying their loans for some time?

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Yes, Jeff, it’s John. Let me take both of those and I’ll invite Pete to chime in if I miss anything. On the charge offs, I think we’ve been pretty consistent about this. I think we would point to a number of contributing factors. As I said in my comments, there’s obviously a little bit of seasonality.

If you looked back at Q1 of last year, for example, you would see a net charge off rate that was a little bit lower than the full year. So that is certainly a part of it. I think the loss mitigation programs is a part of it and it’s not just the introduction of those programs, but really the continued optimization of those programs over time. I think Pete mentioned the fact that we’re optimizing around enrollments, but we’re also optimizing around other components of the programs as well so that they better meet the needs of our customers. And as I think we’ve said sort of repeatedly, we’ve also over the last number of years engaged in on the margin, but we think powerful sort of changes and enhancements to our underwriting capabilities.

Those are a little bit of a longer burn time item just given the amount of time our students spend in school before they enter repayment. But that’s obviously a part of the answer as well and will continue to be a part of the answer in the future. So I don’t think there’s anything new that I would add to that. I think it’s the same basic recipe that we have that we’ve talked about. To your second question, which we could probably spend all night talking about, obviously there’s a lot of changes in sort of focus of this administration.

They have talked about a whole variety of different things. First and foremost, reporting of delinquency and default status in federal loans to the bureaus. There was a number of articles that came out several weeks ago about that. And I think really spearheaded by an op ed piece in the last couple of days by the Secretary of Education, a focus on more active sort of collections and sort of payment activities related to that population. We’ve dug into this a number of different ways.

And I’ll preface this by saying we don’t have perfect data on our customers and their federal loan programs and use. But we look pretty carefully, for example, at FICO. And we have seen for our customers who have federal loans, no material sort of change in the average FICO performance. There’s always, as you would expect, some people who go a little bit up and some people who go a little bit down, but the averages have stayed very, very steady. And even as we’ve dug into some of those sort of joint customers, customers of us and the federal government whose FICOs have declined, we’ve not seen any material or meaningful reduction in their ability to pay or payment sort of metrics or behaviors or patterns.

The FICO stuff seems to be really pretty steady. We also did a fair amount of sort of what I would describe as one time special analysis on this. And we looked at all of our customers who also have federal loans. And I think there were some things that we saw that were pretty interesting there. Our joint customers, again, and Sallie Mae, seem to have a lower delinquency rate on their federal loans than the federal population as a whole.

And I need to caveat that by saying the data on delinquencies out of the federal loan program is not great, but the best that we’ve been able to piece that together. And I think even more interestingly, if you look at those customers, those joint customers who are delinquent on their federal loans, 85 of those joint customers are actually current on their Sallie Mae loans. And so I think when you put all of that together, Jeff, it says at least to me, it suggests two really important things. One, our average customer is just different from the federal customer as a whole. Said simply, most of Sallie Mae’s customers have a federal loan, but lots of federal borrowers do not have Sallie Mae loans, right?

The two populations we really believe are different. And I think that performance also speaks to the strategy that we enacted several years ago of getting our customers back into positive repayment habits sort of early after the coronavirus situation abated. And I think we are seeing sort of the positive impact of those credit habits. And I think that says, or at least validates to a certain amount that overall strategy. So probably more data than you were looking for, but at least as of this time, we’re just not seeing a lot impact of that.

Obviously, as those federal strategies continue to season, we’ll continue to monitor. And if we see something different that we think is material, of course, we’ll talk about that.

Jeff Adelson, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: That’s great. Thanks for all that color. That’s really helpful. Maybe the other side of that coin is some of the changes or forthcoming changes of the Department of Education are also maybe incentivizing some more activity from borrowers to go private. I’m just wondering if you’re seeing any of that yet.

And I know we’re still waiting on changes in the Plus programs potentially down the line, but are you noticing an uptick in graduate borrowers maybe coming to you or maybe you could share any what percent of your originations are coming from graduate if that’s increased at all?

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Jeff, first of all, I think it is sort of early and hard to know. As we have talked about I think often in our business spring follows fall, fall doesn’t follow spring. So an awful lot of the originations and disbursements that we’re doing now are really follow on business from the fall. With that said, I think there are some very sort of initial signs that there may be some increased activity there, but it is way too early for us to have a strong point of view on that. I think in terms of that swap inswap out behavior, if that happens, we would really expect to see that during peak season this summer.

Jeff Adelson, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Good night.

Conference Operator: We’ll next go to Terry Ma with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Terry Ma, Analyst, Barclays: Hey, thank you. Good evening. Just wanted to follow-up on credit. The delinquency rate improved sequentially, but it was up 18 basis points year over year. A lot of that was driven by the early stage bucket.

That bucket was pretty flat year over year last two quarters. So any color on kind of what went on there?

Pete Graham, CFO, Sallie Mae: I think one of the things that’s sort of impacting delinquencies in the quarter is sort of the impact of the folks that are in their qualifying periods in the mod programs. And comparing prior first quarter to this quarter, that’s a significant change in practice. If you adjust for those folks in the mod programs that are in the delinquency buckets, that number for this quarter is a 3% number. So I think that’s a big piece of some of the trend that you’re referring to there.

Terry Ma, Analyst, Barclays: Got it. All right. So if I look at kind of your extended grace, there’s been much higher usage over the last year. I guess like how should we kind of interpret that? And is there kind of any color that you can give on borrower behavior kind of once they exit extended Grace?

Thank you.

Pete Graham, CFO, Sallie Mae: Yes. I think the changes we made to the provide that extra assistance that was allowed under the regulations for those borrowers that are new to repayment, that’s the highest period of stress that we see in the portfolio as people are graduating, getting their lives in order and going into establishing good payment patterns in their life. And so we feel like the usage of that as we’ve rolled out that program is probably indicative of it operating as intended. At the margins, the level of people applying to that, I don’t think are indicative of anything broader in the overall economy. And we view that as a very strong program that are helping people be successful.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We’ll next go to Moshe Orenbuch with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Moshe Orenbuch, Analyst, TD Cowen: Great, thanks. John, I know that you mentioned that the growth of the balance sheet would kind of be driven or I should say the amount of the loan sales would be driven by your balance sheet growth targets. Maybe if you could just kind of talk a little bit about now that the CECL is in the rearview mirror, the CECL phase in, how you are thinking about both growth in the balance sheet and capital return?

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Yeah, Moshe happy to and again Pete jump in if I miss anything here. And for anyone who was not a part of it, I would encourage folks to go back and look at our December 2023 investor forum presentation. While that was certainly not meant to be kind of a multi year commitment in any way shape or form, I think it was really meant to sort of give as clear evidence as we can of sort of how we think strategically about the business. And I think Moshe to answer your question, what we really like in the business right now as we move past full CECL phase in is moderate accelerating and predictable balance sheet growth. We think there’s a real value in growing the balance sheet.

We think there’s a real value in the kind of growth of predictable steady kind of NIM based earnings that come from that. And we like that overall view. We do though want to put sort of thoughtful kind of limits or governors if you will on how quickly we do grow the balance sheet. Growing the balance sheet consumes meaningful capital, growing the balance sheet puts stress on the liquidity portion of our business. And by the way, you know for how our strategy has evolved over the last five years, I am as committed to strong capital return and capital discipline as I think anybody.

And we also like saving room in our plan to continue to return meaningful capital to shareholders. So that kind of moderate plan allows us to in our mind get a little bit of a Goldilocks where we can grow the balance sheet thoughtfully and still every year have meaningful capital to return in the form of share buybacks really fueled through our loan sale proceeds. But also what we also like is sort of the potential for a strong and over time potentially growing that would really be fueled by that balance sheet growth. So I think we laid all of that out in sort of that investor form document in more detail. I think the guidance that we’ve given for this year is completely consistent with that.

In fact, I think we’re sort of a year ahead of where we thought we would be on that journey on sort of virtually every metric. And we feel great about the value that that’s been able to create for us so far.

Moshe Orenbuch, Analyst, TD Cowen: Great. And then you did mention that expenses were down 4% year on year despite higher applications. And I know that kind of driving that better unit economics has always been part of the thesis. Could just talk a little bit about what you’ve done to achieve that and how sustainable is that or how you think about that going forward?

Pete Graham, CFO, Sallie Mae: I’ll take that one. Yes, I think as you stated, it’s been an ongoing focus of ours to continue to drive operating leverage in the business. And each year as we set out our guidance, we have that in mind as we set our targets for the year. I think in regards to any one quarter, there can be gives and gets in the quarter that swing things one way or the other. But we’re happy with the expense performance we’ve had and committed to the overall guidance that we put out for this year.

Moshe Orenbuch, Analyst, TD Cowen: Thanks very much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And we’ll take our next question from Michael Kaye with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Michael Kaye, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Hi, good evening. EPS, it’s off to a really good start this year, much higher than Q1 consensus estimates. Though, you know, your EPS guidance for the year was unchanged. Trying to figure out is that just cautiousness as we’re early in the year and maybe some pickup in macro uncertainty that’s keeping the guidance unchanged or something else at play? Are you actually running ahead of plan thus far?

Pete Graham, CFO, Sallie Mae: Yes. Hey, Michael, it’s Pete here. I guess what I would say is I would break that down as follows. Kind of one of the key performance drivers for the quarter was the loan sale that we completed in February. And we knew what the results of that were when we set our guidance out for this year.

So again, we’re committed to our overall guidance for the year. I think there is some amount of macro uncertainty in the world, but we haven’t seen anything that’s impacting our results yet. So we haven’t made any real adjustments yet as regards to that.

Michael Kaye, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Just back to the buyback, it seems like it’s off to a very slow start this year just and just like $31,000,000 I mean, you plan to come anywhere near close to completing that? I think it’s $272,000,000 that’s left.

Pete Graham, CFO, Sallie Mae: Yes. I think our if you look at the share buyback pattern that we had in 2024 and you compare that our start to the year, I think they’re relatively consistent. I’ll remind everyone that last year, we set out to create a more programmatic approach to share buybacks, and we fund those share plans with the proceeds from the loan sales as they occur. And we’re running the same sort of playbook this year. So we completed a loan sale in February, and we put in a program with the proceeds from that loan sale that started executing very shortly thereafter.

So I wouldn’t necessarily read anything into the pace of the start to the year.

Moshe Orenbuch, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay. All right. Thank you.

Conference Operator: We’ll next go to Nate Richem with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Nate Richem, Analyst, Bank of America: Good afternoon and thanks for taking my question. Originations in the quarter were pretty solid, but I would have thought growth would have been a little faster given the share gains you made late last year and the strength we saw in two ways 2024. And I realize you’re reiterating guidance for the full year, but just curious to hear your thoughts on how the quarter shook out versus your expectations. And like if you expect a relatively consistent growth rate from here or the normal step down that we’d probably expect from like from you lapping that share gain?

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Yes. Nate, I think in terms of originations, I think we’re sort of well within our expectations for the year. We had a lot of discussion last year when we set guidance about the fact that with the competitive changes in the marketplace, those changes would be spread over two years. There’d be a fall effect, which we really experienced last year and there’d be a spring effect, which we experienced this year a little bit smaller. I think we feel like we’re sort of right on our plan and right where we expected to be for the spring effect.

I do think you should expect that this fall will not sort of match last fall in terms of the overall growth rate because you don’t get competitors leaving the marketplace the same competitor leaving the marketplace two years in a row. But I think we believe what we’re seeing in the first quarter is consistent with the guidance that we’ve given for the year.

Nate Richem, Analyst, Bank of America: Got it. Thank you. And then I want to go back to Moshe’s question really quickly. The expense efficiencies were really solid in 1Q, but I’m just curious if you can give us some additional color on the puts and takes for the full year outlook. And like what could push you to the high end of the range at this point?

Is it like variability on the loan volumes you do in the fall season? Or is it other spending like investments in just marketing in general?

Pete Graham, CFO, Sallie Mae: Yes. Again, we’re off to a good start for this year. And we feel good about the level of efficiency we’ve been driving into the business, to a degree that we can generate more efficiencies that will give us some flexibility to accelerate investment in other technologies or other things that will have further efficiency gains in the future. We’ve got a fairly tight expense range of guidance for the full year. And so I think that’s appropriate for us to sort of keep to our commitment at this juncture in the year.

I don’t see anything that’s going to wildly swing us beyond the guidance that we’ve given.

Nate Richem, Analyst, Bank of America: Got it. Thank you.

Conference Operator: We’ll take our next question from John Hecht with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

John Hecht, Analyst, Jefferies: Afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. First question, I’m just going back to some policy stuff. I think we’ve all become aware of some headlines about some potential changes or reduction in funding of several large universities you know, along with just sort of general over government cutbacks and a lot of factors or segments. But I’m wondering, if that happens, it seems like some of that would also some of that deficit would go to the private markets.

Have you guys given that much consideration? And is there anything else we should be thinking about if that trend does occur?

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Yes. John, it’s John. We’ve been following the same news reports that you are. And I think it’s a little bit of a difficult question because the unknown at this point is how do colleges and universities respond and how long lasting and how sort of how fully are the various proposed actions followed through on. But I think there are gives and gets.

Certainly if universities are under greater financial pressure, it implies perhaps for some that there is less money there for financial aid. That probably leaves a larger gap for families to make up on and that is the core of our business that gap financing. That could certainly be a slight positive to our originations outlook. I would also say on the opposite side just as an example, if for example fewer international students come because of Visa or other issues, That’s not a big part of our business today. But we do business with some international students if they have an appropriate cosigner.

And that could be a very slight sort of headwind to the overall origination. So I think it’s really too early to tell. I think there’s too many gives and gets there. I don’t think we are envisioning it having a material impact as we know it at this point for this year. But certainly as the breadth and depth of those policy changes comes more into focus, breadth being number of schools impacted and depth of course being the magnitude of the impact, I think we’ll be in a better position to understand.

And if that changes our originations outlook, we’ll of course update that in a future earnings call.

John Hecht, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay. That’s helpful. Thanks. And then second question, big sale this quarter and a really strong gain. I’m wondering the character of the buyers, has that been changing?

I mean, I think we’re all aware of the massive amount of flows in the private credit funds. Are you seeing a shift toward more bids from that group? Is it still or is it still kind of ABS and more general credit buyers at this point?

Pete Graham, CFO, Sallie Mae: No real difference in the process this year versus last. No real change in makeup of the bidders on the transactions. And although it hasn’t occurred yet, my expectation is that the buyer will be using our securitization framework for their funding takeout sometime here in the near future.

John Hecht, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay. Thanks very much. Yes.

Conference Operator: We’ll take our next question from Rick Shane with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Kate DeLacey, Senior Director and Head of Investor Relations, Sallie Mae0: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Look, one of the things that’s emerging is that the job market for graduating seniors is going to be a little bit more challenging this year than we’ve seen in the last four or five years. I’m curious when you might start to see that or how that plays through your numbers? Is it something we would see in the third quarter or does it not really emerge until the following year if that becomes a challenge?

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Yes. Rick, I’ve seen I’m sure some of the same articles and coverage there that you have seen. A couple of thoughts and perspectives. One, as you can imagine, we do regular kind of research and touch bases with our customers and try to understand how they are feeling about things. As recently as work that we did late last fall, we were still seeing a very high degree of optimism among sort of recent grads about their ability to meet their financial obligations.

So a lot can change in a few months, but I think that is sort of a relevant sort of data point or sort of factoid to sort of start with. I think the second thing is college kids transitioning and finding that first job and recognizing that it may take in some instances more or less time for people to find and land their right first opportunity, that’s been happening to greater or lesser extent since we started in this business. And there is a reason why we invest as deeply and thoughtfully in communication programs, readiness programs, but also things like our extended grace program and really target them at that transition point because we know it’s always going to be a hard point. And quite frankly, if there’s a little more or a little less unemployment during that period, I’m not sure it changes sort of the stress of that sort of materially. And I think kind of a good case in point of that is even with the slightly elevated unemployment rates that we’re seeing today among recent college grads, you’re not seeing that flow through into our net charge off rates in the quarter.

So this is a part of the business we are well familiar with. This is not a new phenomenon for us. This is something that if you’re a private student lender and you’re good at your craft, you kind of know how to deal with it. To answer your question specifically, I think if you were to see stress, it would be associated with the same kind of repayment waves, the fall and the spring repayment waves that you’re used to seeing. And I think if you look back at sort of delinquency trends over quarters, you would expect if you were to have real issues being caused by early to graduate unemployment rates, I think you would expect them to play out over roughly those same time lines.

Kate DeLacey, Senior Director and Head of Investor Relations, Sallie Mae0: Got it. Okay. That’s helpful. Look, actually ties into the second part of my question, which is that I assume that the extended grace forbearance extended grace loans on extended grace period are particularly correlated to loans in the one to twelve month payment bucket perhaps leaking into the thirteen to twenty four. If we look at the growth in extended grace, it’s been about 2x the growth of loans in the first twelve month bucket.

Is that really a reflection of the change in policy? Is that what we should sort of expect to see going forward? Or is that starting to incorporate some of the economic factors that we’re describing here?

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Yes. Rick, my sense of it Extended Grace is a program that has a tight eligibility window. You are only eligible for that program within very certain time periods of coming out of school. One of the strategic decisions that we made as we transitioned away from our former forbearance programs, because that is a kind of a stipulated program, was to do a lot more work about educating our customers as to the availability of that program for them. Because if you miss the on ramp, you miss the on ramp as the regulations go.

And so I think our view is what we’re seeing is a very positive outcome. We are educating our students on the programs that are available to them. We are helping them make use of a program that’s only available to them at the very beginning. If they miss that on ramp, they would have to go to a different program which then limits their eligibility for other programs down the road through various restrictions and counters. And so we view this as a really positive thing.

And as Pete said, we do not view those volume trends as being sort of unhealthy. We view it as a really positive step in us helping these customers as they go through that transition.

Kate DeLacey, Senior Director and Head of Investor Relations, Sallie Mae0: Got it. I appreciate it. And as the parent of a graduating senior, I will embrace your enthusiasm for the market as it evolves.

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Yes. Appreciate that Rick and good luck to your child.

Kate DeLacey, Senior Director and Head of Investor Relations, Sallie Mae0: Thank you. Take care guys.

Conference Operator: We’ll take our next question from Mark DeVries from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Pete Graham, CFO, Sallie Mae: Yeah. How has student loan ABS traded, since you did your loan sale? Any sense for, what type of gain you would generate today if you sold at the current spreads? That’s a very good question. I think there’s been as with all the markets, there’s been a good amount of volatility in the last, call it, month or so.

My understanding, the market currently is fairly stable. There’s somewhat of a cyclicality of issuances coming after earnings calls, typically led each quarter by the auto issuers primarily, and that those have been in market this week. My understanding is the market’s functioning pretty well. So I don’t have a specific answer in terms of the gain on sale as it pertains to spreads in February versus now. But I don’t believe that there’s been a material widening of spreads that has been persistent.

I think there’s been some points in time, obviously, where because of the broader macro volatility spreads have blown out and then come back in. But yes, that’s my point of view. I think the market’s functioning well and we’ll monitor it as we go into the rest of the year here for the optimal time to do the next sale. Okay, got it. That’s helpful.

Thanks.

Conference Operator: This concludes the Q and A portion of today’s call. I would now like to turn the floor over to Mr. John Witter for closing remarks.

John Witter, CEO, Sallie Mae: Well, thank you everyone for dialing in. I’m sure everyone is anxious to get off to the NFL draft this evening. I hope your team gets the selection that they wanted. Appreciate your interest in Sallie Mae. And obviously, if you have follow-up questions, Kate and her team are more than happy to be standing by and we’ll take whatever you need from here.

And so I think with that, Kate, I’m going turn it back over to you for some last minute business.

Kate DeLacey, Senior Director and Head of Investor Relations, Sallie Mae: Thanks, John. Thank you for your time and questions today. A replay of this call and the presentation will be available on the Investors page at salliemae.com. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me directly. This concludes today’s call.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And this concludes today’s Sallie Mae’s first quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful evening.

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