Daily Archives: January 22, 2025

Ally drops credit card business, posts quarterly profit

Auto lender Ally Financial said Wednesday that it’s officially ending its foray into credit cards under a broader restructuring, even as credit issues in its flagship auto loan business showed signs of waning. CEO Michael Rhodes, who joined the company in April last year, said borrowers are having less trouble repaying their auto loans than they did previously. Pre-market trading showed the company’s stock surged 6% as investors gained confidence that Ally had wrapped its hands around its auto-loan portfolio.”As we enter 2025, I am encouraged by strong momentum across our business,” Rhodes said in a news release, flagging an “improved outlook on credit.”Rhodes nonetheless continued his promised streamlining of the company, which has long offered mortgages and more recently expanded into credit cards. This month, Ally said it would halt any new mortgage loans and noted it was considering strategic alternatives for its credit card business, which it had bought in 2021,Ally has agreed to sell that business to the fintech firm Cardworks, which also owns the $3 billion-asset Merrick Bank. “Ally’s decision to sell its credit card business is part of our broader strategy to pursue a more focused approach, enabling us to simplify and streamline our structure, prioritize our core businesses, and drive improved returns,” Rhodes said in the sale announcement.The deal is expected to close this year. The buyer is the same company that Ally attempted to acquire in 2020 in an earlier attempt to expand to credit cards, a deal that the companies called off during the COVID-19 pandemic.The company took a $118 million goodwill impairment charge as a result of the sale, dampening its fourth-quarter earnings. The company recorded $108 million in net income during the quarter, up 74% from $62 million in the same quarter last year.Per-share earnings were 26 cents, up from 11 cents a year ago. Analysts polled by S&P had expected 55 cents a share, on par with Ally’s third-quarter earnings.The company also recorded $22 million in costs tied to its recent restructuring. The company said this month it was laying off less than 5% of its staff as it halted its mortgage lending and evaluated a credit card sale. Investors’ biggest source of concern has been Ally’s bread-and-butter auto loan business, where losses have been larger than expected as borrowers struggled to keep up with their car payments.Losses ticked up slightly again in the fourth quarter, with net charge-offs on its retail auto loans increasing to an annualized rate of 2.34%, from 2.21% a year earlier. But loan delinquencies showed encouraging trends, indicating fewer borrowers are suddenly finding themselves late on their payments.In their outlook for 2025, Ally executives said they expected that figure to be between 2% and 2.25% this year.Late payments of 30 days or more ticked down to 4.39% of loans in the quarter, compared with 4.42% in the same quarter a year earlier. Delinquencies of 60 or more days also fell by a similar amount.A presentation to investors also signaled the company should see lower losses over time as loans it made in 2022 and 2023 roll off its balance sheet. The older loans have driven Ally’s credit problems, as the company made them when used auto prices were near record highs and inflated borrowers’ car payments. Ally executives have also routinely tightened their underwriting criteria over time.The quality of the more recent loans has held up much better, Ally indicated in its presentation. The company has seen a 1.72% delinquency rate on loans it booked this year, compared with 2.23% for the same time period in 2023 and 2.45% for 2022 loans.

Galorath Appoints Mark Washburn as Business Development VP

Mark Washburn, an experienced defense and space technology industry leader, has joined software development company Galorath Inc. as vice president of business development. The executive confirmed his new role in a LinkedIn post Saturday. 
Galorath Recruits Mark Washburn
Washburn brings to the role an extensive experience in business development and strategy.
Before Galorath, he was vice president of business development at Tec-Masters, Inc. During his time at the Huntsville, Alabama-based aerospace firm, he was involved in securing a task order under the NASA Research, Engineering & Mission Integration Services-2, or REMIS-2, contract vehicle worth $478 million. 
The contracting industry veteran also held the roles of director of business development with a focus on Department of Defense and FBI customers at CGI, was chief strategy officer for GEBC and business development manager at MCR. 
He earned his bachelor’s degree in business finance from the University of Phoenix and had his master’s in business administration from the Western Governors University. 
What Galorath Offers
Galorath’s flagship product SEER is a cost modeling and risk analysis platform designed to provide visibility on estimated expenses, resource requirements and potential project trade-offs. It enables companies to make informed decisions throughout software and hardware development and manufacturing process. 
According to a recent article co-written by Galorath Vice President Matt McDonald, SEER can support optimization and digital engineering of a system’s size, weight, power and cost, or SWaP-C. SEER’s cost twin models can be applied to virtual prototyping and modeling to allow developers to identify and address SWaP-C constraints early in the project.

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Jeff Colclough Assumes Business Development VP Role at SOSi

Jeff Colclough, a U.S. Air Force veteran, has been appointed vice president of business development at SOS International.
The Reston, Virginia-headquartered company said Tuesday Colclough will spearhead its expansion in the Intelligence Community. He will also guide his team in capturing new businesses and seeking opportunities to provide national intelligence agencies with advanced technologies and capabilities.
The new VP will leverage his 30 years of experience supporting vital mission areas across the IC, where he gained substantial knowledge in management, business development, systems engineering and capture management.
Jeff Colclough’s Professional Career
Colclough was most recently the capture executive at CACI International. He also served as business development and strategy executive at Noblis ESI, overseeing the company’s business strategy and opportunity identification, qualification and capture. Before that, he was the business development director at Science Applications International Corp., gaining a deep understanding of IC customer’s emerging requirements for technology services.
The seasoned executive was with Leidos for over three years serving in various leadership roles including VP and program execution director, senior director of integrated project teams and senior program manager.
In his two decades with the Air Force, Colclough served on different operational and technical assignments within the Air Force Electronic Security Group, Air Force Space Command and U.S. Space Command.
SOSi Chief Growth Officer Jim Edwards, said, “SOSi provides multi-disciplined intelligence services, delivering insights that help safeguard critical infrastructure, protect our borders and save lives. Jeff’s vast experience and understanding of requirements across the IC will help us deliver data-driven solutions to address a wide range of threats to our national security.”

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