AmeriCredit Handily Beats Wall Street View

For its part, AmeriCredit completed a $725 million securitization transaction this summer through the government's Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF program, and primarily used the proceeds to repay borrowings under its credit facilities. Securitizations for the latest quarter totaled $981 million vs. none for the year-earlier period.

The company's large institutional ownership helped the company when it sought to secure capital given the tight credit conditions last year. Half of AmeriCredit's the stock is owned by two large investors, Fairholme Capital Management and Leucadia National Corp.

AmeriCredit was also willing to adjust its own strategy. The company has exited the direct retail business as well as leasing, specialty prime platforms, certain partnerships and its operations in Canada, according to an annual report filed in August. It now only lends indirectly to consumers via dealerships. It says that it prefers to finance "later model, low mileage used vehicles" as well as "moderately priced new vehicles," according to the filing. Another step taken has been to significantly increase minimum credit score requirements and tighten loan structures for new originations.

Belt tightening has come into play as well with the company saying it has both closing and/or consolidating some credit center locations, made other headcount reductions and "selectively decreased" the number of dealers it purchases loans from.

Loan quality is clearly an issue for the firm. AmeriCredit's most challenging loans were those originated in 2006 and 2007, at the end of the credit bubble and beginning of the credit crunch. Those loans represent 60% of the firm's loan book, analysts say.