SoFi Is Said to Report Second-Quarter Loss of $200 Million

(Bloomberg) -- Writedowns of underperforming loans drove Social Finance Inc. to a second-quarter adjusted loss of about $200 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

The student-loan refinancer, which has been trying to transform itself into a broader online financial-services company, took a one-time charge on loans originated before the second quarter, one of the people said. The company projects that it will be profitable again by the end of the year, another one of the people said.

The $200 million number is before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. SoFi declined to comment.

Anthony Noto took over as chief executive officer earlier this year, after Mike Cagney had to step down over allegations of sexual harassment. The loan writedown was part of an internal decision to clean the company's financial statements under new leadership, two of the people said.

“Our Q2 financial results were negatively impacted by significantly lowered valuation of legacy loans and assets as well as the slow start to increasing prices in the face of a rising interest rate environment,” the company said in a second-quarter shareholder letter, dated Aug. 3, that was obtained by Bloomberg.

​Those ​price boosts resulted in "somewhat lower loan volume" and were made in anticipation of continued interest-rate increases in the coming years​, according to the letter​.

The company also reported "more than $3 billion in funded loan volume" in the second quarter. In the quarter prior, SoFi wrote to investors that it had $3.6 billion in funded loans and 59,000 additional members, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg News.

It's the first time SoFi has disclosed quarterly revenue or earnings to its investors since the third quarter of 2017, when it reported adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $56.1 million, according to a letter to investors.

Since a tumultuous 2017, when the company dealt with allegations of unethical conduct and executive turnover, SoFi has pulled back international expansion plans and withdrawn an application for an industrial loan charter. Noto, who was formerly Twitter Inc.'s chief operating officer, has focused on newer offerings including deposit accounts, debit cards and wealth management as the company sets its sights on a wider market.

SoFi rolled out a test version of its SoFi Money product in the second quarter. The banking and checking-account like product has a waitlist of about 40,000 people. The more than 2,000 beta users have generated more than 20,000 transactions, the company said.

Still, the company has yet to prove that it can gain significant traction with consumers for fee-based products that would give the company a buffer if rising interest rates hurt demand for loans.

The San Francisco-based company has lost several executives recently, including Meron Colbeci, head of product and design, according to two of the people. Noto has also been working to rebuild senior management, including hiring longtime Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive Michelle Gill as chief financial officer in April.

SoFi has also hired former Expedia Group Inc. chief technology officer Tony Donohoe, previous Amazon.com Inc. executive Assaf Ronen as head of product, former Citigroup Inc. executive Anand Cavale as head of consumer lending, and ex-Uber Technologies Inc. executive Chris Lapointe as head of business operations, according to the shareholder letter.

To contact the reporter on this story: Selina Wang in San Francisco at swang533@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Bernard Kohn

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