IRVINE, Calif. — With a significant year-over-year turnaround in fourth-quarter net income and rises in both contracts purchased from dealers and net receivables, Consumer Portfolio Services declared that its fourth quarter "marks our return to profitability."

In fact, the company's 2011 net loss was less than half of what CPS sustained in 2010.

CPS revealed its financial performance earlier this week, beginning with its full-year figures.

The company's total revenues came in at $143.1 million, compared to $155.2 million for 2010, a decrease of approximately $12.1 million or 7.8 percent.

CPS cut its total 2011 expenses for the year to $157.6 million, a decrease of $13.8 million or 8.0 percent from the year-earlier sum of $171.4 million.

Those measures resulted in a pretax loss for the year of $14.5 million, compared to pretax loss of $16.2 million for 2010.

CPS' 2011 net loss also settled at $14.5 million or 76 cents per diluted share. But a year earlier, it was $33.2 million or $1.90 per diluted share.

Officials pointed out the 2010 net loss included a charge to income tax expense of $17.0 million, or 97 cents per diluted share related to an addition to the valuation allowance against the deferred tax asset.

Fourth-Quarter Figures

CPS arrived at its full-year totals after compiling some fourth-quarter results that showed positive momentum.

The company's fourth-quarter operating results included revenues of $45.8 million, an increase of approximately $10.5 million or 29.8 percent, compared to $35.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2010.

CPS tallied up its total fourth-quarter operating expenses and got $45.5 million, an increase of $7.6 million or 20.1 percent as compared to $37.9 million for the 2010 period.

Those figures left officials with fourth-quarter pretax income of $235,000, compared to pretax loss of $2.6 million in the year-ago quarter.

CPS' net income also was $235,000 or 1 cent per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $15.0 million or 87 cents per diluted share for the year-ago quarter.

Like in the full-year discussion, officials mentioned the fourth-quarter net loss from 2010 included a charge to income tax expense of $12.4 million or 71 cents per diluted share related to an addition to the valuation allowance against the deferred tax asset.

Discussion of Receivables, Charge-offs and More

In other elements of CPS' balance sheet, the company noted that during the fourth quarter it purchased $92.2 million of contracts from dealers as compared to $81.2 million during the third quarter of 2011 and $33.6 million during the fourth quarter of 2010.

As a result, the company's managed receivables totaled $794.6 million as of Dec. 31, an increase of $38.4 million or 5.1 percent from $756.2 million as of the close of 2010.

CPS highlighted its managed receivables increased year-over-year for the first time since 2008. The jump came as a result of the acquisition of the $237 million portfolio from Fireside Bank in September and continued growth in new contract purchases during the fourth quarter.

Moving along, the company determined its annualized net charge-offs for 2011 came in at 5.23 percent of the average owned portfolio as compared to 9.04 percent for 2010.

Officials also mentioned delinquencies greater than 30 days — including repossession inventory — dropped to 6.0 percent of the total owned portfolio at the end of 2011. A year earlier, the level stood at 9.2 percent.

CPS chairman and chief executive officer Charles Bradley Jr. offered his take on how the company performed in 2011 and other remarks.

"The fourth quarter of 2011 marks our return to profitability after managing through the credit crisis," Bradley insisted.

"While it has taken longer than we would have preferred, we have been executing on our business plan: prudently increasing our new contract purchases, pursuing opportunistic acquisitions and tapping the securitization market for cost-efficient funding," he continued. "We have achieved this while maintaining strong yields and credit metrics on our new loans and asset performance metrics that continue to improve.

"With the growth of the CPS portfolio that began in the fourth quarter, we should continue to see improved operating leverage in future quarters. This bodes well for our financial results in 2012 and beyond," Bradley projected.

The CPS top boss touched on one other subject, too.

"As previously reported, we completed our third term securitization of 2011 in December," Bradley recapped. "This marks our fourth transaction since September 2010 and the first since 2007 to utilize a pre-funding structure. Pre-funding structures allow us to lock in long-term funding costs on future contract purchases and act as a hedge against changes in interest rates."