Heritage Global (HGBL) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Industrial Assets Lead Results

Key Takeaways

• Q3 2026 revenue increased to $14.6 million from $11.4 million a year earlier, while consolidated operating income declined to $1.0 million from $1.3 million.
• Net income rose to $1.0 million, or $0.03 per diluted share, compared with approximately $600,000, or $0.02 per diluted share, in Q3 2025.
• Industrial Assets led the quarter, with operating income increasing to $1.5 million from approximately $900,000. Management cited healthy auction volume, larger transactions and broader sector exposure.
• Financial Assets operating income fell to approximately $800,000 from $1.6 million. Bossa Nova exceeded management’s early goals, but DebtX remained below expectations.
• Heritage Global invested $2 million in a joint venture that acquired two pharmaceutical sites in Colorado. Equipment monetization is underway, while the real estate-related P&L impact is expected to begin in 2027 and could extend into 2028.
• Management is prioritizing organic growth, integration and available liquidity following the DebtX and Bossa Nova acquisitions. Additional M&A is less urgent, although the company intends to retain flexibility for compelling opportunities.

Core Financial Data

Heritage Global also secured a new $10 million revolving credit facility with C3 Bank through January 2028. The company had drawn $2 million as of September 30, 2026, to fund the initial cash contribution to its latest HGP joint venture.

Business and Operating Performance

Industrial Assets

Industrial Assets was the main earnings driver. Heritage Global conducted auctions across transportation, metalworking and semiconductor markets, alongside its established biotechnology and pharmaceutical activity.

Management said the pipeline includes multiple large opportunities across trucking, food processing and medical devices. It expects the broader mix of assignments to support activity in Q4 2026 and 2027, although no formal financial forecast was provided.

The company’s ALT refurbishment and resale operation also delivered what management described as another good quarter, supported by improved inventory quality and additional assets.

Colorado pharmaceutical sites

HGP invested $2 million in a joint venture that acquired two pharmaceutical sites in Colorado. Heritage Global plans five auctions covering more than 5,000 lots of pharmaceutical and biotechnology assets.

The company is also considering leasing, selling or developing the properties. Management said the real estate monetization process is not expected to affect the P&L until 2027 and may not be completed until 2028. The project could require additional expenditures and strategic decisions.

Financial Assets

NLEX produced solid results amid steady activity in charge-offs and non-performing loans. Management said increased supply has moderated pricing, meaning higher transaction volume will be needed to drive growth. The company is seeking additional forward-flow clients, including fintech and alternative-lending businesses.

Bossa Nova, acquired in late July, exceeded management’s initial goals and integrated quickly. DebtX, however, did not meet Q3 expectations. Management attributed the shortfall partly to slower-than-expected timing in commercial real estate loan sales and is expanding sales and marketing coverage to reach non-bank sellers.

The wind-down of HGC is proceeding as planned. The specialty lending segment recorded approximately $250,000 of costs in Q3, with a similar level expected in Q4 before costs begin declining in the new year. Specific legal wind-down expenses were described as immaterial.

Management Outlook

Management expressed confidence in a stronger finish to 2026, supported by the Industrial Assets pipeline and a stronger Q4 forecast from DebtX. These comments were qualitative and did not include consolidated revenue or earnings guidance.

For 2027, management expects broader industrial auction opportunities and greater coordination among NLEX, DebtX and Bossa Nova. The company also expects HGC-related operating costs to decline as the wind-down progresses.

Capital allocation is shifting toward organic growth, integration and preserving cash for potentially larger industrial asset acquisitions. Management said M&A no longer carries the same urgency as it did before the DebtX and Bossa Nova transactions, while the existing share repurchase program remains one of several options under board review.

Risks and Areas to Watch

• DebtX remains below management’s expectations, and improvement depends partly on the timing and volume of commercial real estate asset sales.
• NLEX faces lower transaction pricing as supply increases, requiring additional volume and new clients to support growth.
• HGC continues to generate administrative and compensation costs during its wind-down, including an expected Q4 expense level similar to Q3’s approximately $250,000.
• The Colorado pharmaceutical-site investment has a long monetization timeline, uncertain real estate outcomes and the potential for additional expenditures.
• Adjusted EBITDA and consolidated operating income declined year over year despite higher revenue and net income.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

DebtX performance: Management said its view of DebtX’s long-term potential has not changed, but monetization has developed more slowly than anticipated. Heritage Global plans to expand its sales force and target non-bank holders of commercial real estate assets.

Industrial auction momentum: Management linked the pipeline to delayed asset sales following layoffs, Chapter 11 filings and conversions to Chapter 7. It highlighted potential assignments in trucking, food processing and medical devices in addition to biotechnology and pharmaceutical work.

NLEX growth constraints: Increased supply has pressured pricing, so NLEX needs more transaction volume. Management is adding forward-flow clients and sees opportunities among fintech lenders with non-performing or charged-off assets.

Capital allocation: Near-term priorities are integrating recent acquisitions, capturing internal synergies and increasing available capital. Management remains open to selective acquisitions but is not prioritizing another transaction.

HGC wind-down: Specific wind-down costs are currently limited, but operating expenses remain. Management aims to complete the process quickly and expects to provide more information on potential recoveries during the March earnings call.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

John Nesbett

looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this call. For more details and factors that could affect these expectations, please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I'd like to turn the call over to Heritage Global's Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ross Dove. Ross, please go ahead.

Ross Dove

Thank you, John. Welcome, everyone, to our third quarter call. Thank you all for joining. Before Brian walks you through the numbers in detail, I want to just take a few moments to give you my thoughts on what the numbers say to me from my up-front close view. Making $1 million in NOI was positive movement forward, but there is more to digest. It's always also about how we made it and what worked and what still needs work. On the real good news front, we had a great industrial quarter with diverse auction sectors and larger transactions. It was highlighted by also winning many quality assignments for 4Q along with a major acquisition of plant and real estate in Longmont, Boulder, Colorado, with our great partner team. Our pipeline now has multiple large opportunities that include other campuses and potential acquisitions, which is really very refreshing after a pause and slowdown.

We're back with fences to swing at and a feeling many stalled projects are now really in motion. We've got our seat belts fastened to drive it hard and fast. As I often say, we're not the leading indicator, but the trailing benefactor. And in the marketplaces we see, they're open for business across multiple sectors, and we're very busy. On the financial assets side, financial assets has lots of promise, but also plenty of work to be done. We're winding down the business of HGC that was problematic and a distraction and putting all of our focus now completely on 3 complementary asset-light sectors. We have a very solid [ inlet ] and indicators the business has a bright finish to the year and well, well beyond.

Our 2 newest acquisitions have had mixed results, with Bossa Nova exceeding early goals and DebtX not yet where it needs to be or where it can and will be and should be. We liked our plan of integrating the offering of all 3 and expanding the service lines, and believe in 2027 getting our capability and our stories out to the market along with the HGC cost eventually gone and finally compete, we're poised to capture our full potential. Morale and confidence in our team is high for a strong close to 2026 and a great next year and beyond. We're very confident, and we feel good about our position today. Brian, take it away.

Brian Cobb

Thank you, and welcome, everyone. We delivered a profitable third quarter that reflects solid execution across our core business, led by a strong performance from our Industrial Assets division. Consolidated operating income was $1 million in the third quarter of 2026, compared to $1.3 million in the prior year quarter. Our Industrial Assets division reported operating income of $1.5 million in the third quarter of 2026, compared to approximately $900,000 in the third quarter of 2025. In our Financial Assets division, we reported operating income of approximately $800,000 in the third quarter of 2026, compared to $1.6 million in the prior year quarter. Our Industrial Assets division had a strong quarter, highlighted by healthy auction volume and a return of larger-scale transactions. The industry range of our auction activity was also more diverse than prior quarters. We executed auctions across the transportation, metalworking, and semiconductor sectors, among others, in addition to continuing our long-standing biotech and pharma activity.

We're encouraged by the depth and quality of our auction pipeline as we move into the fourth quarter and 2027. During the quarter, HGP also made a $2 million investment in a joint venture that acquired 2 pharmaceutical sites in Colorado. We currently have multiple planned auctions to monetize the equipment assets and are evaluating strategic options to maximize the real estate potential of the sites through lease sale or development. In our refurbishment and resale business, ALT delivered another good quarter as we've continued to upgrade the quality of our inventory and add assets to the business. Our Financial Assets division delivered another profitable quarter as NLEX reported solid results, and we continue to see steady activity across the charge-off and non-performing loan space. We're also very pleased with the early performance of Bossa Nova, which we acquired late July as the team delivered strong execution during the quarter while integrating quickly with the business. Results from DebtX did not meet our expectations for the third quarter.

However, we remain confident in the business. We continue to see real opportunities in the CRE marketplace, and we're strengthening our sales and marketing efforts to better drive deal flow. Meanwhile, the wind-down of HGC is progressing as planned and is allowing us to sharpen our focus on growing our core asset-light business. Additional consolidated financial results include the following. Revenue was $14.6 million in third quarter of 2026, compared to $11.4 million in the third quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was $1.4 million compared to $1.6 million in the prior year period. Net income was $1 million or $0.03 per diluted share compared to approximately $600,000 or $0.02 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2025.

Our balance sheet continues to be a strength. Stockholders' equity was $53.1 million as of September 30, 2026, compared to $67 million at December 31, 2025, with net working capital of $8 million. Our cash balance reflects a total of $15.6 million as of September 30, 2026. After removing amounts due to our clients, our net available cash balance was $6.4 million. And further, in September, we strengthened our financial flexibility by entering into a new $10 million revolving line of credit with C3 Bank that runs through January 2028, replacing our prior facility that matured this past July. As of September 30, 2026, we had a $2 million outstanding balance on the facility, drawn in connection with the initial cash outlay for our most recent HGP joint venture investment.

And with that, Ross, I'll turn it back over to you.

Ross Dove

Thank you, Brian. So, watching my son run 100-mile races, it's challenging. It changed my thinking about quarters. I don't see them as finish lines anymore, but actually as rest stops, a time to take a quick breather and refuel, head back up and down the hills until you run the tape, and then get ready for the next 100 miles. It's a long race, and hopefully we can take a few moments again in 90 days to talk about it again. If you guys want to chat sooner, just reach out, because we can run and talk at the same time. We're ready now for any questions. We thank you for participating, and we look forward to continued participation and us performing at a level to get you excited.

Thanks a lot, guys.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

We'll take our first question from George Sutton with Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

Question-and-Answer Session

Logan W Lillehaug

This is Logan on for George. So, Ross, I wanted to start with DebtX. I mean, hear your comments that, you know, the performance hasn't been kind of up to par so far this year. Just wondering if you could give us some more details on kind of what's driving that. Is it just performance? Has something changed in the market? I guess, can you just speak to if your perspective on that business has changed at all as we head into next year?

Ross Dove

I remain just as excited about the business as I was before we bought it and after we closed it. So, it hasn't changed my encouragement, but it's been slower than I expected in a marketplace where, you know, we've got $1 trillion of commercial loans coming due and there's been a lot of struggle with a lot of companies to refinance them. I just think there's been a bit of a lag in my anticipation of how fast we'd be able to jump in and monetize those. So, you know, the solution, if there is a solution, some of it is timing, to be honest with you, and they're forecasting a much stronger 4Q, so it's a little bit of a wait-and-see there, but we're not operating it like a wait-and-see company. We're looking to expand our sales force to reach a broader audience. There's more sales coming from non-banks than traditionally where most of the CRE sales were coming from banks selling the assets. Plenty of assets have been transferred to non-banks who are also looking to monetize assets. So, we're just going to expand and broaden our coverage and keep pushing forward in a market that we know is solid and growing.

So, we're ambitious about proving the acquisition right and confident we're going to.

Logan W Lillehaug

So, it was nice to see the auction results this quarter, and it certainly sounds like, I know you guys have been doing work across some different verticals, and it sounds like you're seeing good momentum there. So, I just wonder if you could speak a little bit to kind of what signals you're seeing to give you confidence that quarters like this are repeatable going forward?

Ross Dove

So, like I've said many, many times, we're not the leading indicator, we're the trailing benefactor for what's happened over the last 2 years. And what's happened over the last 2 years is we saw a lot of layoffs, we saw a lot of companies file Chapter 11s, many of those have been converting to Chapter 7s now as there's been a time lag, and on the layoffs, obviously, those layoffs produce assets 6 months, a year, and a year and a half later. So, the pendulum has swung in our favor now, and we've just seen a lot of larger assets, some of which we've been able to monetize in a very solid 3Q, some of which will monetize in 4Q. And the pipeline has multiple large opportunities in it right now across multiple sectors. You know, there's a lot of potential trucking auctions. There's a lot of potential food and process auctions. There's a lot of medical device potential auctions. So, there's lots of broadened opportunity besides just our core business of the pharma and the bio. So, our core business is now expanding to a lot of different core business sectors, which bodes well for not just 4Q, but it bodes very well for 2027.

Logan W Lillehaug

Okay, last one for me. I think you referred to NLEX as kind of performing steady. Could you just walk through maybe the supply and demand sides over there and just talk about kind of what's the limiting factor on growth right now?

Ross Dove

So, right now, we're doing a lot of sales. The prices have slowed down a bit from the rising tide you saw, you know, kind of during the pandemic and right post-pandemic, because there's actually increased supply, but there's increased supply at a little lower price. So, that means we need more volume to grow, which we're working on and signing up more new forward-flow clients. Why do I feel really good about it? Because what hasn't slowed down is the capital raise in alternative lending. So, as the capital raise in alternative lending continues over a period of time, that turns into sales for us. And we've seen now that a lot of the non-performing loans are beginning to convert to charge-offs that were non-performing loans 6 months ago, 9 months ago, a year ago. So, if you just look at it and step back and say, "Are we getting more and more charge-offs or less charge-offs? Is it decreasing or is it growing?" It is growing. So, it's us getting new clients.

And there are a lot of new clients out there that are fintech clients that are just starting to see that over the last 2 or 3 years, they've created part of their asset portfolio that needs to be monetized in an NPL-focused fashion. So, I think we've got a strong couple-year run.

Logan W Lillehaug

Okay.

Ross Dove

Thank you for asking.

Operator

We'll take our next question with Mikhail Paramonov with Freedom Broker. Please go ahead.

Mike Paramonov

I don't hear. Hello, everybody. Can you hear me?

Ross Dove

Now, yes.

Mike Paramonov

My question will be on capital allocation. So, following the investments in DebtX and Bossa Nova, how are you thinking about capital allocation priorities going forward? Is the focus now more on scaling these businesses, or do you continue to see opportunities for additional investments?

Ross Dove

So, it's a good question. We have, you know, a very active board discussing capital allocation and what's the best use of our money and what's the best use of our funds. And, you know, there's multiple choices right now. I would say M&A does not have the same urgency it did before our last 2 acquisitions. Right now, we really want to focus internally on getting everything in sync, finding all of the synergies in all of our core businesses. There's lots of opportunities that look like they're coming up that basically put out capital and potentially larger capital on industrial acquisitions. So, we're really kind of more focused on building our capital, building the amount of cash we have available, than we are deploying it.

There's talk, obviously, always about keeping a buyback program in place that exists. There's talk about always wanting to have capital available if an M&A transaction comes up that it's just such a good fit that we don't want to wait. But if you ask me, the primary concern right now is let's grow organically what we have this quarter.

Mike Paramonov

All right, understood. Thank you. And 1 more question from me about your new joint venture investment. Could you please provide some additional color on that $2 million investment in pharmaceutical facilities in Colorado? How does this opportunity fit into your broader industrial asset strategy?

Ross Dove

Right. So, you're not really going to see the revenue this year. We're doing sales this year of the capital assets, so it's a significant amount of sales this year. We're doing 5 auctions of over 5,000 lots of pharma assets, biotech assets, et cetera, that will bring back a substantial amount of money, but until we monetize the real estate, which is multiple buildings on 2 campuses, you won't see the revenue from it. That's anticipated not to begin until 2027 and very possibly not to be completed until 2028. There'll be some significant potential expenditures and decisions to make. So, look at that as something you'll see, you know, from a P&L basis next year and the year after.

Mike Paramonov

Okay, got it. Thank you. That will be it for me.

Ross Dove

Thank you for asking.

Mike Paramonov

Thank you.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

We'll take our next question from Greg Weaver with Invicta Capital. Please go ahead.

Unknown Speaker

Hi, Ross. Just a quick one on this HGC wind-down. Are there any costs running through the P&L that we see in 3Q here?

Ross Dove

I'll give that to my CFO, Brian.

Brian Cobb

Yes, hi. The costs related to the wind-down specifically, there is not much. You have an immaterial amount of legal costs going through 3Q and probably into 4Q. But mainly, we are looking at operating costs. So, when attacking the legal in this wind-down, I'm really thinking about how to limit operating costs, which is mainly made up of administrative and compensation, and quickly wrap it up so those costs don't trail out multiple quarters into 2027 and beyond. So, when you think about specific wind-down costs, right now, they're not significant.

Unknown Speaker

And the admin costs in the quarter, is there any kind of revenue to offset that, or is it just straight-up cost?

Brian Cobb

In 3Q, we had a minor amount of revenue from a servicing standpoint. But all of our assets are held in non-accrual status at cost recovery. So, not much. You'll see on our segment reporting that the specialty lending segment had a $250,000 approximate cost in 3Q. I'd expect that to be somewhat similar in 4Q and wind down starting in the new year.

Unknown Speaker

Okay, helpful. Thanks, Brian. And just any color on any recovery hope there? It sounds like you were pretty aggressive with the write-down and hopeful that maybe something will roll back. Any thoughts there on progress or timing?

Brian Cobb

Oh, well, on the timing side, I think that our goals are to work through this as quickly as possible. And the best-case scenario would be in 4Q. I think I'd hold on any type of data on recovery right now, as we're kind of right in the middle of working through the last item. So, that's probably more of a report in our March call.

Unknown Speaker

Okay. Appreciate the color. Thank you.

Brian Cobb

Thank you.

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the meeting back to management for closing remarks.

Ross Dove

So, thank you all for joining. We're feeling pretty darn good about the go-forward. Like I said earlier, there are things to fix, but I don't know if there's ever been a time in my career where everything was perfect and there was nothing to fix. But I like our plan, and I like our go-forward plan, and I like our prospects. So, we are feeling confident, but we're not feeling overconfident because we know we have work to do, but we're ready to get to work. So, thank you all, and we'll talk soon.

Operator

Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.

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