Portfolio Recovery Associates Announces New Credit Line as Portfolio Acquisitions Increase

Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRAA), a company that purchases and manages portfolios of defaulted consumer receivables and provides a broad range of accounts receivable management services, today announced it has closed on a new $75 million bank credit line.

Terms of the new line, which is being led by Bank of America and Wachovia, are generally more advantageous to the Company than its prior line.

"As we have long said, Portfolio Recovery Associates prefers to be an opportunistic buyer and generally has kept significant capital in reserve to be able to quickly respond to unusual market circumstances. The October 17, 2005 change in bankruptcy law and the resulting surge in bankruptcy filings and charge offs has helped to create such an opportunity. Thus far in the fourth quarter the Company has made, and has committed to further make, very significant acquisitions of pools of charged off debt," said Steven D. Fredrickson, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer.

"Although we are still buying with internally generated cash, we anticipate we will need to make some use of our new line by year-end 2005 based on committed, unclosed transactions. The new credit line supplements our internal cash generation and will permit us to take advantage of further attractive buying opportunities that may occur," said Kevin P. Stevenson, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer.