Asta Funding Announces Special Large Dividend and Portfolio Purchases

Debt purchasing goliath Asta Funding (Nasdaq: ASFI) issued a trio of press releases early Monday covering portfolio purchases, a special dividend and the execution of a share sell plan by some top executives.

Asta reported that they are making a special one-time dividend payment of $0.40 per share to shareholders. This dividend will be paid on November 1, 2006 to shareholders of record on September 29, 2006 and will be in addition to Asta's regular quarterly dividend payment of $0.04 per share.

Mr. Gary Stern, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented in the release, "This special cash dividend is a direct result of the Asta's strong financial performance as reported over the last few quarters and has concurrently opened an opportunity for the Board to reward our shareholders."

Asta also announced portfolio purchase activity for their fiscal fourth quarter, which ends Sept 30. Since July, Asta has made portfolio purchases for face values totaling $1 billion, paying about $29 million for the accounts. The portfolio acquisitions included telecom paper, credit card paper, and other portfolios.

For the fiscal year, Asta has purchased some $4.7 billion in face value portfolios.

The last announcement concerned a planned sale of shares by some members of the executive team and an investment group tied to Stern. Chairman Arthur Stern, CFO Mitchell Cohen and GMS Family Investors LLC — an entity not controlled by Gary Stern, but whose principal beneficiaries include Gary Stern and his family – will be selling Asta shares in accordance with guidelines specified by Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Arthur Stern will sell 200,000 shares, GMS will sell 300,000, and Cohen will be selling 10,000 shares.

Rule 10b5-1 allows programs to be established that permit corporate insiders to prearrange purchases or sales of Company securities at a time when they are not aware of any non-public information.