Collection Agency Celebrates Busy 10th Year

In its 10th year of business, Phillips & Cohen Associates experienced a surge of growth and expansion unmatched in all of its previous years. And the foundation has been laid for even more growth in the future, Co-Chairman and CEO Matt Phillips told insideARM.com today.

The Westampton, N.J.-based collection agency has opened four new offices in the last 12 months, leading up to its 10th anniversary on September 2.

One year ago, the company opened its first Western U.S. office in Las Vegas. The office has a total capacity of around 75 seats, most of which have already been filled, said Phillips. About a month later, the firm opened its first non-U.S. call center in Welland, Ontario, Canada, a town only a few miles away from the collection hub of Buffalo, N.Y. All of the 87 seats in the call center were filled within five months, prompting thoughts of further expansion.

“We are currently working U.S. accounts in the Canadian office, but we are looking to get into Canadian accounts very soon,” said Phillips.

In March of this year, Phillips and Cohen added another U.S. location, this time in Columbus, Ohio, with capacity for around 115 collectors.

In February, the firm embarked on its most ambitious project so far, opening a call center in Manchester, England, the third-largest metropolitan area in the U.K. It took two years from initial plans to actually opening the office that provides a beachhead to the European market.

“At first, we were looking at the U.K. with an eye to acquire and takeover an already-existing operation,” said Phillips. “But when we could not find an appropriate target, we decided to go it alone.” Phillips noted that all of its growth in Manchester has been organic.

The company had to consult with a U.K. attorneys on laws specific to the U.K. and Europe, settle on the best location, find an office there, and hire local talent to run and staff the location, a process that took a lot longer in another country than it would here in the states, said Phillips. Now that the office is open, it focuses on collecting UK and other European accounts.

Phillips says the company now has 645 employees and plans to have between 800 and 900 by the end of 2008.

The firm has grown as it concentrated on niche collection segments, said Phillips, who founded the firm with Adam Cohen. “We were young and competing for work from the banks, so we had to focus on areas where there were not many competitors.”

Eventually, the firm got into the niche in which they now specialize, probate and deceased collections. In fact, Phillips says that the firm is the largest probate collection agency in the world. Still, they remain active in other markets getting about 40 percent of revenues from other lines, including bankruptcy work, pre-litigation, and traditional credit card collections.