PRAA

Pra Group, Inc

A buyer and collector of overdue consumer debt, PRA Group purchases portfolios of nonperforming loans—credit cards, auto loans, and other bills—from banks and creditors at a discount, then works to recover the money. It was founded in 1996 in Norfolk, Virginia, as Portfolio Recovery Associates by two former debt collectors who started with just four employees, and it shortened its name to PRA Group in 2014 as it grew into a global operation spanning the Americas, Europe, and Australia. The name itself is a plain description of the business: buying "portfolios" of debt and performing "recovery" on them.