SAN DIEGO (AP) — SAN DIEGO (AP) — Encore Capital Group Inc. (ECPG) on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter earnings of $76.7 million.

On a per-share basis, the San Diego-based company said it had profit of $3.37.

The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $2.20 per share.

The provider of debt-management and recovery services posted revenue of $473.6 million in the period, also surpassing Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $424.5 million.

For the year, the company reported profit of $256.8 million, or $10.91 per share. Revenue was reported as $1.77 billion.

_____

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on ECPG at https://www.zacks.com/ap/ECPG