Heritage Global Inc. (NASDAQ: HGBL) is a niche, third-party service provider that helps industrial and financial companies monetize surplus industrial machinery, equipment, and distressed financial assets. The company runs online and live auctions, refurbishes and resells assets for higher value, and brokers or finances charged-off receivables and non-performing loans; essentially extending the useful life of industrial and financial assets while generating cash for its clients.
Let us explain.
Heritage Global is divided into the Industrial and Financial Assets Divisions. On the industrial side the company provides three primary services: auction and liquidation. Conducting online and live auctions for surplus machinery, equipment, and inventories. Refurbishment and Resale. Refurbishing and reselling assets to maximize value. And finally, valuation of commercial and industrial assets. For financial assets, the company acts as a broker for distressed asset transactions, including charged-off receivables and provides specialty lending with flexible funding structures for the ARM industry.
What does HGBL have to do with fintech?
Not much in the payment enablement sense, everything on a unique marketplace platform basis and that is the point. HGBL has zero exposure to Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, which is precisely why it has caught the attention of some contrarian investors in late 2025. With MSCI expected to finalize the removal of “digital asset treasury companies” (aka DAT firms holding >50% of assets in crypto) from its major indexes in February 2026. Consequently, those passive and benchmarked capital dollars could be forced to exit. Many global equity funds are mandated to own only MSCI-eligible stocks, so, if those crypto-heavy names are ejected, the money has to flow somewhere else. A small but growing group of small-cap value hunters believes a portion of that capital could rotate into cheap, cash-flow-positive, non-crypto industrial and financial-service stocks like HGBL. The company has no reported crypto exposure, assets are primarily cash, short term US treasuries, receivables, and inventory from industrial deals.
Taking the other side (of the trade).
Please see the company’s 2024 10-K for more complete financial disclosure, including the nonaccrual status of some questionable accounts receivable payments. This year the company faced challenges from tariffs, slower business trends and higher interest rates than planned. Including the above, as of December 5, 2025, the stock trades at $1.28 with a market cap of $45 million, giving it a forward P/E of ~6×, well below most peers. Nonetheless, M&A activity is on the company’s radar as is a share repurchase program. Trailing twelve-month revenue sits at $49.9 million, and the company is expanding its specialty-lending arm into traditional non-performing loan portfolios with a $100 million pipeline. Inclusion Status. HGBL is not on MSCI’s preliminary list of ~38 DATs under review. For MSCI’s core indexes (e.g., MSCI USA, World) HGBL does not meet the “investable market” thresholds for broad inclusion. International revenues are not broken out, suggesting less than 10% of sales contribution. That could change if business improves. A bumpy economic environment could potentially increase demand for Heritage Global’s services, which supports the contrarian investment rational.
Heritage Global is a profitable, boring, cash-rich business trading at a deep discount. It offers none of the explosive upside of Bitcoin treasury stocks, but also none of the existential risk if MSCI triggers a wave of forced DAT liquidations. For investors looking for an “anti-DAT” small-cap idea outside the crypto rollercoaster, HGBL has quietly become one of the more interesting, under the radar names in the market. It still carries typical micro-cap risks such as cyclical industrial exposure, competition from larger players, and thin trading liquidity.
