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spk04: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the EZ Corp third quarter fiscal 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this may be recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Jean-Marie Young, investor relations with three-part advisors. Please go ahead, Jean.
spk03: Thank you and good morning, everyone. During our prepared remarks, we will be referring to slides which are available for viewing or download from our website at investors.easycorps.com. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call, as well as the presentation slides, contain certain forward-looking statements regarding the company's expected operating and financial performance for future periods. These statements are based on the company's current expectations. Actual results for future periods may differ materially from those expressed due to a number of risks or other factors that are discussed in their annual, quarterly, and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And as noted in our presentation materials, and unless otherwise identified, results are presented on an adjusted basis to remove the effect of foreign currency fluctuations and other discrete items. Joining us on the call today, our EasyCorps Chief Executive Officer, Lockie Givens, and Tim Judman, Chief Financial Officer. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Lockie Givens. Lockie?
spk06: Thanks, Jean, and good morning, everyone. Our team continues to consistently execute on the strategic plan we announced to the market at the end of fiscal 2020, evidenced by another outstanding quarter of financial results. I'd like to acknowledge and thank our team of 6,800 staff for their tireless efforts in serving our customers in such a passionate, respectful, and responsible way, and for delivering another very strong quarter of results for our shareholders. Hormone's outstanding, the key driver of our business, and is at its highest level ever. On a consolidated same store basis, it has surpassed pre-pandemic levels by 5%. Merchandise sales gross profit margin was 38% at the high end of our range, even while we were able to decrease aged general merchandise to less than 1% of total GM inventory. Adjusted EBITDA was up 100% versus the same quarter last year, and that income is three times where it was at this time last year on a year-to-date basis. Side three, we are a global leader in pawnbroking and pre-owned and recycled retail. We operate 1,163 stores in the US and Latin America with strategic investments in adjacent businesses. which expand our geographic footprint worldwide. Across our diverse surveys, we offer two core products to our customers. We make pawn loans and we sell second-hand goods. As we enter a more challenging macroeconomic environment globally, we expect increasing demand for both of these products. On the lending side, our customers continue to be impacted by inflationary pressures, high gas prices, and the tightening of credit availability from alternative lenders. We also expect the general demand for secondhand goods to increase as existing and new customers search for great value for money deals while looking after the environment in which we all live. Moving on to slide four, people, porn and passion continues to be our core operating theme. Our diverse and engaged team drives our success. We continue to invest in hiring, training and development so that we can continuously improve corporate culture and attract and retain the best talent. We believe that our team driving outstanding customer service combined with our proprietary POS system, differentiated digital and IT platform, and strong and liquid balance sheets make us the best choice for our customers' porn and recycled retail needs. Slide five shows our progression toward our three-year strategic goals. I believe we have the most passionate, productive, committed, and motivated team in the industry, and we continue to find new ways to enhance their experience. We are transforming the customer experience and modernizing the core points in us. Our points-based loyalty program and online payment options have been well-received by our customers and have grown substantially again this quarter. We implemented 3DS Secure for added customer protection and fraud prevention on card payments. Additionally, we ran our first national bonus points campaign in the US to drive store sales and enrollment, and it was a great success. Turning to our key financial themes for Q3 on slide six. As mentioned, PLO, the most significant driver for revenue and earnings, was up 30% year-over-year, leading to a 33% increase in PSC. As a result, we saw significant improvements in revenue, earnings, and expenses as a percentage of gross profit, while keeping aged inventory under 1%. What we used to call net revenue, we now call gross profit, and it was up 20% year-over-year, and EBITDA was up 100%. Flood 7, you can see the total expenses increased year over year, primarily due to increases in store count and labour. However, for the past 12 months, total expenses as a percentage of gross profit decreased from 92% to 80%. Store expenses increased year over year with store count increasing, but decreased as a percentage of gross profit from 77% to 69%. G&A increased 2.5 million year-over-year, but decreased as a percentage of gross profit from 15% to 12%. On slide eight, we talk about strengthening our core with a focus on people and systems. We conducted a global engagement survey of our employees last month, and we were very pleased with the results, significantly beating global benchmarks. Our commitment to investing in our people through ongoing training and development and our focus on inclusion initiatives and cultural transformation continue to drive improvements in our team member experience, which we believe contributes to our excellent operating and financial results. We are hiring and retaining great people who are aligned with our corporate culture. Our team is enthusiastic and engaged. We continue to enhance our technology, infrastructure and modernize the company. This is transforming customer experiences, simplifying processes for our team in the stores and increasing our operational efficiencies. On slide nine, innovation and growth is the third pillar to our three-year strategy, and we continue to be pleased with our progress here. Our EasyPlus loyalty system now has over 1.4 million customers enrolled, versus over 930,000 last quarter. We collected $7 million in online payments this quarter, providing our customers with convenient options for both porn and layaway servicing. We received more than 15,000 Google reviews in the quarter, averaging 4.9 stars in the US and Latin America. Our inventory showcase pilot continues in 183 stores in the US. We are also piloting the fully commerce experience in 13 stores in Mexico. We're capturing new customers as the search for our products becomes much more convenient. From an inorganic perspective, we opened eight de novo stores in Latin America during the quarter and acquired three stores in the Dallas area. We've increased our stake in cash converters from 39% to 41%, and the acquisition pipeline remains robust, and we continue to remain disciplined when evaluating these opportunities. Slide 10 outlines our ESG highlights. Our business, by its very nature, makes us part of the circular economy. We are a significant recycler of secondhand goods in hundreds of local neighbourhoods. We do not use factories, distribution facilities, or heavy trucking. we are extending the useful life of millions of items and saving them from landfill. This quarter, we procured over 1.6 million pre-owned items and sold approximately 1.4 million items, making from consumer electrics, cameras, household goods, tools, musical instruments and jewellery. In addition, we provide an essential, simple, regulated and transparent financial resource for those who are underserved by traditional sources. Diversity inclusion remains a significant focus. And this quarter, we launched our first Black Empowerment Affinity Group. As I've said, we continue to invest in global training and development programs and talent review and succession planning processes. And this quarter introduced our first career week for all of our team members. In addition, over the past few years, the EasyCorp Foundation has awarded $180,000 in scholarship funding to families of our team members. We're always in search of innovative and genuine ways in which we can positively impact our team members, customers, and the communities in which we serve. I would now like to turn the call over to Tim Judman, our CFO, to provide more details on our financial results. Tim?
spk05: Thanks, Lachie. Slide 11 details our consolidated financial results. PLO ended the period at $204.7 million, up 30% on a year-over-year basis, which is the highest in EasyCorp history. We are now above the Q3 FY19 same-store PLO balance by 5%. PSC revenue was up 33% over last year, with growth driven by both increased same-store PLO growth and acquisitions. Merchandise sales was up 19%, with same-store sales up 14%. But as expected, margins falling back to the high end of our normal range at 38%. Our focus on selling inventory in the first 90 days has kept inventory turnover strong at 2.8 times. It was another great quarter with consolidated EBITDA of $25.1 million, up 100%. Turning to our US foreign operations on slide 12, PLO rose 36%, driven by continued focus on our enhanced porn operating model and better serving our customers' needs. PSE was up 35% year-over-year, primarily driven by same-store PLO growth. On the retail side of the business, merchandise sales were up 11%, with merchandise sales gross profit down 3% due to the expected 500 basis point drop in sales margin. Store expenses increased 6% with increased store activity. US Pawn EBITDA for the quarter was $32.3 million, up 56% on the prior year. Slide 13 focuses on our Latin American Pawn operations. Segment PLO grew 13% for the third quarter, or 10% on a same-store basis. As a result, PSE was up 28%, driven by high average PLO coming from same-store PLO growth as well as additional stores. Merchandise sales was up 47%, 29% on the same store basis. Merchandise sales gross profit was up 24% due to the increased sales offset by margins down 600 basis points. Store expenses were up 21% year over year, mainly due to the 128 pawn store acquisition that occurred during June last year. Even with the increase in the same-store transactions, we have kept same-store expenses under control only up 6%. Latin America-born EBITDA improved by $2.4 million, or 45%, primarily due to high PSE and increased merchandise sales growth profit offset by increased expenses. As we reported last quarter, our board has approved a three-year $50 million share buyback program. we were unable to execute any repurchases in this quarter given our trading window restrictions. We reached a tentative settlement in a litigation matter in early May and took the cautious approach of delaying share repurchases until the settlement agreement was finalized and announced. We are now in a position to begin share repurchases and as announced previously, we'll look to execute this program in an opportunistic and responsible way taking into consideration general market conditions, liquidity and capital needs, and the availability of attractive alternative investment opportunities. Looking forward on a consolidated basis, we should see PLO levels continue to increase beyond these record levels as we move back to pre-COVID seasonality, as well as seeing the effects of our improved business model. we have suggested in prior quarters we are likely to continue to see a further reduction in the sales growth margin as inventory levels increase in line with plo and sales discounting practice continue to return to normal levels also as we have seen this quarter expense growth is likely to continue on a sequential basis as inflationary wage pressures continues to rise we are pleased to that the execution on our strategic initiative continues to be seen in strong, consistent financial results each quarter. We are excited to see our business reach record PLO levels and pre-COVID levels of profitability, but with superior operating model that has put us in an exciting position to scale a business from here. I will now turn it over to Lockie for a few closing comments.
spk06: Thank you, Tim. The EZ Team is proud of the excellent financial results we are consistently delivering on behalf of our shareholders. Our operating mantra of people, porn and passion continues to resonate with our team and deliver excellent operating and financial results for our shareholders. And with that, we'll open the call for questions. Operator?
spk04: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, we invite you to press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you do change your mind or feel that your question has already been answered, you can press star followed by two to withdraw your question. And please ensure that you are unmuted locally when preparing to ask your question. We'll take our first question today from Sajeev Hartmayer of Jefferies. Sajeev, over to you.
spk01: Hey, guys. Thanks very much for taking my questions and congratulations on another great quarter. On the PLO, you had a big increase in the outstanding amount now past 2019 levels, some of which may still be normalization, some from inflationary pressures. At a store level, in terms of customer behavior trends, are you guys seeing customer behavior changing as a result of inflation, or are there other factors at play? Thanks.
spk06: No worries. Let me take a crack at that, Tim. I think, as you said, PLO has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, and we think there are a bunch of different forces at play here. Firstly, seasonality seems to be returning to what we would expect. As you mentioned, there are other factors, including inflation repressure, higher gas prices, that's had a really significant impact on our customer. And then thirdly, the availability of credit, some alternatives. we think is tightening as the economy begins to turn. So look, I think all of those factors have impacted our customers at the store level, overlaid by the fact that we think that post this stimulus world that we were living in through COVID, our customer behaviour seems to be returning back to that normal seasonal demand. So I think there are some really positive factors that play here driving our loan balances.
spk01: Thank you. That's very helpful. And one more question. Despite the large growth and return to seasonality you mentioned contained G&A, with inflation in mind over the next few quarters, how should we be thinking about that?
spk06: Look, I think that is a key challenge. I mean, I think you're seeing it across the world, not just in our business, but all businesses. And I think it is a significant challenge. I think the team's done a very good job in the past of containing those costs. But going forward, you know, I think you're going to see them rising. Tim, why don't you give it a shot as well?
spk05: Yeah, that's correct. You know, we've done... an extremely good job of trying to contain these, but, you know, eventually there is the, these pressures do start coming in as, you know, contracts renew, as salaries come up at year end and stuff like that. So all those kinds of weight pressures are coming through. So those will see sequential rises as we move forward. Obviously we're doing the, best we can in in this situation and trying uh trying to keep these containers as much as possible but there is going to be that growth which we haven't seen in our prior quarters great appreciate that thanks thank you for your question our next question today comes from marla backer of sudoti marla over to you thank you
spk02: given the the trends you know the macroeconomic trends we're seeing with inflation and um interest rates rising but also given you know other trends that you've alluded to in terms of you know rising interest in the circular economy are you seeing shifts in your customer base uh not that of the palm space but the you know the purchasers um ships that you believe will be sustainable
spk06: Morning, Marla, and thanks for the question. Look, I do think it's a sustainable trend in secondhand goods retailing. I think that with more pressure on our customer, given this inflationary environment and challenging macro economy, I think people are looking for a deal. And people are looking to shop in thrift shops, pawn shops, to get a better deal than buying new. And I think as we've discussed before, the younger demographic is actually very attracted to second-hand goods, particularly in clothing, shoes, luxury handbags, because it's good for the environment. So I think that this macro environment, as well as the younger demographic coming through, I think we will see sustained demand for our second-hand goods. It's just, you know, the margins here, as Tim said in his remarks, I think the margins will be coming under pressure because as PLO grows, so does your inventory. And we are very, very focused on turning that inventory quickly. But as a result, you'll see, as Tim said, pressure on our margin. But at the top line in sales, I think we're really well positioned to sustain growth there.
spk02: Thank you.
spk04: Thank you for your question, Marla. There are no further questions at this time, so I'd like to hand back to the management team.
spk06: Thank you, operator. Look, we thank everyone for joining us this morning. As I said earlier, we're very proud of these results. We're proud of their consistency, and I thank our team, our shareholders, and our customers for a great quarter. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks.
spk04: Thank you. This concludes the call today. You may now disconnect your lines.
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