EZCORP, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the EZCorp fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at the time. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. And I'd like to turn the conference call over to Jean Marie Young, Investor Relations with Three-Part Advisors. Please go ahead, Jean.

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.easycorp.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 our 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 are AC Corp's Chief Executive Officer, Lockie Gibbon, and Tim Judman's Chief Financial Officer. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Lockie Gibbon. Lockie?

Thanks, Jean, and good morning, everyone. Our team continues to consistently execute on the strategic plan put in place at the end of fiscal 2020. We ended fiscal 2022 with an excellent fourth quarter. I want to thank our passionate and productive team members for their continued focus on operational excellence, which has driven our consistently very strong financial results. Pauline's upstanding, the key driver of our business, was $210 million at quarter end, a 19% year-over-year increase. PLO is, once again, at its highest level ever. Merchandise sales gross profit margin was 37%, which is within our targeted range, with age-general merchandise continuing to be less than 1% of total GM inventory. Beginning on slide three, we are a global leader in corn broking and pre-owned and recycled retail. We operate 1175 stores in the US and Latin America with strategic investments in adjacent businesses which expand our geographic footprint worldwide. Across our diverse store breadth, we offer two core products to our consumers. We make corn loaves and we sell secondhand goods. The macroeconomic environment continues to be a challenge for our customer base. Inflationary pressures, increasing interest rates, high gas prices, and the tightening of credit from alternative lenders drive increased demand for porn lines. The demand for secondhand goods also increases as consumers increasingly seek value for money and environmentally responsible alternatives. Our goal is to provide the best, most convenient experience for our customers through continuous innovation while positively impacting the environment and the communities in which we serve. Moving on to slide four. We continue to embrace people, porn, and passion as our core operating team. We know that our engaged team drives our success, so we are committed to investing in recruitment, retention, and incentivization. We strive to be the best option for our customers by providing outstanding customer service, an attractive and well-positioned store footprint, a differentiated digital platform, a proprietary pod system, and importantly, ample liquidity on our balance sheet to provide pawn loans across all the regions in which we operate. Slide five shows our progression toward our three-year strategic goals. We have the most passionate, productive and committed team in the industry and we continue to find ways to motivate and retain them by enhancing their experience. In addition to our team, we're also committed to enhancing We are modernizing the operations and our points-based loyalty program and online payment options continue to improve and grow. Turning to our key financial themes for Q4 on slide six. As mentioned, PLO, the most significant driver for revenue and earnings, was up 19% year over year, with an associated 21% increase in PSC. As you can see, all of our financial metrics were positively impacted. Total revenue for the quarter was $234 million, up 22% due to higher sales and PSC, and EBITDA was $24.6 million, up 33%. Very pleasingly, U.S. porn EBITDA was 43% up year over year. PLO on a same-store basis continues to remain strong and above pre-COVID financial year 2019 levels. And same-store sales and merchandise sales gross profit are up due to higher sales and continued focus on effective inventory management. The reduction in cash on the balance sheet was the result of an increase in earning assets. Additionally, we were able to repurchase $2 million worth of shares in the quarter and an additional $1 million in October. On slide seven, total expenses increased, primarily due to labour costs. So as a percentage of gross profit for the year, expenses decreased from 86% to 80%. Store expenses also increased year over year, primarily due to labour increases and rent associated with lease renewals, but decreased as a percentage of gross profit from 73% to 68% compared to the previous year. GA increased $3.1 million year over year, but remained flat as a percentage of gross profit at 12% as we increased our investment in marketing and digital activities. On slide 8, we talk about strengthening the core, with a primary focus on people and systems, This in turn has driven our excellent operating and financial results. As mentioned, we are focused company-wide on recruitment, retention, inclusion, and incentivization. Our team is enthusiastic and engaged. In addition to investing in our people, we continue to invest in technology. We believe we are leading the industry in this area. Our technology and digital initiatives are improving our operational efficiency at the store level, and the ease of use of our products and services for our customers. For example, investments in our store networks resulted in a second straight quarter without internet and overall POS availability of 99.98%. We continue to invest in re-architecting our POS in a microservices architecture for increased agility and flexibility. In addition, we launched mobile technology in our stores that automates our manual processes for reviewing loans, saving management time, and providing immediate team member feedback and training. On slide nine, innovation and growth is the third pillar of our three-year strategy, and we continue to execute on our plan. We launched our EasyPlus loyalty program in Honduras and El Salvador in the fourth quarter, and we now have over 1.9 million customers enrolled versus over 1.4 million last quarter. We also collected $9.7 million in online payments this quarter, versus $7 million last quarter. Moving payments online not only frees up time for our team members to service new business, but also provides our existing customers with convenient options for servicing porn loans and layaways, and promotes engagement and loyalty. Additionally, we introduced the ability for our Mexico customers to view their loans and layaways online. We received more than 15,000 Google reviews this quarter, averaging 4.9 stars in the US and Latin America. Website visits for the four main brands were up 16% over the previous quarter, and we believe we are attracting new customers by making shopping more convenient. From an inorganic perspective, we opened 16 de novo stores in Latin America during the quarter and acquired nine stores in the Houston area in October. We continue to be disciplined in evaluating acquisition opportunities and the pipeline remains robust. We increased our stake in CCV from 41% to 42% during the quarter and in November we received a cash dividend from CCV for $1.7 million and further increased our stake to 44% with a net outlay of $2 million for this increased position. Slide 10 outlines our ESG highlights for the fiscal year. Our business, by its very nature, makes us a neighbourhood recycler and a compelling component of the local circular economy. We are a significant recycler of second-hand goods in hundreds of local neighbourhoods. We resold over 5.6 million pre-owned items in fiscal 2022, including toxic consumer electronic items such as computers, TVs, phones, as well as tools, musical instruments, household goods and jewellery, saving them from landfill. We use sound recycling and e-waste processing in the U.S. We do not use factories, distribution facilities, or heavy trucking. Importantly, we provide an essential, simple, regulated, and transparent financial resource for those who are underserved by traditional sources. Diversity and inclusion are a significant focus, and this year we launched both Black Empowerment and Women's Empowerment affinity groups, which have all had excellent engagement from our people. As slide 11 has mentioned, we continue to invest in improving the experience of our team members and customers. Global training and development programs, talent review and succession planning processes, new long-term cash incentive programs in our stores, and reinforced focus on employee health and safety are some of our initiatives. Offering customers with online payment options have successfully reduced their need to travel to the stores. We're always in search of innovative ways in which we can meaningfully impact our team members, our customers, and the communities in which we serve. I'd now like to turn over the call to Tim Judman as the Chief Financial Officer to provide more details on our financial results.