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spk01: 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.
spk06: 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?
spk04: 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.
spk05: Tim. Thanks, Lockie. Slide 12 details our consolidated financial results for the fourth quarter. PLO ended the period at $209.5 million, up 19% on a year-over-year basis. which is the highest in easy corp history. PSC revenue was up 21% over last year, with growth driven by both increased same-store PLO growth and acquisitions. Merchandise sales was up 20%, but as expected, margins fell back to 37%, which is within our normal range. Our focus on selling inventory in the first 90 days has kept inventory turnover strong at 2.6 times. It was another great quarter with consolidated EBITDA of $24.6 million, up 33%. For the full year, consolidated EBITDA improved to $112.9 million, up 66%. Turning to our US porn operations on slide 13, PLO rose 20%, driven by the continued focus on our enhanced porn operating model and better serving our customers' needs. PSE was up 25% year over year, primarily driven by same-store PLO growth. On the retail side of the business, merchandise sales were up 18%, with merchandise sales gross profit up 8%, with a 300 basis point drop in sales margin, as expected. Store expenses increased 9% due to labour in line with store activity, as well as an increasing rental expense. US porn EBITDA for the quarter was 33.7 million, up 43% on the prior year. For the full year, U.S. corn EBITDA improved to 139.6 million, up 45%. Slide 14 focuses on our Latin American corn operations. Segment PLO grew 15% for the fourth quarter, or 13% on the same store basis, with resulting PSC up 9%. Merchandise sales was up 22% and up 20% on a same store basis. Merchandise sales gross profit was up 10% due to increased sales offset by margin down 300 basis points. Store expenses were up 10% and up 5% on a same store basis, mainly due to increased labour in line with store activity as well as an increasing rental expense. For the fourth quarter, Latin America-born EBITDA improved by 0.1 million. For the year, Latin American Porn EBITDA improved to $31.4 million, up 33%. We began our board-approved three-year $50 million share buyback program this quarter, repurchasing $2 million worth of shares with an additional $1 million worth of shares in October. We continue 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. As we have suggested in prior quarters, we are likely to continue to see further reduction in sales gross margin as inventory levels increase in line with PLO and sales discount practices 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 and wage pressures continue to rise. We are pleased that the execution on our strategic initiatives continues to drive our strong and consistent financial results each quarter. We are excited to see our business continue to break record PLO levels and achieve earnings results above what we had pre-COVID, with a superior operating model that has put us in an exciting position to scale a business from here. I will now turn it over to Lachie for a few closing comments.
spk04: Thanks, Tim. Congratulations to our EasyCorp team for another outstanding quarter and full year. We are consistently delivering very strong operating and financial results for our shareholders, driving growth through de novo store build-out and disciplined acquisition all while maintaining a strong liquid balance sheet and returning capital to our shareholders. Every day, we continue to work tirelessly toward improving the experience of our employees and our customers in an environmentally responsible way and to deliver enhanced value for our shareholders. And with that, we'll open the call for questions. Operator?
spk01: Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure you're unmuted locally. As a reminder, that's star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. Our first question comes from Brian Nagel of Oppenheimer. Brian, your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk03: Good morning. Congratulations, guys. Nice quarter, nice year.
spk04: Thanks, Brian.
spk03: So the first question I have, I guess maybe a little bit longer term in nature, but just from a positioning standpoint, I mean, you've clearly taken significant strides here to position the business better. We're seeing the results of that. What still needs to happen? Where are the opportunities, either from an investment standpoint or just an ongoing kind of reposition, restructure type opportunities?
spk04: I think, look, we look at it in two ways. There's the organic stuff, the organic improvements that we work on every single day. And if you look at the three different regions, I think there's opportunities in all three regions on a store level basis. We can still attract more customers to retain more customers organically in all of our stores. So I think there's the organic side of it that we just need to continue to operate better. And we see real opportunities there. And then you've got the inorganic stuff, which is broken up by de novos and acquisitions. And I think on the de novo side, there is just significant opportunity in LATAM to build more stores and get superior returns doing it. And then, as we said on the call, I think there is significant pipeline still for acquisitions. So, look, I think all in all, there's both organic and inorganic opportunities here. but we have challenges, as all companies do, around cost and inflation, and so we're doing our best to manage that. But, Brian, still plenty of opportunity out there for us.
spk03: That's helpful. Then my second question, just a PLO. We talk a lot about that. It's obviously been trending quite well. You highlight that as a real key measure of the health of the business. How should we think about the growth in that? Does it grow with the business, or is there some type of penetration number we should look at when it gets even healthier to determine when that figure gets even healthier?
spk04: Look, we're at record levels at the moment, as we say on the call. This is the best PLO the company's ever had, so we're in uncharted territory. But our... Our objective is to continue to grow that. We've come off clearly an outstanding year where we've grown beyond all expectations of the analysts. And as I said, our objective is to continue to improve that. In Latin America, I think there is genuine scope for real step change growth down there. In the US, that's a more mature market. And as I said, we're seeing the highest level on a store basis. So, look, you know, it's tough to say. It's tough to give you an exact number, but I would say that our objective is to continue to grow it more significantly in Latin America, I would expect, than in the U.S., given it's a more mature market.
spk03: Thanks, Lachie. Congratulations again.
spk04: Good on you, Brian. Thanks for the questions, mate.
spk01: Thank you. As another reminder, if you wish to submit a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. Our next question comes from John Hecht of Jefferies. John, your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk02: Hey, guys. Good morning and congratulations on a good quarter. I guess just a little bit of a follow-up on the last question. The PLOs, obviously, they've been strong and trending positively for a while. they've been trending a little better in LATAM. And is that just a function of similar trends in the U.S., meaning inflationary pressures and kind of the lapping of either social welfare stimulus? Or is there other things going on in LATAM that are driving that as well?
spk04: I think you're right. You know, I think there are macro factors at play here. But, you know, I think we've also done great things internally down in Latin America to improve our business.
spk02: we've got really strong leadership in place down there uh and i think still a long way to go but yeah i think i think your diagnosis is right okay and then um yeah there's we've seen some of the bigger retailers domestically announced that they've seen customers changing their their kind of purchasing behavior you talked about bargain shopping driving some of your results i mean any comments there are you seeing changes in the either the borrower or the retailer you know, behavior, the customer's behavior at this point, either from macro trends or certain things you're doing from an execution perspective?
spk04: Yeah, look, we're seeing the same, all of the same commentary from the big retailers that, you know, they're really seeing a shift in demand from their customers. Our sales continue to be quite robust. You know, I think more people are coming to buy secondhand because it's tough out there. And our margins are holding up really nicely. So while we're seeing the big box retailers every week announcing downgrades and difficult conditions, we're just seeing, particularly down in Latin America as well, we're seeing really robust sales and maintaining our margins in that target range. So I think what's happening is people are buying secondhand and looking for a bargain and And they're also, particularly young people, becoming really environmentally conscious. And so buying secondhand is not only value for money, they actually think it's cool because you are doing what's good for the environment. So we're quite pleased with what we're seeing from a sales perspective.
spk02: Okay. And then that's very helpful. And then last question. I mean, your store retail margins have been very strong. I mean, obviously, just as kind of things normalized, but very strong. The scrap margins are a little bit more volatile. I'm sure there's some reasons behind that, and I'm wondering if you can talk about what are the factors that move the scrap margins on a near-term basis.
spk05: Sure. john uh the uh scrap margins yeah they have moved out about a little bit uh definitely uh diamond market has moved up and down on this on the scrapping side um as you've seen over the years we are trying to sell much more of that jewelry in store um and do much less scrapping um and so that is that has shifted towards you know probably the lower grade stuff being scrapped and the higher grade stuff now being sold in the stores. And so those margins have come down over time and are likely to remain quite low because of that change.
spk02: Great. Thanks for the call, guys.
spk01: Thanks, John. Thank you. As a final reminder, if you wish to submit a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now.
spk00: We currently have no further questions and therefore this concludes today's call.
spk01: Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.
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