EZCORP, Inc.

and a significant runway ahead in both existing and new porn markets. Turning to slide three, for those new to the story, the porn business resonates strongly with customers because the transaction is fundamentally customer-friendly. Our loans are non-recourse, meaning customers have no obligation to repay. With our core porn product, we don't check credit, require bank accounts, or verify employment, and we don't pursue collections or report to credit bureaus. These are small, short-term transactions, typically $200 to $220 in the US, and $70 to $140 in Latin America, with terms ranging from 30 to 90 days. That core value proposition, together with offering great value for secondhand goods in an environmentally responsible way, where it's fun to come and shop in a pawn store, have been critical in driving consistent, outstanding operating and financial results for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Tim to walk through the financial details. Tim?

Thanks, Lachie. Turning to slide five for the consolidated financial highlights. We delivered an exceptional quarter of earnings performance. Adjusted EBITDA rose 76% to $76.9 million, with margin expanding 340 basis points to 18%. Diluted EPS improved 76% to 58%. These results reflect the operating leverage of our platform at scale. Total revenues reached a record $434.9 million, up 42%. Improvement was broad-based, with meaningful contribution from PSC, merchandise sales, and a significant increase in scrap gross profit, resulting from elevated gold prices. PLO increased 31% to $342.1 million, an all-time high fueled by sustained consumer demand high average loan sizes across all drug fees and the addition of SMG. PSE revenues rose 27% to $147.3 million, supported by PLO growth and new stores. On the retail side, merchandise sales climbed 22% to $207.2 million, with same-store sales up 7%. Merchandise margin expanded 210 basis points to 36%, reflecting improved pricing, execution, and product mix. Scrap margins also expanded significantly from 22% to 38%, as we've benefited from higher gold prices. Gross profit of $253.4 million improved 42%, supported by contributions across all three revenue streams. G&A rose 38% primarily due to high incentive compensation expenses associated with the SMG acquisition. With top and bottom line growth meaningfully outpacing operating expenses, we are demonstrating the scalability operating leverage inherent in our platform. On slide six, we have provided consolidated revenue and EBITDA bridges that depict the drivers of the growth this quarter. As Lockie mentioned, beginning this quarter, we are disclosing core pawn revenue, which excludes scruff sales, and core pawn gross profit, which excludes scruff gross profit, as both the consolidated and segment level. We think these give investors a cleaner read on underlying performance, which importantly highlights that our business is significantly improving, even without the benefit of elevated gold prices. At the consolidated level, corn porn revenue grew 24% and corn porn gross profit grew 28% on a same store basis. Corn porn revenues and gross profit grew 9% and 12% respectively. Given the magnitude of the scrap sale win this quarter, I want to address scrap attribution directly. Jewelry scrap sales nearly quadrupled year over year driven by elevated gold prices and increased jewelry purchasing activity. Clearly, this is a major strength inherent in the operating model during times of elevated gold prices, where significantly higher cash flow can be redeployed into higher return activities, such as into growing earning assets, building more de novo stores, and executing on exciting acquisitions. Excluding scrap gross profits, Consolidated Iberdia grew 17%, reflecting earnings improvement on top of the scrap tailwind. Same-store corn gross profit grew 12%, evidencing underlying strength of the business independent of scrap and additional stores. Moving to the U.S. pawn segment on slide seven and eight, we ended the quarter with 559 stores across 19 states and an increase of 12 stores with the UpUpFly acquisition completed in January. Total revenues increased $60.8 million, or 27%, to $282.2 million. Approximately two-thirds of this improvement is attributable to the high scrap sales, which benefited from elevated gold prices and increased jewelry purchasing activity. Core pawn revenue grew 11% to $226.7 million, and core pawn gross profit grew 13%, reflecting both strong lending activity and genuine merchandise margin expansion. PLO expanded 16% to $230.5 million, with same-store PLO up 13%. Average loan size rose 16% to $240, primarily due to higher prices on jewelry. Jewelry now represents 69% of US PLO, up 460 basis points. Sequentially, PLO only dropped 4%, which is the lowest drop we have seen in many years. We can point to a combination of higher jewelry loans lower than expected tax refunds, and a rise in gas prices in March, leading to this result. PSE improved 13% to $98.8 million, generally in line with same-store PLO growth. On the retail side, merchandise sales climbed 9%, with same-store sales up 7%. Merchandise margin improved 170 basis points to 38%. Jewelry scrap gross profit rose approximately $19 million, reflecting our ability to efficiently monetize aged jewelry inventory in the current gold price environment. Inventory increased 20% to $188.2 million, fueled by PLO expansion and layaways, while turnover remained steady at 2.3 times. Aged general merchandise decreased 95 basis points to 2.3% of total GM inventory, or $0.9 million, reflecting disciplined inventory management. Segment EBITDA improved 57% to $80.9 million with margin expanding 540 basis points to 29% supported by robust gross profit performance and same store expenses up just 6%. Turning to Latin America on slide nine and 10, we ended the quarter with 840 stores across four countries. During the period, we opened four de novo stores, two in Guatemala, one in Mexico, and one in Honduras. Total revenues rose $16.5 million, or 19%, to $101.4 million. It was another very strong quarter for Latin America, with the majority of EBITDA growth driven by core porn performance rather than scrap. Core porn revenue grew 18% to $95.6 million, and core pawn gross profit grew 25%, reflecting PLO growth, new store contributions, and a 410 basis point expansion and merchandise margin. PLO expanded 27% to $79 million, with same-store PLO up 15%. GAAP average loan size improved 23% to $107, largely reflecting higher jewelry prices. Jewelry now represents 48% of Latin American PLO, up 860 basis points. CPI rose from 41% to $42 million, supported by same-store PLO gains and contributions from new stores. Merchandise sales climbed 17%, with same-store sales up 8%. Merchandise margin improved 410 basis points to 34%, reflecting disciplined pricing execution and product mix. Inventory finished at $56.2 million, with inventory of 3.2 times. Aged general merchandise declined to below 1% of total GM inventory, reflecting strong inventory discipline across the region. Segment EBITDA improved 24% to $19.6 million, with margin expanding 70 basis points to 19%, despite a 19% increase in same-store expenses driven primarily by labor costs. As we noted last quarter, Mexico's January minimum wage increase of approximately 13% is now flowing through our Latin American run rate on top of prior year increases. Turning to SMG on slide 11, as Lachie mentioned, the SMG transaction closed on January 2nd and contributed approximately 89 of the 90 days in the quarter. Because there are no comparable prior year comparisons, we are presenting absolute figures only. and we do so for the next several quarters until a clean year-over-year comparison is available. PLO for SMG was $32.6 million at quarter end, contributing $51.3 million of revenue, comprised of $14.4 million of PSE, $17.8 million of merchandise sales, and $19.1 million of jewelry scrap sales. Core point revenue was $32.2 million, with core point gross profit of $20.3 million. Segment EBITDA was $9.5 million at a margin of 18.5%. As disclosed in our 10Q, we own approximately 87.7% of Founders One, which in turn owns approximately 85.1% of SMG, giving us an effective 74.6% ownership. Segment store count finished at 107 across 12 countries with two de novo openings in the quarter. From a balance sheet perspective, we remain highly liquid with no short or medium-term debt maturities, ending the quarter with $354.2 million in unrestricted cash. During the quarter, under the $50 million share repurchase program authorized by our board in November 2025, we repurchased approximately 156,000 shares of our Class A common stock for $4 million. we will continue to balance organic growth investment, discipline M&A, and opportunity capital return to shareholders within the framework of a fiscally conservative balance sheet. Looking ahead, we remain focused on expanding PLO, improving industry efficiency, and scaling operational best practices across all geographies. With respect to scrap, we're not in the business of predicting gold prices, but we can say gold is only marginally up since the beginning of calendar 2026. If gold continues to stabilize, we would expect scrap and scrap gross profit margins to begin to normalize towards historical levels next quarter. On expenses, we remain disciplined. That said, we do expect a sequential increase through the year as we continue integrating recent acquisitions and building de novos and scale operational best practices across all jobs. Our M&A pipeline remains active in both the US and Latin America, and we continue to approach each opportunity with rigorous financial discipline. At $1,506 across 16 countries and a strong balance sheet, we are well positioned to capitalize on further consolidation opportunities. Now, I'd like to turn it back to Lockie for his closing remarks.

Thanks, Tim.

Q2 was an exceptionally strong quarter for EasyCorp, with record PLO, record revenue, and meaningful margin expansion in both pawn segments. Year-over-year EBITDA growth of 76% was the highest in our recent history. It was also a fantastic quarter for M&A, where we bought SMG, one of the largest pawn chains in the North American region, and an exciting 12-store chain in Texas. Post-quarter end, we bought 32 more stores in Guatemala, where we are expanding our clear market leadership. Importantly, we are producing these results with a conservative, highly liquid balance sheet and a strong, stable and tenured team. Our focus for the balance of the fiscal year is straightforward. To continue to execute against the operating priorities we have outlined with rigorous discipline, to integrate recent exciting acquisitions onto our platform and continue to deepen the core pawn unit economics that makes this business compound significantly over time. I want to extend my sincere appreciation to our approximately 9,500 team members across all of our markets. Your dedication to our mission, being the first and best choice of our customers' short-term cash needs and quality pre-owned goods, is the foundation of these clearly outstanding results. Guided by our core values of people, pawn and passion, we remain confident in our ability to scale with discipline, invest with purpose and deliver sustained long-term value for our shareholders. And with that, operator, we'll open the line for questions.

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. To ask a question, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Brian McNamara of Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on the impressive results. Thanks for taking the questions. So how would you guys characterize the tax refund season relative to your expectations going into the quarter? Obviously, loan paydowns appear very small relative to historical standards. what would what what's driving that is it the higher uh prices at the pump is it is it just obviously a the low-income consumer feeling the you know incremental pressures elsewhere how would you kind of characterize the state of your you know your tried and true low-income consumer i think you're on the right track there but tim you want to you want to take this one versus our expectations but from a macro perspective brian i think you bang on i think it's

you know, alternative lenders are tightening credit. I think the gas pump has been, you know, really challenging in recent weeks. And I think, you know, those two things have certainly impacted the number. But Tim, do you want to add anything to that?

Yeah, definitely. At the end of last quarter, we did talk about the fact that we did think that there would be slightly higher tax refunds in dollars going out, but it wouldn't affect our customers that much. Also, we did see that the average tax refund was slightly higher than last year, but lower than estimates that had been provided in the market. So definitely was more muted than we thought. But on top of that, you did have an increase in the gold price through the quarter. So the average loan size that was being taken, especially on the jewelry side through the quarter, was larger than we expected as well. And then, as Lockie said, we had these gas prices at the end of the March, which drove a lot of people to our stores to ask for extra cash.

Lockie, you mentioned applying your playbook to SMG. What are the areas of low-hanging fruit to improve store productivity and profitability in those stores? And how much did SMG add to EBITDA in the quarter? I know EBITDA was up big, like 76%. I'm just trying to figure out what that is organically.

Okay. Yeah, I think it's the numbers, Tim, while I talk, I think the numbers in the deck of what it contributed. But look, it's, you know, SMG is a well-run business. We just bring, I think, various, through various groups, particularly Blair's operations groups, I think, you know, just added expertise to what they're doing. I think we've got, you know, really strong lending practices. You know, we're using a lot of AI now around our pricing and around our LTVs and lending grids. I think our sales programs are really strong. So I think if you start there in Blair's group, I think we can make some real meaningful difference there. I think starting with people, compensation, recognition, career path, all of this stuff that we've been doing for the last three, four, five years that I think has been so critical in driving earnings. I think, you know, you start there on the operations side and then we bring, you know, Tim's financial function, which I think just elevates the ability to help our store managers and help our district managers with better financial analysis just because, you know, we're bigger, we're better funded, more expertise. So I think, look, it's a well-run business. We've always said that, but I think easy just brings this added element where I think, you know, the next 12 months we should be able to drive some meaningful impact.

Definitely the scale that EASY brings just has a lot of people that SMG folk can go talk to and ask questions. And so that scale just brings a lot more to a smaller organization. The number there on the SMG for the quarter EBITDA was $9.5 million for the SMG segment. SMG did have some corporate costs that go into our G&A, which totaled $3.9 million.

Great. And then last one for me before I pass it on. You know, gold's off its recent highs a decent amount here. Can you remind us in the market your approach to pricing your gold loan book, any risk involved there if we have more of a significant sell-off here? Thanks.

Yeah, we run pretty conservatively. We're not changing the price that we lend on a daily basis. So we're looking at more of an average view. As I said on the call, the gold price really hasn't moved that much. If you look at the beginning of January, we're at the 4.5, 4.6 kind of range. We're at the 4.6, 4.7 kind of range right now. So not much movement if you're looking at the more, you know, if you're taking out all the big ups and downs through the last couple of months. And so from our point of view, gold is rather stable and how we've been lending is rather stable at the moment. Helpful.

Thank you very much.

On top of that, I would say that, you know, retail price of gold doesn't also, doesn't move in line with the gold, with the scratch. So that's obviously gone up. You go to an average jewelry store now, you'll see that that is quite elevated, which means that people coming to our stores to buy secondhand jewelry are getting amazing deals. So definitely Mother's Day coming up, definitely come to our store. Understood. Thanks a lot, guys. Best of luck.

Thanks, Brian.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of John Hector Jeffries. Your line is now open.

Morning, guys, and thanks very much for the Mother's Day reminder. The first question I have is the first question I have is, you know, I mean, obviously, business is very buoyant right now, but I'm wondering, like, can you assess like customer? Is there anything like at the customer level? Loan sizes are moving up. I know that's partly in tandem with gold, but it seemed like in the U.S. there was also a bigger shift to jewelry-based lending. Any kind of just characteristics you can tell us about subtle changes in customer behavior, new customer activity, and things like that?

Yeah, thanks for the question, John. We are building a marketing capability at the moment. You know, not a big spend, but a really dedicated targeted marketing effort, mainly digitally to attract, re-attract existing customers, target new customers. And, you know, we've had a pretty targeted approach on increasing our jewellery business across all that we do. So I think, you know, it's been quite deliberate. We're really targeting that customer and targeting that that vertical um i think on the you know various categories i i just truly believe that customers more and more customers are keen to buy second hand because i think it's value for money i think markets are getting tougher out there and as we build much better presented better staffed fun places to shop you know i think we're seeing I think we're building a much more attractive business for this customer. So, look, I think it's across all that we're doing. Certainly, jewellery is leading the charge. I think customers are getting much more excited, clearly because of the gold price and what they can do. But this is quite a deliberate effort of marketing programs to bring people into our stores to look at jewellery.

I would add as well, the average loan size is up. Obviously, that's related to the gold price, but it's up because demand for that amount of money is up. And so that's definitely a reflection of the things costing more. And gas prices are definitely one that's very easy to see. But the average loan size reflects what people are asking for to borrow to deal with short-term needs. And that's up.

That's helpful. And maybe just a related follow-on is you talked about digital marketing campaigns and so forth. You guys have, you know, prioritize, call it technological investments, broadly speaking, over the past several years, loyalty programs and so forth. Maybe can you just give us an update on call it adoption and any responses that are call it impacts you can see from those those investments?

Yeah, look, it's a good question. I think on the loyalty side, you know, we've done the really heavy lift over the last few years and got 75-odd percent of our customers onto the program. You know, most importantly, our teams love it. It gives them the ability to, you know, re-engage their customer all the time to talk about their points, balance, come back in, you're coming by this. So I think on the rewards program, it's really led by our teams who really, you know, find it to be a strong... differentiator in the local neighborhoods in which they work. On the digital initiative side, look, we've got a bunch going. We're still testing, we're piloting. I'm convinced that online just has to be a bigger channel, particularly in the luxury segment. But we're pretty early in that. We're still pretty early in that journey. But, you know, for example, SEO, SEM, all up big, you know, store near me, SEO is performing really well. So we just think it's, you know, it all starts with customer service in the stores, of course, but we're trying to supplement that with better digital initiatives that, you know, for example, we've got all of our inventory now online across the whole of the US. You can get an online quote across all of the US for a product now. You know, we need to improve those products. They're still pretty early. But I think, you know, they can potentially drive some real customer traffic and some revenue, you know, in the next 12 months or so. So I would say, pleased with our progress, but it's still early. But, you know, we're trying to meet our customers anywhere they are, whether it's in the street, in the store, online, on the phone, on the text. Because, you know, they choose where they want to see us, and I think EZCorp needs to be in all of those places. So it's been a pretty deliberate strategy over the last year or two, and I think the next 12 months is going to hopefully produce some real benefit.

Great. I appreciate that, guys. Thanks.

Thanks, John.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Vincent Kaintick of BTIG. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on the results. I did want to go back to talking about the sensitivity to gold prices. It's just been the biggest investor question I've been getting last night and this morning. So I do appreciate the core pond metrics you provided. So when you think about gold prices, I guess first, you know, how much of an impact is it having, you know, not just on jewelry, scrap sales and margins, but also when we think about the core pond balance growth and then the retail margin expansion, And then if I maybe kind of take the other side of it, if maybe we can talk about how sensitive earnings are to say if gold prices were to normalize from here. Thank you. Thanks, Vince.

Tim, you want to take this one first? Yep. I think it goes back to the other question earlier here where the average loan size is going up But it's because of demand for cash. It's not because gold is going up that people need more money. And so they need more money and they're using gold to get that. And so I think those two things need to be separated out to understand this business. if a customer doesn't need the extra money, they don't just try and get the maximum loan amount, right? The customer is trying to get a certain amount of money by bringing goods to the store and we provide them cash to deal with their short-term needs. They are not trying to maximize the loan they get. They want to solve their problem of cash. And so I think if you separate those two things out, it changes how you see the business And so I just, yes, it is gold that is driving it. So if gold prices drop, then instead of bringing the one item they're bringing in now, they start bringing in two items, which is what they used to do when gold wasn't up this far. And so I think that the business from a core porn perspective is well-protected.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you for that. And then separately, if we could talk about acquisition and other store growth opportunities. So first, congratulations on closing the SMG deal this past quarter. Sounds like there's a lot of opportunity there. Could you talk about how you see the pipeline for other acquisitions that might be out there in different geographies and then also how you're thinking about de novo store growth in your geographies? Thank you.

Thanks, Vince. Yeah, look, SMG is obviously a big, transaction. I think it's the biggest pawn transaction we've ever done. So I've certainly got the US team focused on integration there because it's big, it's exciting, we can make a meaningful difference. And so I think that was the most attractive deal to do in the North American market. We've now done it. But as you know, the easy part's the deal. We've now got to make it really hum. So I think when you're thinking about M&A and new acquisitions and Donovos, right for now, I think the core objective is to make these couple of very large acquisitions that we've just done, whether it's SMG, whether it's the one in Laredo, El Buffalo, whether it's Mupley in Guatemala, which is another 32 stores, I'm really getting the teams to focus on integrating those to extract as much value and benefit from from those acquisitions as we can. We want to build these teams, build the culture and maximize earnings. So I think that's kind of priority one. In terms of new stuff, there's absolutely plenty of deals, plenty of stuff to do out there. I think in the US, as I've said in the last couple of quarters outside of SMG, it's It's probably onesies and twosies, the odds three and four if you're lucky, and then maybe something bigger comes up now and then. But I think it's really a market where we've just got to continue with the small acquisitions and make sure we're doing them well and efficiently. And then in Latin America, it's an enormous opportunity, whether it's M&A or de novo. I think both are enormous opportunities. Mexico still... There's many, many, many areas that we could build new stores in. I think the customer demand is insatiable down there because of the lack of access to traditional credit. It's really our challenge is how do we staff these stores in a really strong way. So we're working through AI models to be able to lift our capability there, to be able to train people much faster, more efficiently in a deeper way. So I think we've got some strategies around DeNovo's that we're going to employ to really quicken the pace of those. I think not right now. I think let us get through this current year on the pretty traditional cadence that we've been doing for de novos. But certainly for next year, I'm going to be pushing our teams to see if we can really accelerate that de novo business because truly our team has gotten much, much better at this. both from a site acquisition or site leasing perspective, right through to our operating culture, our people, our training. That's become a really important part of our growth engine. And I think we can accelerate it. So that's, you know, hopefully my team's listening and we're about to come into budget time and that's what I'm going to be pushing. But I think that is a great call out that you've made. It's a really strong opportunity. And on the acquisition front, absolutely, it hasn't changed. There's still many big independently owned chains in Mexico and Latin America that at the right price or if we can come together on a transaction, we'd love to do them. But I think we've shown now after about five years of doing this as the leadership team or nearly five years, we're only going to do it in a disciplined way. We're going to buy these you know, with our shareholders front of mind that we've got to build returns. We're not just dots on maps people. We're trying to buy good stores that we think we can improve. And I think there's plenty of those out there. So that's my long-winded way of saying integration right now is a big focus, but DeNovo's and acquisition pipeline is absolutely a big strength that we've got for our growth engine going forward. That's great and very helpful.

Thank you. Thanks, Vince.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Kyle Joseph of Stevens. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on the good quarter. And, yeah, appreciate the disclosure on PON and you guys breaking that out for us. I just wanted to touch on LATAM. It looks like you guys have been seeing really strong uh retail trends there both in terms of margins and then it looks like you know plo was up well ahead of inventory growth this year just kind of kind of comment you know anything you guys are seeing specifically you know down south uh versus what you're seeing in the us well thanks pilot i think it's it starts with the people i think we're building blair particularly is building an outstanding culture across latin america

The leadership group down there is very tenured and just outstanding operators. And I think with the playbook that Blair designed in the US, we're now two plus years into that down in Latin America and you can see the results are just absolutely fantastic. So I think it is the culture training, our jewellery focus. We were... We were pretty light in our jewelry business in Latin America two years ago. But with a strategy and then an execution culture of how to build that business, I think that's been part of the big change down there. So look, I think, is it different to the U.S.? Yes, but a lot of the techniques that were used in the U.S. to drive such significant earnings momentum were using down there. And what I'd say to you is they are now coming to fruition. I still think there is a huge amount of opportunity down there. I was down there last week in stores and, you know, every store you walk into, whether it's a good one, bad one, you just see the opportunity. So, look, I think it is incredibly pleasing to see how well that business is doing, even without scrap. You can see that, I think Tim said in his comments, we're sort of almost 30% EBITDA growth, something like that, which is absolutely phenomenal. So, you know, we're very proud of the team down there and what we're doing.

Great, that's it for me. Thanks for taking my question. Thanks, Carl.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Scud of Roth Capital Partners. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the strong results. Most of my questions have been answered here, so a quick one on a smaller part of your business, but you guys have been building out Max Pawn, kind of your luxury pawn side of the business. You guys added a store recently in Miami. Can you just kind of talk about kind of the long-term plans with Max Pawn and the luxury pawn opportunity?

Yep, thank you, Andrew. Yeah, so I think about luxury in two buckets. One is the Max Pawn business. So as you said, that's four stores. We've got three in Vegas and a new one in Miami. The focus in that business is just to maximize the potential of those four stores. Miami is our first breakout from Vegas. So I think it's a really important one to make this concept work. But Vegas business is doing very, very well, you know, exactly as we had hoped for it. But Miami is very early. And so our focus is to make that work so that we can see if that happens, you know, then we can expand across the US. So we're excited by that business. But what we're also doing is we're seeding significantly more luxury across the store base. We made a store in Austin. We called it Easy Porn Lux. And we kind of, not the full Max Porn experience, but an elevated porn broking experience. And the results have just been fantastic. We're only, I think, about a month into it. But With that elevated Lux product experience brand, I think luxury is a pretty exciting potential growth opportunity. It's still small, but it is opening up much different new customer segments, and particularly in stores that are in areas that are gentrifying. I think could potentially be a really interesting growth driver. So think about Lux just in two ways. It's MaxPorn itself as well as Lux in the rest of the EasyPorn business.

Sounds really interesting, and thanks for taking my questions, and congrats again on the results. Thanks, Andrew.

As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Raz Sharma of Texas Capital. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you for taking my questions. You addressed quite a few of the questions, but again, the big question is, you know, what do you think PLO growth would be If gold prices were to plateau, and I think you've talked quite a lot about it, maybe you cannot, maybe it's hard to kind of delineate that. But just given your performance is stellar across all fronts, And once SMG anniversaries, where do you think the same store's trends would be? Can you give a sense? Are these great results, the organic trends and acceleration, is that to be expected? Sort of what should we assume going forward once SMG anniversaries?

Thanks, Raj. Look, we obviously don't guide, but if you exclude Spratt, our intention is clearly to keep building these metrics. So whether it's PLO, PSC, sales, turns, you know, we are in this business to keep growing these metrics. This has been probably the best quarter that I've ever seen at Easy Corp. So I understand your point that things are firing at the moment. But, you know, we believe that even in the existing organic market same store business you know our job is to continue to drive these these results you know we're going to add a bunch of de novo stores to that we're going to add a bunch of acquisitions to that but you know we think that without guiding here we think that this business is is capable of much more and so we're you know we still believe that it's trading very cheaply with the growth with the with the liquidity on our balance sheet with the tenured team with the no real net debt um It is, you know, potentially, it is a, you know, it's an enormous opportunity for shareholders and for investors, I think. And we're looking forward to, you know, continuing these growth initiatives.

I would call out two numbers on the same store stuff that we produced in the quarter. So loans for the US were 13 cents up on a same store basis. And in Latin America, PLO was up 15% on the same store basis. So it gives you an idea of what we're producing today. And PLO is the leading indicator of how the business is going to perform.

Yeah, thank you for that. Obviously, the business is doing incredibly well. Just on how are you prioritizing, you know, you're building up significant incremental capital. How are you prioritizing? Should we expect more DeNovo, you know, between DeNovo stores, LATAM, M&A, and shareholder returns?

Yeah, look, I think it's all of those things around investing in the business. I think you start with your earning assets. If we're building PLO and inventory, that takes significant capital across 1,500 stores. Then there's the Novos, as you mentioned. I think there's plenty of really interesting acquisitions to do out there. Plus, we just like to be liquid and conservative. You know, it's a dangerous world out there at the moment. And I think companies that are highly liquid with low debt is certainly where I'd like to have my money. So, you know, I think it's a mix of putting those investing into the business. I think with respect to shareholder returns, yeah, we've got the buyback program. And you saw we bought $4 million worth during the quarter. So, you know, that's active. We believe the stock is, as I said, very cheap and that represents a good return on capital for shareholders. But I think, you know, as I've always said, our priority is scale and I think the market is seeing that we are, you know, very serious about that and we have very executable M&A and de novo opportunities that we're putting our capital to. And, you know, I think that that, That is the way to drive the best shareholder returns. And, you know, I think we've got more ahead.

Got it. Thank you. And just lastly, the store expenses growth decelerated in LATAM, you know, despite, I believe, wage inflation there. You know, is that how sustainable is that trend?

So on those costs, they were still up in Latin America 19% on the same store basis. So still up, that's 13%, you know, 13% in minimum wage increases and Mexico driving a lot of that. But it's also, you know, you see the performance, the amount of transit costs The amount that's going through those stores actually requires a few more people, so that's driving some of that as well.

Great. I landed there again. Thank you. Congratulations. Fantastic results. And, you know, thank you. I'll take this offline.

Thank you. We'll talk to you in a bit.

I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Lockie for closing remarks.

Thank you, Operator, and thanks, everyone, for joining. We've said that this has been an enormous quarter for us, so I'm very thankful to our teams, the businesses on almost all metrics operating at a very high level, and we're very pleased with the M&A during the quarter. So we'll speak to a bunch of you in the next couple of days, but thank you for joining, and thank you to all of our shareholders for your support. Thanks.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.