Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the EZCORP Fiscal 2008 Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Joe Rotunda. Mr. Rotunda, you may begin.

Thank you, Kim. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us today. With me is Dan Tonissen, our Chief Financial Officer. We’ll be addressing our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2008 results. I will begin with a high level overview of the quarter and the year. Dan will follow with a more in-depth discussion of the financials and will conclude with guidance for 2009. Before I address this period’s performance, I would like to comment on our results over a longer time horizon. I am pleased to point out that this quarter marks our twenty-fifth consecutive quarter of compounded growth in earnings. It’s also the eighth consecutive fiscal year of earnings growth. I believe this amplifies the strong dynamics within our business. When one component is adversely impacted by an external factor primarily associated with economic conditions, another strengthens and vice versa. This is true both between and within the business segments. It also reflects the strong management and the competent associate team in our field operations at the point of customer contact that continues to strengthen. I’d also like to note we will shortly be discussing several unusual events that influenced our financial results in the quarter. Some of these were favorable and some not, some recurring and some not. But the good news is that we believe the beneficial elements will continue as we move forward. For our fourth quarter, we are reporting net income of $16 million. That’s an increase of 44% over last year. Diluted earnings per share were $0.37 compares favorably to $0.26 last year. If you adjust for two unusual elements, which you will be hearing about, the drag of Hurricane Ike and the advantage of a foreign tax benefit related to prior period’s earnings, you will find that there is about $0.03 of…

Thanks, Joe. And as a backdrop to my review of the financials, I am going to begin by discussing the two unusual items in the quarter, Hurricane Ike and the foreign tax credit. As Joe mentioned, we closed 154 stores on September 13th with most of them closed on September 12th in advance of the hurricane. During the month, we lost just over a 1000 store days mainly due to power outages following the hurricane. We estimate the lost pre-tax income, including uninsured losses was approximately $2.5 million or $0.04 per share. Our EZPAWN operation accounted for $900,000 of the total, comprised of sales gross profit of $200,000, pawn service charges of $500,000, and an additional $200,000 of operating expense, net of any insurance coverage. Our EZMONEY operation was more heavily impacted and accounted for $1.4 million. We estimate for EZMONEY we lost about $900,000 of fee revenue and realized higher bad debt levels of approximately $500,000. The impact on fees and bad debt effectively raised our bad debt measured as percent of fees for the quarter and year by 2.46 of percentage point. Included in the loss on the disposal of assets, Line 23 of our operating statements (inaudible) write off of damaged assets net of the expected insurance recoveries. Now I am going to elaborate on the foreign tax credit. During the quarter we elected for tax purposes to change from the net method to the gross method for calculating the foreign tax credit on our portion of the income of Albemarle and Bond. This enables us to take advantage of a previously under utilized foreign tax credit. As a result of this election, we realized a benefit included in our tax provision for the quarter, but not related to the quarter, of approximately $3.1 million, or $0.07…

Thank you, Dan. 2008 was a busy year for us. During the period we made, brokered, extended, and renewed approximately $1.4 billion in loans. That’s 30% more than in 2007. It was also a busy year from an acquisition perspective, which will help fuel that loan growth even more in 2009. As I commented earlier, we completed the strategic acquisition of 25 shops in Mexico during our first quarter. This was followed in our fourth quarter with two additional announcements. The first was Pawn Plus, the Las Vegas acquisition of 11 pawn shops with a loan portfolio of approximately $8 million and $5.5 million in EBITDA. We are on track, pending final license transfers to close this transaction next Thursday. Pawn Plus was followed mid-September by our announcement of a new agreement to acquire Value Financial Services, which 67 pawn shops located primarily in Florida and several stores also in Georgia and Tennessee. At June end, Value Pawn’s loan portfolio was $18 million and their trailing 12 months EBITDA was $15.8 million. We are on track, we believe, to close this deal sometime in December. We expect both of these pawn transactions to be immediately accretive and to make a significant contribution to our ongoing performance. Looking forward, here’s our guidance for fiscal year 2009. In our U.S. EZPAWN operation, our guidance incorporates same-store growth in net revenues in the mid-to-high single digit range. Dan has already addressed our perspective on the impact of the gold markets, which are incorporated into the forecast. I will address the impact of Pawn Plus and Value Pawn in just a moment. In our EZMONEY loan segment, we are evolving the focus of our gross strategy to a two-pronged approach. Our primary driver will be new product expansion within our existing store base. This…

This conference call and earnings announcement contains certain forward-looking statements regarding EZCORP’s expected performance for future periods, including, but not limited to, new store expansion, anticipated benefits of acquisitions, and expected future earnings. Actual results for these periods may materially differ from these statements. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties such as changing market conditions in the overall economy and the industry, consumer demand for the Company’s products and services, actions of third parties who offer services and products in the Company’s locations, changes in the regulatory environment, and other factors periodically discussed in the Company’s annual, quarterly, and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Kim, we’ll now open the conference call to questions.

(Operator instructions) Our first question comes from Dennis Telzrow from Stephens Inc. Please go ahead. Dennis Telzrow – Stephens Inc.: Good morning, I mean afternoon, Joe and Dan, great quarter and year.

Thank you. Dennis Telzrow – Stephens Inc.: Joe, any comment – I know you’ve mentioned that the stores you opened in the payday area would be in existing states. Would I assume most of those are outside of Texas or will Texas still see some fill-ins?

There will be a couple of them in Texas, but there are four or five other states we’ll have also have the additional development. And these will back door our existing stores but they will also include a new store models that has a larger square footage in order to accommodate what we believe to be greater volume potential with the expansion of the product assortment. Dennis Telzrow – Stephens Inc.: And you mentioned title loans in Missouri. What other states would be eligible based on I guess on obviously the laws in those states?

I don’t want to reveal the actual states from a competitive perspective at this point, but we’ve done enough research that we have five states that we believe have favorable regulatory environments for the title loans. And I know – we’ve looked at title loans in the past. We can go – I can go back to a previous career before I joined this Company and even earlier after I came on board where title loans were very risky and the regulatory was very unfriendly. But there has been a number of changes that have really been enhanced with consumer protection as it relates to the transaction and excess funds that are collected when the collateral is forfeited and sold. And we feel much more comfortable in moving forward with it now than we would have in the past. Dennis Telzrow – Stephens Inc.: My last question obviously you asset mix looks great. Pawn loan growth is very strong and inventories look under control, so assume you feel pretty good going into the whatever challenging environment we’ve got here fourth quarter retail.

We feel great. Our inventory – our portfolio is up on a same-store basis by 18%, give us potential to generate some additional inventories going into the holiday season. And you heard our turnover number, I think 3.5 times for the quarter, and our inventory is about flat with last year. So we feel we are well positioned going into the season. Dennis Telzrow – Stephens Inc.: Okay. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Sure.

Our next question comes from John Rowan from Sidoti and Company. Please go ahead. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Good afternoon.

Hi, John.

Hi, John, how are you doing? John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Dan, can you just talk about how the financing is coming along for the acquisitions?

Yes, really no changes in there since our last update. We have the credit facility in place and it will be in place up to December 31st, and it’s contingent on the close of the Value transaction. Just to refresh everybody’s memory, it’s basically a $120 million facility split between a $40 million term and an $80 million revolver. And again as I said, it would be contingent on the closing and obviously without that – without closing on the value, we would not need the credit facility. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. What – can you remind me what the covenants are on those – on these (inaudible)?

Yes, the – and probably the key thing which you are asking about is the pricing. The first two quarters out of the gate and we conceded this as part of the extension of the credit facility, we agreed to 150 basis – 250 basis points over LIBOR for the first two quarters and then it would drop down based on our funded debt to EBITDA to 175 basis points over LIBOR. In this market it’s good pricing. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. But is there a limit as to your trailing 12 months as far as how high you can take the debt?

Yes, there is a limitation here, but we are so far below that, that would not be an issue. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. And just the tax rate for the quarter, I know you said the number of what was in there in terms of the non-recurring, could you just tell me what the tax rate was for the quarter?

For the quarter, it works out to – just take our tax provision as a percent of pre-tax income, it’s about 18%. I think for the year it works out to be just over 34%. And then as I mentioned, going forward in 2009 at least at this point in time we would expect it to be about 35.2%. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: You said there was a $3.1 million benefit in this quarter alone though from the change in the tax accounting?

That is correct and that’s what pulls it down to the 18% effective tax rate. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. And then on the installment loan product, can you just – I guess kind of talk about the pricing on the installment product, how much of it you currently have, and if that falls under kind of the small loan laws that are little different payday loan laws.

We are doing installment loans today in Texas and we are doing them under the CSS statutes. We’ve developed the loans so it’s a five-month period, which is as far out as we want to go and the pricing to the customer is approximately 10% of the principal of the loan paid every – twice a month as they go through the period. The rate, if you calculate an APR on it, the APR is somewhat lower for an installment loan than it is for a typical or a traditional payday loan. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. But this will then fall under most of the payday loan laws, right?

It depends on the state. In Texas it will. As we move this through some additional states it will fall under different financial regulations in those states. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Does this put you in with any regulations, any banking regulators?

I don’t believe so. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. Alright, thank you very much.

Our next question comes from the line of Chuck Ruff from Insight Investments. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Hi, very good quarter and year, and the outlook is certainly bright also. I had a few questions for you. You – I think have – can you talk a little bit about the regulatory outlook for payday loan? I am surprised you are still expanding that as much as you are here in the U.S.

We are in 11 states with payday loans and one of the benefits of being relatively late to market as we were is that you are able to get a better view of the landscape. We didn’t open our first payday loan store until 2003 when we were in Texas. And we didn’t expand beyond Texas until like a year after that. So we – it gave us a pretty good view and we were very careful in the states we went into. And we look for what we felt were favorable and more stable environments. The states that we are in today, the 11 states, we are relatively comfortable with. The only one of the 11 that we’ve had an issue with has been Colorado. And that was during the last session where there was legislation adverse to the industry that was introduced, passed through the house by one vote, went to the Senate, and it was sponsored by the – and the bill was co-sponsored by the President of the Senate, and the bill never reached its third reading, and was sent back with modifications to the house and withdrawn. And the industry was relative – caught relatively off guard at that time. And I think with the opportunity, what we learnt in Colorado was with the appropriate opportunity to explain the trends, action and the benefit and the alternatives and a contribution to the economic environment that the legislators were very receptive to not doing something that wouldn’t affect what the industry out of business in the state. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay.

You get beyond Colorado and again the states that we are in today are relatively stable. We are relatively comfortable with. I say cautiously optimistic. And Texas is where we have a lot of stores and Texas is CSO model. The legislature only meets every other year and they meet – they convene in January of 2009 and they go through May of the year. And just had the election results posted yesterday in Texas and the Republican Party lost three of the seats in the house, but still has a majority of two in the house. And it’s a very business-friendly state. And I don’t think that you find this state going purely along party lines. So, we’re relatively comfortable here as well where we have our largest presence. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Do you worry at all about federal regulation now with Democratic control of the White House and Congress.?

Well, I think anything that would be done from a federal perspective would be inconsistent with their responsibilities and practices. If you look at insurance, usury rates, rent down, bank fees, and a lot of other things, utilities, even pawn, they are all regulated at the state level. And I think if at a federal level if they were to enter that arena it would be a whole new frontier and I would certainly hope the good judgment prevails. Particularly in the economic time that we are in today, I think the need for the – by the consumer for access to credit should be expanding and I just can't imagine they take any actions that would shrink that. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Yes, I am with you. What is the number of shares that you are assuming for fully diluted in you earnings guidance for fiscal ’09.

It’s right around 43.6 million for the guidance excluding the two acquisitions. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Well, that – yes, that’s kind of the more interesting number that I was trying to get to. When you talk about the earnings accretion what kind of – we are all believing these acquisitions are going to get done, so we are trying to figure out what the number of shares would be.

Yes, I don’t have a number exactly for you. The – Chuck, let me – maybe we can take another question. Let me see if I can get you the actual number. I’ve got it here. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay. I’ve got one more and then I will let other people get in. I’ve heard from different industry sources that Value Financial has some very healthy pay scales and I don’t know if that’s true or not, but maybe you could talk about that and how that would integrate with the rest of your business. If that’s any sort of issue or not?

Value Financial has a philosophy of really focusing on the human resource aspect of the business developing talent and they’ve developed in conjunction with that quite a bit. Their pay scales are somewhat higher than the norm. They are higher than the norm and the industry. And we anticipate that the pay scales with the Value Pawn brand won't change. We will most likely run this as a separate division and maintain the Value brand because it’s so well recognized in the markets that they operate – and pretty much keep it isolated or manage separately from the balance of the organization. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay.

Until we can better understand it and understand its implications. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay. I’ll – yes.

Chuck, let me give you the shares. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Great.

I was understating the base. Basically the EZCORP it’s – it would average out to be about $43.9 million excluding the two acquisitions. Including the two acquisitions – and again these are partial years, so this is weighted average number of shares assuming those partial yeas, assuming that 100% of the Value shareholders took EZCORP stock, $17 share price, we would be at about 48.6 million. And assuming that 20% of the Value shareholders took cash, it would bring that down to about $47.8 million. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay. Great. I’ll get back in line. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Alan Brochstein from AB Analytical Services. Please go ahead. Alan Brochstein – AB Analytical Services: First of all, congratulations because I know it’s a tough environment. Not too many companies are giving guidance that’s showing growth, so I am appreciative of that.

Good. Alan Brochstein – AB Analytical Services: I had a question regarding, if one were to break apart your two businesses, (inaudible) earlier asked about the regulatory environment, but for whatever reason you guys decided to exit the lending business and focus strictly on pawn. What will the cost be approximately to do that? If you all given that thought (inaudible) it can be quantified?

Was it Alan. Alan Brochstein – AB Analytical Services: Yes.

We haven’t looked at the cost of doing that, but if you are trying to – what we basically split out the two incomes, and again this is a bit unusual this quarter with Ike, but pawn represented about 78% of operating income versus 22% for the EZMONEY operation, and I think a fairly safe assumption is as you cross (inaudible) that on down, the split’s probably going to be about two-thirds pawn and about one-third payday. And that’s very general. Alan Brochstein – AB Analytical Services: I guess I am also getting at – just in terms of trying to figure out what the closing cost would be. Those are all C type properties. I imagine that it would be very inexpensive to exit those businesses should you ever need to, right?

Generally, I mean we are talking about stores that have a 1000 or 1500 square feet, so the rent typically is going to be $2000 to $3000 a month. The lease term is going to be three to five years. Say you know our average term, I would guess in the portfolio today would be probably less than two years and the other thing to keep in mind is that about 165 of our 477 EZMONEY stores actually adjoin a pawn shop, so there is no incremental rent associated with that. Alan Brochstein – AB Analytical Services: Right. I drive by those all the time, actually, here in Houston.

And we also have clauses in many – in the majority of our leases for change of law that will allow us then to exit the lease responsibility. Alan Brochstein – AB Analytical Services: Okay. Understanding – I mean just – where I am coming from is, it seems like I know a lot of people are afraid of the payday lending and now obviously they are expanding some of the products. And I agree; this is a time where credit is still constrained. It makes no sense at all you guys not to be able to be in this business, you and your competitors, but one never knows – I guess I just want to see what the total cost, if you decided to just be a pawn shop because it seems to me that your stock price pretty much assumes you are just a pawn shop. Perhaps it’s my perspective. And another question. Last quarter, I believe it was, may be the quarter before, you guys were talking about some of the changes in your customers on the payday lending side and in terms of – you hadn’t really changed your credit requirements or your requirements, if things got worse you could. Can you update us as far as any changes you are seeing in your customers in that business?

I think probably the comment on the customer related to the demographics that we were seeing with the installment loan because the installment loan, because of the threshold principle it – over $1500, has a requirement that the consumers personal income, not household income, is well beyond $40,000 a year. And we’ve seen customers apply for the installment loan, actually not just the installment loan, they make over $100,000 a year. And maybe in those demographics it related to the installment loan customer that you are referring to. Secondly, on the underwriting requirements, we have the ability to adjust, modify, the underwriting as it relates to any particular time. So we have done that over the years where in some cases we’ve relaxed the underwriting requirements in order to attempt to increase our market share vis-à-vis our competition, our competitors. And we’ve tried to do that at the opportune times, peak periods of natural demand and the like. And we did it last year and I think it was the third quarter and as I recall the number we had a 52% increase in fees during that period. Our bad debt went up and our net revenues had a substantial increase over the prior year. We can do those types of things. We can also pull I back. As I commented earlier during my remarks, the thing we have attempted to do is focus on that initial default with the customer on that and we’ve done a – our operations group has done an excellent job of getting the focus there and bringing down those initial defaults. But in this economic environment, our challenge is to deal with the customer who does default. We are continuing to focus on that. Alan Brochstein – AB Analytical Services: Okay. My last question – and I appreciate your taking these questions is, now with another quarter behind us, can you comment any on the stimulus checks, was your initial analysis do you stand by that? Are there any updates to how you view that especially since we may go through that again potentially?

I paraphrase; I think the stimulus checks had a net positive benefit in our pawn operation and in our payday loan business. Our bad debt benefited significantly but I believe there was a more significant drag on new loans in payday lending than there was in pawn. Both of them had an adverse impact of the checks in loan demand. Alan Brochstein – AB Analytical Services: Okay. Well thanks a lot guys. Well, keep up the good work.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Liz Pierce from Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead. Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: Thanks, and a nice quarter. Joe, can you just on Mexico are the – the potential acquisitions are there – I mean you surveyed the landscape so to speak. Are there a lot and are these sizable acquisitions? Are they more five to 10, 10 to 20, and what you’ll be willing to share with us about that?

I think there is a lot of interest on individual owners’ parts to have anywhere from two stores to as many as 100 stores to look at the marketplace and see what their business operation maybe valued at. And I think the public announcement that Cash America recently made has stirred a lot of interest in the market in Mexico to shop their pawn operations. There are many different kinds, as you know, having been down there it is – from the jewelry only concept to very heavy general merchandise. Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: Right.

But it’s a very active environment. There aren’t a lot of chains that really are much bigger than 100 or so stores. Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: What do you think optimally – well, before you would put too much pressure on your own infrastructure, like how many could you handle in a year? How many could you digest?

An acquisition? Well, it’s very dependant on the quality of the operators in the business. Strong group of operators would be relatively easy to assimilate because we have global people staff. It’s a tremendous benefit. We have a store operating system that’s in Spanish that when we were able to complete the interfaces with Mister Money Mexico provided significant benefit on the administration of the pawn operation through loan values and the like– Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: And you’ve really – the right operations could almost be as seamless, but (inaudible) seamless, but you can kind of drop it in and go from there?

That’s right. Say that’s about three months I think, approximately three months from October to January to really get Mister Money Mexico integrated. Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: Okay.

And with what we learn from that and provision [ph] we made to our system to be easier in the future. Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: Alright. And then in terms of the product that you are going to be adding some of the EZMONEY stores, any clarification on what kind of a product that would be?

Well, at this point, it’s basically the auto title loan – Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: Okay.

Installment loan. There is one other product that we have in test and we are still learning about it and we’ve consistently had products that we’ve been exploring and tinkering with to see if – if it fits goods, the demand is there, and we are able to manage the bad debt, the application of the loan product and we’ll continue to do that, but at this point it would be installment loan, payday loan and the auto title. Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: Okay, alright. And Dan 35.2% is the tax rate that we can be using for the year?

2009, that would be correct. Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: And then what about 2010?

I would still use the 35% to 35.5%, somewhere in the same range. Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: Somewhere in the same range. So this thing – that’s it from me, unused – if I am not going to say it right, tax credit, Albemarle & Bond kind of go forward or is there like an expiration on this, I wasn’t quite clear.

Yes, it will have essentially about $1 million benefit each year. It will reduce our tax provision by roughly $1 million each year and that assumes that there is no change in Albemarle & Bond’s income, which we certainly hope that continues to grow at the rate it has and I would be – would reduce our tax provision proportionately. Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: And that’s just because of the way you have been reporting it net versus growth?

That’s correct. Elizabeth Pierce – Roth Capital Partners: Okay. I think that’s it. Thanks.

Our next question comes from Ted Helenmeyer [ph] from Lone Star Partners. Please go ahead. Ted Helenmeyer – Lone Star Partners: Hey, guys. Dan, did you give what you expected the percentage of pawn to be after the two acquisitions?

We did but I just – top line is probably going to be around – it’s going to approach 80% Ted Helenmeyer – Lone Star Partners: And will that be similar to the gross profit line or EBITDA line?

Very similar. Ted Helenmeyer – Lone Star Partners: Okay. And then in your ’09 guidance, what are you assuming for growth in payday? I think you said pawn was mid-to-high single digits or lack of growth?

Yes, I don’t think we said it in the comments. I think that for existing stores probably mid-single digit growth.

Without new products.

Without new products. Yes. Still, a lot of moving parts with the EZMONEY stores. We saw the maturation of the store portfolio and the introduction of new products. Ted Helenmeyer – Lone Star Partners: Okay. And you mentioned an assumption of $775 gold price. Is that also the case for – was that for all of 2009?

Except for the December quarter where we already have locked in $867. Ted Helenmeyer – Lone Star Partners: Okay. Alright. And then what are the returns for opening a new either I guess Mexican pawn store versus a U.S. Payday store?

Yes, if you are – I mean we look at it as typically a four wall return on invested capital where you are looking at basically the operating income within the four walls untaxed. And over the total investment including any startup losses that you would experience. It’s just kind of a good benchmark way to look at multi-unit businesses and both should be in that 50% to 60% return on invested capital. At the – yes, excuse me, Joe pointed out, that would be going into year three. So you have a – you are – you have an operating loss the first six to nine months turning profitable in that fourth quarter of operation and then the run rate as you end as you end year two going into year three would be in that 505 to 60% range. Ted Helenmeyer – Lone Star Partners: And have you seen new stores ramp at the same rate as old stores?

We’ve been very pleased with the ramp of the new stores we’ve opened. I commented some time ago about the border stores were meeting the pro forma bottom line. The ramp was some good, some bad, and I commented one was – one store, the first one we opened really didn’t give us the kind of portfolio ramp we wanted. I’d say the interior stores that we’ve opened this last year have just been extraordinary with the ramp of portfolio. They have been able to develop and our operators in Mexico have just done a terrific job of being able to gather forfeited collateral in good balance by categories and the day the stores open, they have a full representation of merchandise on the showroom floor that I think assisted greatly in attracting the customer to come in and understand that this is a place to get a good loan for their merchandise. They’ve been very good. Ted Helenmeyer – Lone Star Partners: And have you seen any impact today on the merchandise side effects from the economy, but your inventory levels were good?

We had – our same-store sales in the quarter was up I think it was 1%, and the same store base is about 5% or 6% in total. We haven’t seen a strong demand of customers dropping down into pawn retail, if that’s what you mean, Ted. Ted Helenmeyer – Lone Star Partners: You have or have not?

Have not. We’ve seen much greater demand for the loan product and this is where typically you have very strong demand for one element, it’s weaker in the other, and as one begins to weaken, the other one tends to strengthen substantially. And they tend to complement each other. Ted Helenmeyer – Lone Star Partners: You haven’t seen your existing customer pawn merchandise buyers drop off?

Drop off, no. No, we are not incurring decreases. Those results were even after the impact of Hurricane Ike in September on quite a few of our pawn shops where we have a high concentration in Houston, as you know. Ted Helenmeyer – Lone Star Partners: Okay. That’s all from me. Great job. Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Jay Rosnehan [ph], WestPark Capital [ph]. Please go ahead. Jay Rosnehan – WestPark Capital: Hi, great quarter guys and wonderful guidance for next year. My questions have been asked and answered. It was on the split of business. Thanks.

Thank you, Jay.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chuck Ruff from Insight Investments. Please go ahead. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Hello again. Can you talk about why with your wonderful balance sheet you would issue shares to make the acquisitions?

Yes, I think it’s primarily to maintain a more conservative capital structure and just to have the credit facility that would be in place for any other opportunities.

These economic times too gives us continued flexibility to able to continue to pursue opportunities to grow our business. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay. So basically you just want to have a really strong balance sheet going forward. Period. That’s the basic approach.

Yes. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay. Do you measure share buybacks against acquisitions or is that not really enter into the equation?

Generally does not. We still believe that the best long term return to the shareholders is to make good quality acquisitions as we have and – like the two that are in the pipeline. And just – as I said, we will maintain a very conservative capital structure. We will use debt, but we’ll try and maintain a very conservative capital structure. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay. And can you talk – Albemarle & Bond has obviously been a good investment for you. You bought it for a lot less than it is worth today. Can you talk at all about what you foresee there? Do you just plan on owning 29% forever or do you ever hope to buy the rest of it or – I am trying to get an idea of longer tem how you view that?

We view it more as – we have a number of different options as we move forward without committing ourselves by maintaining this ownership level. To go beyond this would require in effect a tender offer and we are not prepared at this time to do that. However, the U.K. market I believe – we believe has tremendous potential in this segment of business that we are engaged in and this allows us the opportunity to share in the benefit of that marketplace and still have the potential to expand our portion of that I mean through them or in conjunction with them as we go forward. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay. When you say you’ve got a number of options, can you mention now what you view as the options.

Obviously we have the potential of the option of a making a tender offer for the entire company, participating with them in a joint venture and expansion of potentially a modified business model in the United Kingdom, even using them as a – or working with them as a base of operations to expand beyond the United Kingdom potentially into Eastern Europe and so forth. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay. Thanks.

Or to realize the investment that we’ve made in them in the past. Charles Ruff – Insight Investments: Okay. Thanks again and again congratulations.

Sure. Thank you.

At this time, I show no further questions.

Okay, Kim, I think we are finished then, and just like to thank all the participants for their time and attention and particularly or everyone’s continued interest in and support of EZCORP. Thank you.