Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the EZCORP fiscal 2009 third 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, Monica. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today. With me is our Chief Financial Officer, Dan Tonissen. I am going to begin with an overview of the quarter’s performance, quantify the contribution of our recent acquisitions and include some commentary on each business segment. Dan will follow and provide detail on our consolidated results. We will conclude with an update on the final quarter of the year before providing an opportunity for questions. Quarter three was a good quarter for EZCORP. With a 16% improvement in diluted earnings per share over last year, it represents our 28 consecutive quarter of year-on-year earnings improvement. We grew our net income by 33% to $14.4 million. It is noteworthy that this is on top of an exceptional 60% growth in earnings during the same quarter last year when our customers had the benefit stimulus checks. On a diluted earnings per share basis, we grew to $0.29 from last year’s $0.25. This 16% increase in earnings per share is on top of last year’s 56% increase. Our results this year benefited from the successful integration of two recent acquisitions, the 11 store Pawn Plus brand in the Las Vegas metro area completed November and the 67 store Value Pawn brand which closed on New Year’s eve. I believe these results clearly demonstrate the value of our strategy to build earning assets including the pursuit of quality pawn acquisitions. These 78 acquired stores were immediately accretive by $0.02 in the March quarter and have continued to gain momentum as they have been assimilated into EZCORP. In the current quarter, they contributed approximately $0.04 of earnings per share. We are quite pleased with these results and we are looking forward to continued success with these stores. Now, let us take a…

Thanks, Joe. Now, I will give you a little more detail focusing on our consolidated results starting with the consolidated statement of operations for the quarter which you will find on Page 3. Keep in mind that I am reviewing our consolidated results while Joe mainly discussed our segment results. Consequently, some of the segment metrics he discussed maybe different in similar metrics for our consolidated results. Starting on line 1, you see that our total revenues for the quarter increased 36.7% to $147.8 million. Total revenues include revenues from the Value Pawn and Pawn Plus stores of $35.1 million. Same store revenues for the quarter were up approximately 2% overall with our US Pawn operation up 4%, Empeno Facil up 1% and our EZMONEY operations down 1%. On a constant currency basis, Empeno Facil has 29% same store revenue growth. Merchandise sales on line 2 increased 41.2% to $50.4 million. Same store merchandise sales were down 2%. After a 4 percentage point margin decrease from the prior year period, merchandise gross profit, line 2 minus line 10, increased 29% to $19.4 million. Scrap gross profit, which you see as line 3 less line 11 increased 53% to approximately $11 million. During the quarter, we scrapped about $2.3 million grams of gold jewelry compared to $1.3 million grams last year. Compared to the prior year quarter, proceeds per gram decreased 1% to $13.38, while our cost per gram increased 6% to $8.73. Scrap proceeds include approximately $600,000 in liquidated diamonds in both the current quarter and last year’s quarter. We continue to forward contract our goal scrapping and we currently have approximately 70% of our estimated September quarter quantities locked at $938 per ounce. In our guidance, we have assumed the gold price of $920 per ounce for the uncovered…

Thank you, Dan. Before I address the guidance for the balance of the year, I would like to take a minute to provide a few summary remarks. All in all, even in the difficult current economic environment, we feel these results continue to validate the business strategy we have outlined in the past. Our domestic pawn operations are exciting. The benefits of three acquisitions during the past two years have added substantially to earnings performance. Each of these three was the largest acquisition that EZCORP ever made in its history at that point in time. We will continue as we move forward to seek good quality pawn acquisitions as part of our strategic platform. Our US pawn operations had historically demonstrated solid organic growth and we expect this to continue as we move forward. Jewelry slowed down a bit in the current economy but we know what we have to do and we take an appropriate action to stimulate this product line in both loans and in sales. Next, I would like to emphasize that EZMONEY is still alive and well. We are pursuing two strategic tracts. Number one, the addition of new loan products; this not only brings in more new customers and more business, it also diversifies beyond just payday loans. And number two is Canadian entry, with an under served market and a well defined regulatory environment, this offers us an opportunity to become a major Canadian payday loan provider in a relatively short period of time. Further south, Empeno Facil was a huge growth opportunity in and out of itself. We are just starting to pick up speed, have made some adjustment in rates, developed an alternative concept that provide us flexibility to move faster and pursued the best of both jewelry and general merchandise pawn. The financials have been there and we now need to accelerate our store builds. Finally, as to the Albemarle & Bond, I would reiterate that they have done a very nice job over the years. The marketplace has responded well to their concept but they still have, I believe, significant upside potential. With all that being said, I will now wrap up with our guidance for the fourth quarter. It remains unchanged from our pre-announcement several weeks ago at $0.41 to $0.43 per share compared to $0.37 last year. This will bring our full year guidance to a $1.40 to a $1.42 compared to a $1.21 last year, approximately 16% to 17% over last year. That concludes our prepared remarks and I will turn you back now to Dan to cover the Safe Harbor then we will open the call up for the questions.

This conference call and earnings announcement contains certain forward-looking statements regarding EZCORP’s expected operating and financial performance for future periods, including but not limited to new store expansion, anticipated benefits of acquisitions, and expected future earnings. These statements are based on our current expectations. Actual results for future periods may materially differ from these expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements due to a number of uncertainties and other factors, including change of market conditions in the overall economy in the industry, consumer demand for the Company’s services and merchandise, actions of third parties who offer services and products in the Company’s locations, and changes on the regulatory environment. For discussion of this and other factors affecting the Company’s business and prospects, see the Company’s annual, quarterly and other reports filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Monica, we will now open the conference call to questions.

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of David Burtzlaff - Stephens, Inc.

Few questions, in relation to your original expectations and in your original guidance for the third quarter, can you breakout where the shortfalls were on the three revenue launch for your revised guidance?

Yes, primarily in the signature loan fees, the pawn service charges and merchandise sales.

You do not have like; I mean what contributed more to that?

The largest would be the fees on the two loan products.

Okay.

And David, the issue was the ramp up of our portfolios. When we come up with the March season, the income tax, the refund season, the season when the customers are really flushed with cash, the rate of increase in our portfolios in the quarter, we expect it to be sharper because of the impact of the stimulus checks last year that we felt slower down somewhat during that period. But this year, we anticipated a sharper ramp up at a more historic level than last year’s and it did not come in that strong.

Okay, And then the merchandise margins were seen a little weak, is that mainly due to the value?

On the merchandise margin?

Yes, the gross margin.

It is about two point’s difference in cost of goods there that affects it. But the other factor was just on a same store basis, if you look at EZPAWN, we were down about three points in margin than last year. Last year was a higher margin than normal, we were 42% during this quarter a year ago in the EZPAWN and I think the stimulus checks at that point helped us because sales were very strong during the quarter and they seem to come a little bit easier, allowed us to or not have to negotiate at the point of sale to the same degree that we do this year where the market is much more difficult.

Okay.

But even at 39%, it is within about a point of our traditional margin level, which is right up 40%.

Okay. Did loan balances pick up any relative to your expectations after you preannounced it all? I mean did you see any pick up late in June?

Nothing that we would really be material.

The ordinary typically picks up.

It is simply moved forward.

Okay. And then the last question, on the two test stores in Mexico, is that mainly because you do not do a big jewelry business in those stores and since the predominant model down there is jewelry only?

That is correct. In the United States, in our pawnshops, our full line pawnshops, we typically have over 60% of our portfolio in June and in Mexico, it is much less represented in that portfolio in the full line GM stores. And as you know, throughout Mexico the standalone jewelry stores are the most dominant pawn model that is available to consumer. So, basically what we are doing is the same thing we did with Payday Lending when we put them to an adjoined pawnshop and that has given them their own fund position and their own entrants and the ability for the customer to go in and out very quickly.

Your next question comes from line of John Rowan - Sidoti & Company. John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: A quick question, Dan, you are right. Do you have $41.2 million of non-operating cash on your balance sheet?

That is correct, $41.2. John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: Okay. I am just curious. Why are you guys holding so much cash? It is obviously more than debt that you have. I mean are you comfortable that your evolving credit is available at this point?

We are. The outstanding debt that we have, the $37.5 million is a term debt. John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: Okay.

We could retire our debt but it just leads to additional dry pattern. John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: Okay. If I am not mistaken, I heard that question before. There is no kind of pre-payment penalty if you prepay that term debt, right?

Of course not. John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: Okay. And then just to go over the store openings, did you say 20 pawns in Mexico just in the September quarter?

That is approximately 20, yes. We expect to do, yes. John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: Okay. Now, is there anything else for you for the fourth quarter or is it just 20 of the current balance to get to where you should be at the end of the year?

Are you referring to Mexico specifically? John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: No, the entire pawn footprint.

Yes. That is it for pawn. We have one additional store that we will open in EZMONEY. That is because it is a lease that we are obligated to for some period of time or just a point that the property is available now. We do hope that we are able to get a store to open in Canada but much of that is going to be dependent on how quickly the regulatory environment is finalized and allows that to happen. But if they do not fall into this fiscal year, which ends in September they will be shortly thereafter. John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: Now, you see in Canada, are you doing any kind of pawn store in Canada or just a payday store?

No, just payday. John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: Any thought of doing anything on the internet in Canada?

Not to this point, no. They have been tossed but no actions or plans.

Your next question comes from the line of Chuck Raff - Insight Investments.

Can you talk about your view of how your US pawn business did versus the competition you feel like you fell short a little bit or what is your view?

We have not really had an adequate time to thoroughly review it. I would point out that on a same store basis, our operating earnings in US pawn without acquisitions improved over last year.

When you talk about increase gold lending guideline, does that mean you are just willing to lend a higher percentage of the estimated value or what exactly does that mean?

It means that we have raised our loan values on gold. That has been done basically as the result of several factors where the spot market is and has been and where we believe it is moving and the locks that we made. It relates also to an increase in some purchasing of gold this year, last year as a result of the concentrated effort that allows us to acquire some portion of that product at a lower cost because typically as we buy it from the consumer we buy it at a lower value than we lend on it. And as we look at where we were and have been and what we are able to sell for, we believe that there is a little bit of room there to allow us to increase these loan values.

Okay. Can you give us…?

There is one other factor and it is very important and that is the redemption rate that we currently have. It indicates that at the levels that we are loaning today, the customer elects to continue to redeem or extend those loans at a higher rate than they have in the past, which also gives us confidence in raising those loan values.

Okay. Can you give us an order of magnitude there when you talk about raising the loan values? You are talking about 10% or some idea of how big of a move that is.

Let us say it would be net single digit improvement. It should plan through the different current compensations.

Okay. And in the payday loan business, are the internet operators taking share from the brick and mortar stores in that industry?

I do not know. If you look at our same store growth, you have to take into account I think, many of the economic factors that exist and the lost of jobs which is a basic requirement to get a payday loan is difficult to separate from many type of competitive element and you almost have to do it by state and I would think anytime there is an additional option for the customer, there is some illusion of your ability to grow but I cannot quantify or can I even tell that is a significant impact.

Okay. In payday loan, some people believe that at least the Texas market has been saturated. Do you have a view on that?

I believe there has been additional competition that has come in to Texas. I believe there is still opportunity in Texas for us to open stores if we chose to continue to expand in the US beyond where we are today in our market that we have not penetrated in Texas.

Okay. I have got more some questions but I will give someone else a chance. I will get back in line.

(Operators Instructions) Your next question comes from the line Elizabeth Pierce - Roth Capital Partners LLC.

I wonder if we could circle back to the new prototype or new concept you were talking about in Mexico because I thought these stores had jewelry in them already. I was a little bit confused.

They do have jewelry in them today but if you reflect on it most of the stores if you go through the general merchandise showroom floor to the very back and in the back you would typically find one to two in most stores showcases of jewelry and the penetration of jewelry in those stores is very low. The customer places great value however on a general merchandise as well. So, the general merchandise volume where I think we were quite pleased with but there is an opportunity there. We believe a significant opportunity. We believe to substantially grow our scale of jewelry loans.

Well, that is going to make in at a boutique kind of front center when they first locked in?

Yes as I pointed out also in those stores we are not selling jewelry. We are only loaning on it.

Okay. I got it, alright. And then, have you guys in other term, what is the lead in terms of your store openings in Mexico for next year? Any kind of sense you can give on guidance on what we might think about modeling?

No. Not at this point. On our next conference call will be talking about the store builds for Canada and for Mexico and some other things for our new year. One of the things we found in Mexico is it takes so much longer lead time to be able to bring the leases to fruition and we did not have sufficient scale or number of leases in our pipeline which is extreme, more important in Mexico than anywhere and this year we have quite a few sites that we have already…, the real state committees already approved and leases are being developed on and some of which have been signed for next year. So, we have quite a few more in that pipeline.

Okay. But that would be the real thing to focus on that your pipeline is a lot fuller than it was at this point last year?

That is yes.

Okay. And then in terms of the installment product, so if I understand what you said correctly, you got new software that will enable you to roll this out. What is state, sorry if you do not mind talk about, what state maybe how can tell us how you determine those states?

Well, I would rather not disclose the states now, after we roll them out, I would, because in each of those states we need to be compliant with the individual state regulations and the software that we have developed and it took quite a period of time to get it done for Texas works well in Texas. As we go into these other four, five states, that software had to be modified to allow us to be compliant with the various financial regulations in those states and that has been the delay in getting that done and there are some real upside in these other states with the installment loan. I think even more or so than the State of Texas, not talk about that also as we talk about our next year.

Could this be something that can go in every state or there is some states have a barrier to this, that you would…?

Yes. The financial regulations in some states are such that we have no interest in going in. Of the 11 states that we have our payday lending in today, there are five of them that we have identified, six in total that we have identified that we feel we can do installment loans profitably with an adequate return.

How are the stores in Houston it has not been quite a year yet, I mean how are they coming back into close to where they were? Are they 50%?

They are beyond 50% but collectively the group of stores has not grown to the same rate above where it had been as we would have expected. That is in payday lending. In pawn, much of that has come back now, although we still, at the beginning of the quarter we still had two pawnshops that were still closed. They have not reopened and during the quarter we reopened one of them. One of them is still closed from where we were a year ago in September.

But now, that is down to one store that is unopened?

One pawnshop.

Okay. And then, curious on, you talked about, I mean obviously you gave us your comments on gold for the fourth quarter. Any thoughts about what you are seeing for fiscal 2010 and would you think of changing any of your strategy or forward contracting strategies?

Not currently. When we announced our earnings for the fourth quarter, we will give you our thoughts on our guidance at that point.

Okay. Maybe you guys can get some airtime on the pawn reality stores, like you said going out in Vegas.

Yes. The Christmas in July event.

(Operators Instructions) You have a follow up question from the line of Chuck Raff - Insight Investments.

I think there was a proposal in Wisconsin on payday loan restructuring the rate. Can you talk about that a little bit and maybe what the status is?

Okay. In Wisconsin, there were two state representatives that I believe have been circulating the bill, talking about the bill with a 36% rate cap. That rate cap would in effect be a prohibition rate for payday lending in the state. That has not been introduced. There has just been I think a discussion, at a discussion level. There are two other representatives I understand who have a different bill. This basically just a best practices bill, has no rate cap or anything of that nature. Those of the two bills I believe they are circulating were being discussed in Wisconsin. They are on recess now I believe until this fall, September, and there is a state industry association that is very strong. Our line is the Consumer Choice I believe that is part of the Consumer Choice Coalition. It is part of their name. They are, I believe, addressing these bills at this point. That is as far as I know about.

Thanks. Can you talk about the Financial Product Safety Commission that is being proposed in Washington DC? What your opinion is about whether that is going to happen and what kind of impact that would have?

It is almost impossible to predict what is happening in the political arena, I think. An awful lot of controversy around this proposal, the primary function of this, as I understand, is to ensure adequate disclosures and prevent unfair and deceptive type of practices and it goes on with certain levels. One of them is that they cannot do and that is specifically excluded is the ability to establish any type of usury limits. As far as its potential, I am not sure. I think it was inactive today, there is one paper came out against this. It is a Treasury Department Agency, I believe, but everything I have seen on it just been consumed with controversy from different aspects of the government and I have no idea what is going on. By the way, this is not directed at payday lending. This is directed at all credit products and payday lending would be included with that, sure. But the banks, I believe have rallied against this as well as many other consumer financial service industry associations.

Okay. Both the payday loan and the auto title loan seem to be targeted by some politicians and consumer advocates. I guess the question is, why expand in an area that is in some peoples’ target?

Well, first of all, when you talk expansion in Canada, Canada is a fully regulated environment. This is going through from the federal government down from province. The provinces are established regulations. They have been really thoughtful. They took a very pragmatic approach. They studied this and they have basically defined regulations. They are very conducive to doing business in Canada. I would say this is very, very low risk. So, put it back aside, if you are only talking the new products, installment loans and auto title in the United States, it will stop store expansion in the United States. We did that probably six months ago. Much of the controversy in discussion that you hear about payday lending, as it is defined, does not affect installment loans because they are beyond the 92-day definition of payday lending and auto title loans are, in most in state that were doing the product except for Texas which is CSO, are well defined by the state regulations for that product in the states that we are doing that product. So, we are operating under state regulations. I think auto title lending is going through this regulatory period of its lifecycle, some years ago as payday lending is doing it today and it is basically being fairly well stabilized. The regulations today provide quite a bit of consumer friendly requirements in holding period, notice period and the like with auto title. But we feel it is a much more regulatory stable product than payday lending. Even in payday lending I would point out to you that there has been in the past considerable talk about the doomsday scenario payday lending and there are several bills that have gotten a lot of attention on a national basis and certainly once the Durbin bill…

I understood. With Gutierrez as you meant to say a $15 cap not a 15% cap, correct?

It is $15 per hundred. That is right, 15% only for the period.

Yes, okay. Can you talk about what you see is the upside in Canada, how big an opportunity is Canada? You are obviously just going to start there or so kind of get a better idea of what you see ahead?

We believe and we talk about numbers at the next call as to our potential there but there are two primary players that have about 400 locations each in Canada. There is a third one that has roughly 100 stores from there and it is down to a very fragmented group of payday lenders in Canada. We believe that the customer has a high degree of need and demand for the payday loan product as we have studied the market and we believe they have a much greater tendency to repay the loan. The economics were very good as far as numbers of stores I would think that they have probably put easily have twice the stores that they have today. One of the things you need to look is the concentration of population and the concentration of those stores and I think that identifies some additional opportunity for store growth.

Okay. The last thing I want to ask you about is you obviously have a whole lot of things on your plate. You are going to be entering Canada. You are growing very rapidly in Mexico, you just made two acquisitions, and we have got a couple of newer products in installment loans and in title loans. How will you know if you are going to do too much? What are the things you are going to be looking for that will indicate to you that perhaps there are too many irons in the fire?

I think the most important aspect here is what we have done with the organization and we have been much able in our organization over the last several years. If you look at the function ahead of development, we have an individual who came on Board about a year ago who has a tremendous experience heading Blockbuster and enough to 500 stores a year. We brought in a general counsel who was the general counsel with Dell. We have brought in and actually moved through the organization, a very experienced payday lender and put him in charge of our stores and moved to the head of operations for payday lending. We took an individual who ran our payday lending operation and put them in charge of all of our pawn operations in the Americas. He is responsible now for the United States and for Mexico and as we did the Value Pawn acquisition, we picked up significant strength and the management talent there and we have an individual in the organization, despite capable and confident of the pawn and who knows the pawn business well makes a great contribution and can even do more. So, we have got an organization and I have not gone through them all. There is more. But we have an organization we believe it has a capacity to be able to move our Company forward and do the things we talk about. I think that is far we have been. We have got a pretty good track record of doing the things that we said we were going to do.

I agree with you and those are all reasons why you expect to be able to continue to do that. But I guess what I am asking you is, are there some indicators that you are looking for that will cause you to say we need to pullback here or there because we cannot handle these many challenges?

Well, we have a series of business reviews that we do ourselves. We do each of the segments. In fact we actually go down a level beneath the segments as we look at the performances. We have functional reviews corporately. We have objectives established for the year for each of these types of elements that we have consistent reviews of. We have individuals who are assigned responsibility for each of them. We have frequent reviews and meetings as an executive committee to review our progress and we attempt to stay on top of the business and the key metrics of the business on a very, very consistent basis to say at least monthly. We have these reviews and we have actually functional reviews every two weeks.

Okay.

When you say identify the metrics, each of these elements has its own series of metrics.

(Operator's instruction) Your next question comes from the line of Ted Hillenmeyer - Northstar Partners.

Just following up on last caller's question, do you feel you are in the position to make acquisitions now or the other guy assimilated enough that you feel like you have the bandwidth to do them and if so, in what areas would you be looking at? Is it just pawn or is the Payday in Canada as well?

First of all, the two acquisitions, our two most recent acquisitions we have taken are the stores in the Las Vegas metropolitan area and various stores have been completely rebranded and in those cases, we expanded the showroom of these stores and a couple cases, we expanded the capacity. We have an experienced group of four model managers that are now responsible for the 15 stores that we have in Nevada and it is just a matter now of building on the base business that we have and Value Pawn there has been one change in the regional director of ops and outside, a very experienced person took that role. Outside of that, we have the same management team managing the 66 domestic stores from Value Pawn and we are quite pleased with their capacity, their ability to run the business and the head of their operations prior to the acquisition is still the head of operations. Subsequent to the acquisition, he is doing a fine job with the business. So these businesses are stable now and it is just a matter of generating organic growth in both of them. So, I believe we have the capacity to continue to seek out additional acquisitions to contact and we are interested in pawn domestically. We are interested in at least exploring to see if there is anything that make sense in Mexico and in Canada if we were able to get a small base of operations to use to build on, we would be interested in that as well and that is where our focus in acquisitions will be at least for the near term. It is for the near term.

And are there any earn outs with the past acquisitions made you already paid the one payment for the Value Pawn?

Yes, that is actually, over now there is, we have no other obligation. We do have a consulting agreement with the former proprietor of the Pawn Plus locations and he is working with us in that marketplace. That is the only continuing obligation.

And how are those two markets doing? Are you able to break out how same store sales? It is really a lot of numbers and I actually see that you provided the same store sales.

No, we did not go to that granular with the businesses. We suffice it to say the contribution we would get through sales to mine sales and their accretion I think was right at $6.1 million in operating contribution in the quarter and accretion is about $0.04 combined.

Do you know or were the same stores roughly in line with the rest of the Company or above, below?

The performance; metrics are a little bit different actually between them, between sales and PLO compared to EZPAWN but collectively, the overall performance is pretty close. There is a difference in the Las Vegas acquisition because there is a substantial change in the model, in the disposition of work for the collateral to what they have done before which was quite heavily leveraged on eBay and Jobbers or wholesalers.

Can you just give what you have hedged for gold for the rest of the year or however long you have done actually?

It is 70% of the September quantities and that is at 938. We are assuming where the other 30%, 920.

And anything hedged down in December quarter?

Nothing.

And the 10-Q would be out when?

It should be around the second week of August.

We have no further questions in queue. Back to you, Mr. Rotunda.

Thank you, Monica and thank you all very much for your time, attention and continued support. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.