Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the First Quarter 2009 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, President and CEO. Mr. Rotunda, you may begin.

Thank you, Jamie. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining us today. With me on the call is Dan Tonissen, our Chief Financial Officer. We had a little delay in getting the release out, PR Newswire has informed us that it has now hit and it should be available and we have distributed our copies here. I am going to begin with a high level overview of the quarter's performance, make a few comments on the economy and how it relates to our business. And then a brief commentary on each of our business segments. Dan will follow and he will provide more detail on our financial statements. Overall, our first quarter was a good quarter for the company. You will see when we get into the metrics of our business, that each of our segments is sound. I am also pleased to point out that this is the 26th consecutive quarter of year-on-year earnings improvements. We grew our net income to $14.8 million in the quarter, an improvement of $2.3 million or 18% over the same period a year ago. On a diluted earnings per share basis, we grew to $0.33 from last year's $0.29. As you will see in the press release, included in the quarter is an unusual pretax charge of approximately $1.1 million, which had a negative impact of $0.02 in earnings per share. Excluding this charge, the company earned $0.35 per share, an increase of 21% to last year. In the quarter, we also completed two significant acquisitions. The first on November was the asset purchase of 11 pawnshops in the Las Vegas-Henderson area for $34.4 million of stock and cash. The second and the largest was the acquisition of Value Pawn with 67 stores located primarily in Florida for $77.4 million of…

Thanks, Joe. Now, I'll give a little bit more detail on our financials. And I'll start with the consolidated statement of operation, which is fourth page in our earnings announcement. Starting on line A, you see the total revenues for the quarter increased 14.5% to $128.6 million. Same-store revenues in the quarter were up 10%. Merchandise sales line two increased $4.3 million or 10.6% to $44.8 million. Same-store merchandise sales were up 6% for the quarter. With margins down a 1 percentage point from the prior year period, merchandise gross profit line two, minus line 10 increased $1.4 million or 8.5% to $17.6 million. Scrap gross profit line three, less line 11 increased $800,000 to just over $6.5 million. Higher gold values, net of higher cost and more volume generated the increase in scrap gross profit. During the quarter, we scraped about 1.6 million grams of gold jewelry, an increase of roughly 29% from the prior year quarter. Proceeds per gram increased 3% to $12.07. Our cost per gram increased 11% to $8.02. During the quarter, we realized approximately a $150,000 in proceeds on the sale of loose diamonds compared to $300,000 in the prior year quarter. These proceeds are included in the jewelry scrapping sales line three. We continue our forward contracting for our gold scrapping and currently have about 75% of our estimated March quarter quantities locked at around $840 per ounce. In our guidance for the balance of the year, we continue to assume a gold price of $775 per ounce. For the quarter, we turned our inventory 3.3 times up a tenth of a turn from the prior year quarter. Same-store inventory levels per ending store increased to $143,000 at the end of December, compared to a $131,000 a year ago. The actual ending inventory per…

Thanks, Dan. I'll conclude my prepared remarks with an update to our earnings guidance for 2009. In quarter two, we expect earnings per share of $0.36, compared to $0.30 last year. For the full year, we are adjusting our earnings guidance as a result primarily of the 1998 option impact to $1.52 per share for the year. This guidance represents diluted earnings per share growth of 20% in quarter two, and 26% for the year. Both the quarter and the year incorporate the benefit of the two acquisitions. Now back to Dan and pick up a couple issues.

Okay. During this conference call, we’ve used a non-GAAP financial measure, when referring to earnings per share excluding the unusual charge related to the 1998 stock option grant. For clarity we would refer listeners and readers to the non-GAAP to GAAP reconciliation on the second page of our earnings announcement and our 8-K filed today with the Securities & Exchange Commission. These can be accessed on the EZCORP website. 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 the 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 in 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 & Exchange Commission. Jamie, we’ll now open the conference call to questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from John Rowan from Sidoti & Company. Please go ahead. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Good afternoon.

Hi John. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Joe, just – just to be clear on the $1.52 guidance includes the $0.02 impact from the bonus accrual right?

That is correct John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. Dan, I guess the rate on your debt on, with the new credit agreement, it changes with your leverage, can you just give me a rough estimate as to what you're paying right now on that debt?

The first two quarters, it's going to be a 250 over LIBOR and that was something that we negotiated with the extensions. So, that will be for the March and June quarters. And then it will be repriced at probably a 175 over LIBOR. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. Do you know yet, if you're going to face any or not face, but have any expenses related to the deficiency agreement in the merger with the merger of Value Financial?

I would suspect we will, but we do not know that amount at this point. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Do you know, when you're going to start getting that information back?

I would expect over the next several weeks for any shareholders that have sold, but that period is open for 125 days after the acquisition. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. And just one last question, you did say that your inventory per store was up on a year-over-year basis, but I assume that also includes the Nevada stores, which should have a dramatically higher inventory level per store, can you kind of give me an idea of what the inventory per store looks like excluding the Nevada acquisitions?

Well, I actually gave that to you, it's…. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: I am sorry.

On a same-store basis, it's a 143,000 at the end of December of '08, and in the prior year period it was a 131, and then I think that's very much in line with the – the loan growth that we've generated. John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: Okay. Thank you.

We would also point out John, our turnover was up the last year, 3.4 in the pawn segment U.S. pawn segment versus 3.2 a year ago.

Our next question comes from David Burtzlaff from Stephens, Inc. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon guys. Just have a couple of questions real quick. Weighted really to merchandise sales I mean, how did sales trends react throughout the quarter?

We had a modest increase through October and November regarding to that last week 10 days before Christmas we had some very intense sales activity in our stores.

Okay.

Good growth.

They had some [stimulus] checks earlier back I think it was in October timeframe. But I didn't see anything extraordinary through the holiday season in Houston with sales.

John Rowan - Sidoti & Company: Okay. All right thank you very much.

Sure.

(Operator Instructions). Our next question comes from Chuck Ruff from Insight Investments. Please go ahead. Chuck Ruff – Insight Investments: Good afternoon guys and good quarter.

Thank you. Chuck Ruff – Insight Investments: I know a lot of industries have been talking with the Obama, people since well before even the election, I’m wondering if your industry lobby or whoever has been speaking with them, and if you have gotten any feedback at all regarding the likelihood of some sort of federal action on payday loan?

Well our CFSA, which is industry for payday lending has been very active in lobbying efforts at a federal level, not just this year, but over the years and has developed I think a very strong presence with many members of congress although there certainly have been some shift in the membership recently. But as to Obama specifically I rate his stimulus plan is out and there is absolutely to my knowledge no reference at all, the payday loans rate caps or anything of the like. Now at a federal level there have been bills filed virtually every year, they have something to do with payday lending but they gained no momentum to this point in time, and I have no knowledge of anything that is different this year. But I’d go back to my earlier statement, and I believe there are two primary reasons that it would be inappropriate to expect any type of federal legislation that has anything to do with rates and terms with payday lending. The first one is it’s just totally uncharted ground for the federal government. And there are implications with all these other products that really have the responsibility at the state level, and the other is this is a time where access to credit is very difficult and I can’t imagine that any line of credit would be taken away. And I can refer you to any number of academic studies that have been done as well as several studies by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that point out the economic benefit on payday lending and the adverse impact if it’s not available.

I am in complete agreement with you, but as we’ve all seen strangest things that happened in the past few months. If somehow the payday loan industry does get regulated out of existence, how much of that administrative expense that can incorporate overhead line, would you be able to adjust? I’m trying to get some sort of down side, I’m trying to think about what’s worst case down side and I’m just wondering if that number is adjustable at all?

I think what I do Chuck is look at the segment reporting and the split that I went through at the several of the operating income lines it’s about a 70, 30 split, and I think if you push that on down to the consolidated operating income line, the assumption that you might think is it would follow with similar split.

Okay great. And you have mentioned the potential liability or payments on the Value Financial deal. Is there a maximum there?

Yes, there is a - there is a maximum deficiency reserve as well as a premium fund.

Yeah and then given the number of shares that were issued it would work out to be just over a $16 million would be the.

The maximum.

The maximum, yeah.

Okay, great. And how many shares are you assuming in your fiscal ’09 guidance?

It would be the 4.1 million shares that were issued to the Value shareholders, and the 1.1 million that were issued in the Las Vegas acquisition. And obviously, as I try to explain, that’s going to be a weighted average.

Yep

You won’t see the full impact of that over the full 12 months in our 2009 fiscal year.

Yeah.

But each quarter you will see that ratchet up in the year-to-date number.

Right.

In the quarterly numbers you see the full impact of those additional shares.

Okay thanks.

(Operator Instructions). Our next question comes from Ted Hillenmeyer from North Star Partners. Please go ahead Ted Hillenmeyer – North Star Partners: Hey guys.

Hi Ted. Ted Hillenmeyer – North Star Partners: Do you actually have the fully diluted share count at the end of the year?

We do not, because there will be some adjustments to it over the balance of the year. But if you take, if you take the, 44 points, take the diluted shares for the quarter, and that includes half the quarter of 1.1. Roughly 500,000 to 600,000, on top of that would be the full quarter’s impact in the March quarter of the Value acquisition. And then on top of that would be an additional 4.1 million shares. Now, it won't be that precise because of our fluctuations in the fully diluted shares depending on what happens to the stock price and options and other things. Does that give you rough we would look at it? Ted Hillenmeyer – North Star Partners: Okay. And then when you guys point out the 70:30 split, will that be what the split will be throughout the year, I mean as seasonality plays out?

That is, that would be for the – for the December quarter and there is obviously any shift, I suspect more to 78 to 80 split.

That is without any impact at all of Value Financial.

Yeah.

Of 67 stores, it's only for half a quarter of the larger 11 stores in Nevada. Ted, our approach will be much closer to 80:20 than it is 70:30. Ted Hillenmeyer – North Star Partners: Thanks.

(Operator Instructions). We have a follow-up question from Chuck Ruff from Insight Investments. Please go ahead.

Can you talk a little bit more about the auto title business and how large do you expect that to get, you talked about I think, you said 100 stores by the end of the year, can you give us some idea of what sort of revenues we should expect to see on that going forward I am trying to get bigger than a breadbox feel for how large a business you think that can be?

We haven’t sized it at all. At least what I rated publicly I think disclosed any of the sizing to everybody, but I will give an idea of what the loans look like. We model with an average loan of about $600 to $700 and our fee rate is 25% and our bad debt, we anticipate bad debt on this product to probably be approximately half of the bad debt that we incur on payday loans, because this is a collateralized loan and our loan values are going to be such that we are going to be at 50% of back look. You can model in or ramp up to get to 100 stores by month end with an assumption of volume in the neighborhood of one or two loans per week as the business develops, and that could bring into a portfolio on a fee.

Can I ask a couple of quick additional ones here?

Sure.

The tax rate for the quarter, should we assume that's a reasonable estimate for the year?

At this point yes.

Okay. And can you tell us what sort of net interest income or expense you are assuming in your fiscal '09 guidance?

We haven’t disclosed that, but it's going to be very modest and the reason it will be is, as you can see on our December ending balance sheet, we actually had about 40 million in cash. And so, we have got interest income, and actually it will depend on a number of times, I mean, conceivably after the March quarter, we would have sufficient cash to retire the term loan should we choose to do that.

Okay, thanks. That is all I had.

And we have a follow-up question from Ted Hillenmeyer from North Star Partners. Please go ahead.

Are acquisitions still in the table or do you need to absorb the two that you've made for some period of time?

We’re still quite interested in any acquisitions to make good economic sense in pawn either domestically or in Mexico, so we have the capacity with our infrastructure to continue to pursue that.

Okay. And then where are you planning on opening, I think you said 35 to 40 payday stores?

We’re currently in 11 states in payday lending. And there are a couple of them that we are not interested in expanding at all, so the concentration is going to be in the states that we are comfortable with the financial model in a regulatory environment and I really believe that in the payday lending it’s going to be much like pawn was, if you go back as pawn was being developed and it was in the same regulatory stage of its business life cycle, there were states that adopted regulations and maintained them that were very positive for the industry and other ones that were not very attractive at all, where you really wouldn't want to do the pawn business and over a period of time, it stabilized and if you look at virtually every change in pawn regulations that has occurred in the last eight years, as I have been associated with this business they have all been favorable to the industry. States like Colorado have gone from 10% to 20% in fee base, Florida has gone from 20 to 25%, Texas that is a – a tiered rate has adjusted the tiers frequently that are reflecting more positive impact on the industry. And I think the same thing is going to happen with payday lending and it's going to shake out to whether some states that are very attractive for payday lending and other states that are not going to be able to do payday lending if they want to. And I think it's that we are still early, we are still in that portion of the life cycle of the industry. So, the states that we are doing business in and the states that we are looking to enhance and fill in and put in this larger footprint are the states that we believe will be conducive to payday lending in these types of products as we move forward.

Does the 35 to 40 include any stores in Mexico or potentially any in Canada?

No, not in that number. And as you know, as I said today, we opened six of those stores in the first quarter and we also then closed six stores in other states as we did that. But we still have an high level of interest in Canada, and we are watching from the sidelines as they finalize the rates in terms by individual province and although the first province Manitoba was at 17%, was not particularly attractive as it’s now moved onto another province and we look forward to British Colombia. We believe that we are seeing higher rates and we believe that rates are going to be much more attractive as these become finalized.

Okay. Can you just give us?

We have to grow in Canada, but they are not in those numbers.

Okay. And can you just give us an update on Texas, I’m guessing there is nothing happening, much activity last month?

The legislature just convened about I guess 10 days ago and the speaker of the house was elected, pro-business legislator. I don’t believe committee assignments have been yet finalized, but we feel good about the very pro-business nature of the legislator in Texas. But there is no new news, there is one Senator who ever year files a bill or bills about the industry, but to my knowledge none of these bills have ever come through committee.

And just lastly, do you know when the Q will be up?

I am sorry.

Do you know when the 10-Q will be up?

It should be around the middle of February.

Okay. Great. Thanks guys.

We have a follow-up question from John Rowan from Sidoti & Company. Please go ahead. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Hi. Just two quick follow-up questions, Dan, you said that you could potentially pay-off all the term debt by the end of the March quarter, did I get that right?

It could be that if we chose to, I suspect I mean the March quarter has very strong operating cash flow. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. Actually, there is no prepayment penalty on either of the two loans that you have right now?

Yep. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. And then just one last question, the one Senator in Texas who like you said every year submits something on the industry, can you just remind me is it generally, it's the challenge to the CSO model, is it a challenge to payday lending or pawn or both?

My experience over the last two sessions, which is four years as I recall it, has all been CSO. John Rowan – Sidoti & Company: Okay. Okay. Thank you.

And we show no further questions.

Okay, Jamie. Thank you very much and appreciate everyone's time and interest today on the call. Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen this concludes the first quarter 2009 earnings conference. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.