EZCORP, Inc. ($EZPW)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the EZCORP 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Lachie Given. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for the 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. We'll briefly discuss our corporate strategy and the financial results for fiscal year 2025. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call contains certain forward-looking statements regarding the company's expected operating and financial performance for future periods. These statements are based on the company's current expectations. Actual results for future periods may differ materially from those expressed due to a number of risks or [indiscernible] that are discussed in our annual, quarterly and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Unless otherwise identified, results are presented on an adjusted [indiscernible] to remove the effects of currency fluctuations and other discrete items. I'm happy to report that our voting stockholder has reelected our incumbent directors to serve another 1-year term. We continue to be a global leader in pawn broking and pre-owned and recycled retail. We now operate over [ 1,500 ] stores in U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean, having added over 220 stores since the beginning of October 2025. Our model expands access to financial services through neighborhood retail locations and promotes the circular economy by recycling pre-owned merchandise and jewelry. The fundamentals of our pawn products continue to resonate powerfully with customers who need immediate access to cash. Our loans are nonrecourse, meaning customers have no obligation to repay. They [indiscernible] walk away and forfeit their collateral with no further consequences. These small short-term transactions serve millions of our customers who are underserved by traditional financial institutions that need immediate cash solutions delivered in a highly respectful and efficient way. Now looking back at our exceptional fiscal year 2025 results. We delivered PLO of $303.9 million, which grew 11% or 9% on a same-store basis. Inventory increased 28% to $245.2 million due to increases in PLO, layaways and purchases. Merchandise sales of $720.6 million increased 9% with same-store sales up 7%. Merchandise margin remained steady at 35%. PSC of $483.5 million grew 11%, primarily driven by same-store PLO growth. The team's ongoing commitment to operational excellence continues to support exceptional profitability. Adjusted EBITDA grew 26% to $191.2 million while margins expanded 170 basis points to 14.7%. Fiscal 2025 delivered record financial performance, improved our scale, continued our relentless focus on operational discipline by focusing on our people and our customers and enhanced our balance sheet with the largest financing in our history. As discussed in our first quarter 2026 release, we had a very strong start to the new fiscal year. We continue to grow the company through exceptional operating performance, the consistent rollout of de novo stores in Latin America and the disciplined execution of exciting acquisitions across many of the countries in which we operate, all enabled by a high-performing team and a very robust, highly liquid balance sheet. A sincere thank you to all of our 8,500 plus team members. Your dedication to serving our customers with passion and respect continues to drive our exceptional financial and operating results. We are well positioned for the future, [indiscernible] highly resilient, exciting growth platform to capitalize on organic and inorganic opportunities to continue to drive superior returns for our shareholders. With that, we'll open the call to questions. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] And I'm showing no questions at this time. And I would like to hand the conference back over to Lachie Given for his closing remarks. [Technical Difficulty]

Sounds like Lachie had some connection difficulties. Just want to thank everyone for joining the call. Really appreciate all your support. Have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.