Blue Tower Asset Management – Relative Weakness in small-caps
Smaller companies had a rougher start to the year than the overall market. The Russell 2000, an index of smaller companies that (as of the most recent reconstitution) have market capitalizations between $3.9 billion and $133 million, had a return of 2.47% in Q1 relative to 6.07% for the S&P 500. If I were to speculate on the origin of the relative weakness of small cap stocks, I believe it is the result of the tremendous post-election rally that small cap stocks had after the election. This post-election bump in small caps was largely due to the belief that US corporate tax reform would be forthcoming (Trump campaigned on lowering the corporate tax rate to 15%). Small companies in the US pay a higher effective tax rate than large caps stocks, with the average for the Russell 2000 and the S&P500 being 30.6% and 25.8% respectively1. As hopes for a rapid tax reform process dim, Russell 2000 stocks have pulled back. Due to the Blue Tower Global Value strategy historically being invested mostly in US small cap stocks, the Russell 2000 has been the most correlated of the major indices to the strategy.EZCORP
EZCORP (EZPW) was the largest detractor to our performance in Q1 2017 with a performance impact of -4.5%. EZCORP has gone through significant changes since we first invested. Late last year, they sold Grupo Finmart, their Mexican government employee payday lending service. The company recently had their annual shareholder meeting in Austin, TX where the company’s leadership discussed the growth in pawn loans outstanding and other aspects of the business. Over the past year, the company has grown loans in the US faster than either of their two major competitors. They are also undergoing a major hiring push and switching their workforce towards being fulltime only and phasing out many part time roles. They explained that they believe that fulltime employees will give the company less turnover which will allow them to gain more experience and create a better customer experience. The creation of a new point of sale system for EZPW is a major initiative for the company. EZPW is developing the new system in-house with a software development team in Austin and has already invested $3 million into the project. This system will use the individual history of each borrower to determine the relative likelihood that the borrower will repay their pawn loan. For individuals who are more likely to pay back the loan, EZPW can give a larger loan and therefore boost the balance upon which they are collecting interest. For those who are less likely to pay back their loans, EZPW can give a smaller loan and thereby lower the cost of their merchandise and boost their gross margin. The point of sale software will provide store staff with a minimum and maximum loan amount for each item used as collateral allowing them to still make adjustments based on their judgement. If well implemented, such a system could give it a significant advantage over other pawn chains. The company is also doing a major refurbishment of their stores due to significant deferred maintenance. For example, the company mentioned during the annual meeting that one store had pot holes in its parking lot. This reinvestment should improve the experience for customers and borrowers as well as increase the morale of employees.
Charlie Munger once said in response to a question about the power of incentives: ‘I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther.’ The incentive structure of any company’s management is important towards understanding their behavior, and this is certainly true for EZCORP.
It’s important to note that several of the senior executives at the company left far larger corporations to work at EZCORP. For example, Stuart Grimshaw, the Executive Chairman, was previously the CEO of the Bank of Queensland, an Australian bank with a market capitalization of $3.5 Billion US Dollars. For them to leave larger companies, they must have seen an opportunity to make more money off of their EZPW equity.
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