EZCorp. gobbles up stores in Florida

One of the nation's largest pawn shop chains on Wednesday acquired Value Pawn and Jewelry Services, a Maitland chain of 67 pawn shops including 15 in the Tampa bay area.

Austin, Texas,-based EZCorp., the owners of the 343-store EZPawn chain, paid $130-million in cash and stock including assumption of about $35-million in debt for the Florida company on the Inc. magazine list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the country.

The acquired stores will continue operating under the Value Pawn name. John Thedford, who founded the Florida company in 1994, becomes EZPawn chief operating officer nationally as a part of the transition.

The sale is the latest sign of a bigger trend of chains muscling in on a pawn industry once dominated by independent shops. Chains like EZPawn and Cash America now own about a third of the nation's 12,000 pawn shops.

The heavily regulated pawn industry loans money at roughly 20 percent a month (240 percent a year) while holding merchandise as collateral. Borrowers pay off about 75 percent of all loans, abandoning the rest of the goods to be sold by pawnbrokers to recoup their money.

EZCorp. has nine EZPawn shops in the Tampa Bay area, It is also in the check-cashing and payday loan business, with 477 EZMoney stores in other states and Mexico.

In June, the company was ordered to stop selling some of its credit services through 11 EZ Pawn shops in Florida because they violated state usury law. EZCorp. has appealed the ruling.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.