EZCORP was founded in 1974 by Courtland L. Logue, Jr. when he opened his first pawn store in Austin, Texas.
Logue tried to change the stereotype of pawnshops and located his in middle-income neighborhoods.
In 1989 Morgan Schiff & Co. invested in the company, running it with Logue as the CEO. Two years later Morgan Schiff had become the majority owner and decided to take the company public.
By 1996 EZCORP operated 245 stores in 11 states, including Texas, Colorado, Indiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida.
In the 1990’s EZCORP launched www.ezpawn.com, an e-commerce site with 400,000 items for sale.
The company’s pawnshops also make pawn loans, which are typically small loans backed up by property, such as jewelry, electronics, musical instruments, sporting goods, or tools. The majority of these loans have 20% monthly interest, or 240% annual interest.
Today EZCORP has 1,342 locations, consisting of 495 U.S. pawn stores, 7 U.S. buy/sell stores and financial stores, 489 U.S. financial service stores, 239 pawn stores in Mexico, 30 buy/sell and financial service stores in Canada, 19 buy/sell stores in Mexico, and 54 financial services branches in Mexico.
EZCORP operates stores under the names EZPawn and EZMoney. The company has 7,500 employees and had $1.01 billion in revenue in 2013.
