Richard Shane (Jefferies & Co.): What is your outlook by geography?
Jeff Weiss: Canada has had a booming economy particularly in the Western part of Canada because of the commodity, minerals, oil, gas and it is hard to see that that boom will sustain itself over the next indefinite period of time. We have yet to see a discernable differential in our Canadian business as a consequence of any economic slowing.
In the UK, you still have a very strong market although there has been a similar recorded dislocation in UK as housing prices have stopped increasing versus the report of decline in US housing prices, but you still have a very significant influx of people into the labor force particularly in the service sector as Don mentioned in the Olympics.
And in Canada, UK, and the US, fewer than 23% of our customers are homeowners, so they really are not afflicted by the sub prime mortgage blues. So the UK economy is more or less steady state although again, London which has enormous preponderance of the population in the UK and we are very strong and seeing a very strong surge in new potential customers whereas these people flock to the jobs created by the Olympics.
Richard Shane (Jefferies & Co.): Do you know on a household basis what your customer’s average tax refund is?
Jeff Weiss: We cash tax refund checks somewhere in the $1800.00 to $2100.00 range in the US.
Don Grayhardt: In Canada, the numbers are about half that. as well.
Ravi Chopra (Samalin): Last quarter, you talked about being optimistic about maintaining your operating level margins at 40% over the medium term. When might we start seeing the 40% run rate?
Randy Undwerwood: We basically are at 39% as we ended this quarter and on a blended rate basis, that is somewhere there in the high 30’s. It is probably about right as we look to the future.
We are in the process of transitioning the US business and the US business has additional cost that we are putting on as we revitalize that and in fact, some of the older stores up to standards that will allow them to grow in the future if we put money back in to that system, and that is going to take a little while.
In the Canadian business, we backed off just a little bit and had more or less in our minds, it is self-imposed a quiet period given all the regulatory activity.
Liz Pierce (Roth Capital Partners LLC): Any comment on the internet side of the business in the UK or in California?
Jeff Weiss: We regard the US internet business as kind of ancillary to the retail business. We have cautiously entered that business and continue to be extremely cautious.
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