Cash America 2009 Annual Report Download - page 29

1
PART I
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Overview
Cash America International, Inc. (the “Company”) provides specialty financial services to individuals
through its Company-owned and franchised lending locations and check cashing centers and via the internet.
These services include secured non-recourse loans, commonly referred to as pawn loans, short-term
unsecured cash advances, installment loans, credit services, check cashing and related financial services. A
related activity of the pawn lending operations is the disposition of collateral from unredeemed pawn loans
and the liquidation of a smaller volume of merchandise purchased from third-parties or directly from
customers. The Company also arranges loans for customers with independent third-party lenders through a
credit services organization and operates a card services business through which the Company provides
marketing and loan processing services for a third-party bank issued line of credit on certain stored-value
debit cards that the bank issues and purchases a participation interest in certain line of credit receivables
originated by the bank. The Company was incorporated in Texas in 1984 and has been in the business of
owning and operating pawn shops for over 25 years. The Company believes it was the nation’s largest
provider of pawn loans and the largest operator of pawn shops in the world in 2009. As used in this report,
the term “Company” includes Cash America International, Inc. and its subsidiaries, unless the context
otherwise requires.
As of December 31, 2009, the Company had 1,048 total locations offering specialty financial services
to its customers in the United States and Mexico. As of December 31, 2009, the Company also offered
specialty financial services over the internet in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
The Company operates in three segments: pawn lending, cash advance and check cashing.
As of December 31, 2009, the Company’s pawn lending operating segment offered pawn loans
through 676 total pawn lending locations, including 667 Company-owned units and nine unconsolidated
franchised units, consisting of:
• 500 stores that operate in 22 states in the United States under the names “Cash America Pawn” and
“SuperPawn,” and
• 176 stores that operate in 20 jurisdictions in central and southern Mexico under the name “Prenda
Fácil” (referred to as “Prenda Fácil”), of which the Company is a majority owner due to the
December 16, 2008 acquisition (the “Prenda Fácil acquisition”) by the Company of 80% of the
outstanding stock of Creazione Estilo, S.A. de C.V., SOFOM, E.N.R., a Mexican sociedad anónima
de capital variable, sociedad financiera de objeto múltiple, entidad no regulada (“Creazione”).
As of December 31, 2009, the Company’s cash advance operating segment consisted of:
• 246 cash advance storefront locations in six states in the United States operating under the names “Cash
America Payday Advance” and “Cashland;”
• the Company’s internet channel, which offered short-term cash advances over the internet to customers
in 33 states in the United States at http://www.cashnetusa.com, in the United Kingdom at
http://www.quickquid.co.uk, in Australia at http://www.dollarsdirect.com.au and in Canada at
http://www.dollarsdirect.ca; and
• the Company’s card services business, which processed line of credit advances on behalf of a third-party
lender and had a participation interest in line of credit receivables that were processed for the lender by
the Company or other third-parties and that were outstanding in all 50 states and three other U.S.
jurisdictions.