Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q2 Fiscal 2015 Casey's General Stores Earnings Conference Call. My name is Tee, and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today, Mr. Bill Walljasper, Chief Financial Officer. Please proceed.

Good morning and thank you for joining us to discuss Casey's results for quarter ended October 31. I'm Bill Walljasper, Chief Financial Officer; Bob Myers, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer is also here. Before we begin, I'll remind you that certain statements may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. As discussed in the press release and the 2014 Annual Report such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by those statements. Casey disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. We'll take a few minutes to summarize the results of the second quarter and then afterwards, open it for questions about our results. The previously amended revisions to our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2015 and fiscal year 2014 are reflected in the year-to-date results and comparisons to prior periods that will be discussed during the call. As all of you’ve seen diluted earnings per share in the second quarter was up 27% to $1.28, compared to a $1.01 a year ago. Year-to-date diluted earnings per share were $2.56 compared to $2.40 in the same period last year. EBITDA was up over 23% in the quarter compared to a year ago. Results reflect a strong fuel margin environment as well as strong sales performance across all categories. Before we go over each categories to give you more detail what is driving our results, I'll remind everyone that we will release the details of our November same-store sales on Monday, December 15. During the second quarter, we experienced a strong fuel margin environment, resulting in an average…

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Kelly Bania, BMO Capital. Please proceed.

Hi. Good morning, Bill and Bob. Just -- I have questions about the operational initiative. First, I guess on the recent batch of converted 24-hour locations. Just curious if you could comment at all on how those are trending. I think they were done in the first quarter, I guess just how they are trending in the first few months relative to past conversions. And then, I have a couple of follow-ups on pizza delivery.

Yeah. The stores that we convert to 24-hours, the ones you're referring to are the 100 stores that we did back in May. They are tracking right in line with the previously released 24-hour locations. Typically what we see normally in the first year is about 10% to 15% improvement on the bottom line in those stores. That's right on pace for that.

Great. And then on the pizza delivery, you mentioned, I guess, pulling back on some locations and then reducing some of the hours and days. Can you just may be talk about what you were finding wasn't working in some of those stores, and how that changes the way you think about the potential? I think you're planning on doing another 70 or so this year. May be any learnings on why or where that doesn't work?

Certainly, and this is one of the newest initiatives that we have. So as we get more data points on the delivery program, certainly we start to see and track the delivery on hourly basis and identify opportunities for us to, in this case, either discontinue delivery or modify the hours in an effort to reduce operating expenses. Because in those particular hours they just were not generating the appropriate amount of revenue to justify either store delivering or having the hours or days of the weeks being delivered that I mentioned. As far as criteria for the delivery program, we still think that it's a viable initiative as you mentioned, now there's approximately 70 stores will be rolled out this fiscal year, and we will continue to roll this out for several more fiscal years, because we do believe this has a tremendous opportunity in some of our stores, but not all of them. The locations that we see as most prevalent to our stores that are a little bit higher populated stores than our store base in order to take market share from somebody. And so, those are the stores that we'll be targeting going forward.

Great. That’s helpful. And then, on your Analyst Day you talked about the online application for pizza ordering, just curious if that’s rolled out or what the timing and potential of that is if you've tested it in any markets yet.

Yeah. We've been currently testing that for the last about 1.5 months to 2 months, just here in the Ankeny area just to make sure that there are no glitches in the programming. It's going very well. We'll continue to roll that out here in the Des Moines Metro area in the next several months, and then continue to monitor that and roll out accordingly. We're excited about that program.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Karen Short with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

Yes, good morning. It's Shane Higgins on for Karen. Thanks for taking the questions, guys. Just a quick one on the Prepared Foods. I think you alluded to this, Bill, back in -- on your last call, but did you guys end up raising prices again in November? And I think you guys -- and that was the follow-up to what you did in May, correct?

That's correct. Just to clarify, all the price increases within the category, back on May 1 we did take about 2% price increase; and then again, in November 1, we took another price increase of about 1%.

Okay. Have you guys seen any elasticity from then?

No. Actually we have not. When you look at our same-store sales with respect to from May on to November, the November on, you can see that they've been tracking either in the double-digit or high-single-digit. So, at this point, we haven't seen elasticity in those price increases. But that's something we always continue to monitor obviously. And keep in mind, Shane, when we do price increases we still want to make sure that we're competitively priced within our competitive market areas. So those would be in conjunction with that.

Okay. And then so, as that relates to your margins and you guys hitting your 60% target for the year. I know in your opening remarks you discussed cheese, I guess it's down quite a bit. Do you guys feel confident now that you're still on track to hit that 60% margin goal?

We're certainly on track and we're slightly below that on a year-to-date basis. But as I alluded to you in the opening comments, cheese has come down significantly subsequent to the end of the second quarter. And I gave the comparisons in the opening remarks, and I'll just reiterate those. As we head into the third quarter the comparison last year was $2.17 per pound, and in the fourth quarter we're comparing it to $2.58 per pound. And just as a reminder, about every $0.10 per pound in the cost of cheese is about 35 basis points to the total Prepared Food margin. So certainly, if cheese costs remained where they're at or even go lower, I think we're in good shape with respect to that goal.

Okay. Great. Thanks for that. And then just switching gears, how are your gasoline margins down in the newer stage. So I think you said previously that that's been pretty competitive, or as you've opened in some of these newer states you've seen a pretty aggressive response. Are you still kind of seeing that activity? Are gasoline margins a bit lower in those markets, or are they starting to ease up a little bit?

Well, the newer markets and I think the ones we referred into are like Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee. Those states are still lower than our other states. But we have seen recently uptick in the gas margin. Now were that just a temporary fluctuation due to the lower retail prices and the wholesale cost dropping kind of yet to be seen. But definitely, we have seen an uptick in gas margins in those states as well as throughout our chain obviously by what we reported here in the second quarter.

Okay. Great. And just one last one on just about the M&A environment. Obviously, margins are up pretty strongly across the whole industry, are you guys seeing -- are sellers asking for more, or you guys seen more expensive or sellers just asking more to reflect the recent increase in margins, or is the environment pretty much -- been pretty much the same for the past several months.

Yeah. We haven't seen some of our potential acquisitions raising their expectations because of the gas margin environment. Certainly that is something that can happen. We have seen that historically in the past, but today we haven't seen that but we'll certainly keep our eye on that.

All right. Great, guys. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Shane.

Your next question comes from the line of Irene Nattel with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Thanks and good morning, gentlemen. Couple of questions, if I may. Just looking at the grocery category in the quarter, Bill, I think you mentioned that you did a double-digit growth in several key categories, but on a consolidated basis up 6.6%. So, just kind of wondering if you can provide a little bit more color on what seems to be working really well in, and maybe what's lagging a little bit.

In the grocery and general merchandise category, you're right. With respect to total sales within the grocery and general merchandize very sub-category, I guess, or sub-area of this category was up either double-digits or very high-single-digit from a sales perspective that includes cigarettes. We were up double-digits on a total sales basis. Most of that's unit growth and that really drives the category, Irene, that represents about 35% of that particular category. And so, what's working well, I mean, if you look at cigarettes, some of the premium brand cigarettes over the last quarter have really started to increase. And so that would be your Marlboros and your Camels of the world. That's the premium category. So those have escalated. Also, we have seen a substantial increase in chewing tobacco, as well as snacks, salty snack areas. So those things are doing very well. The beverage category also is another one we've called that out in the press release, that's up double-digit on a total sales and double-digit on a gross profit. And so, we believe the new cooler set going to '14 -- cooler doors from '09 -- cooler doors are certainly paying dividends and that's certainly reflected in those numbers.

That's great. Yeah, that's very helpful, which brings me to my next question. As gas prices have rolled off, are you starting to see the average transaction value inside the store rising a little bit? The customers are walking in with X dollars in their jeans and now they have a little bit more leftover.

We have seen a slight uptick. I wouldn't say necessarily it’s a trend at this point yet, because it is -- it's little bit too early to tell. But I think you're right on point, Irene, discretionary income in our customers has increased before of lower retail prices. And even subsequent to the second quarter, we have seen retail prices drop significantly. I mean right now in our Ankeny area we're at $2 -- we're below $2.40 per gallon. And we had definitely have seen an increase in gallons per transaction with respect to the lower retail fuel prices. And again, the premium cigarettes are really -- as I mentioned, are really moving. And that could be a function of having more dollars in our customers' pockets, so they are trading to those types of brands.

That's fascinating. Thank you. And one final question, if I may. You did call out the $5 million to $6 million incremental expense related to ObamaCare. Do you think that you've got other offer or the initiatives that can help offset that headwind?

Yes, we do. I mean, we're obviously looking at -- always operating expenses, but one, I did mention in the call and that would be the pizza delivery program. One of the benefits that or the offsets to discontinuing some delivery stores and modifying is certainly a reduction in operating expenses. We'll keep an eye on that as to the degree of magnitude, but that's something and that's more than likely in future conference call to report on and give an idea. The others side of the operating expense, and I should point out, would be on the health insurance. We did have a little bit of an unusual quarter. We had about 12 to 15 high dollar health insurance claims roll through the second quarter to the tune of about an incremental $100 -- $1.5 million. We usually see about half of that in a given year. And so, it just happen to fall in that second quarter, a lot of it have to fall in this -- in the month of October.

That’s very helpful. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Chuck Cerankosky with Northcoast Research. Please proceed.

Good morning, everyone.

Hi Chuck.

Wanted to follow-up. Bill, if you could reiterate, what's your current average gas prices across the company? And did you say below $2 in the Ankeny area?

Yeah. I think we're in $2 -- are the retail price. Yeah, we're about $2.35, $2.39 right in that area, in the Ankeny area. That wouldn't be necessarily the company, but just to give you a point of perspective.

Okay. And the rest of the company might be a little bit higher?

Yeah. I mean I can tell you that. I mentioned in the call, the average retail price in the second quarter is $3.19. We have gone down from that subsequently in the quarter.

Okay. And back to the cheese cost. If we're thinking about this, it's certainly on paper a nice decrease in your cost. Have you been through something like this before? And what do you anticipate from competitors? Do you start seeing more promotional activity out there? Are pizza prices outright dropping?

No. The answer, I don't think, no. The answer would be no. We have seen similar drops over the course of my 25 years, which you don’t see significant drops in retail pricing from promotional activity. Most of the pizza chains are already doing promotional activity on a continued basis. So, I don’t anticipate price decreases as related -- retail price decreases related to that drop.

Okay.

Your next question comes from the line of Ben Brownlow with Raymond James. Please proceed.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question.

Hi Ben. How are you doing?

Just to follow-up on one last question, I know Dominos has been running a pretty aggressive online promotion. Have you not seen any impact on the sales line from that promotion?

I can’t speak specifically whether that promotional activity had an impact on us because we may not be a strong overlap with Dominos. We obviously overlap in some of our communities. I'll point for us, our same-store sales continue to be very strong. Unit movements continue to be very strong in the pizza category. And they are very successful with their online ordering promotional activity. And so we’re hopeful that we can continue to push our online ordering test forward and as we’re excited coming up in the next several years with that.

And then just last housekeeping question on the credit card fees, if you have that in front of you, it seems like that would be nice OpEx tailwind going forward with virtual prices?

Yeah, that’s a good point, Ben. Typically what we do see with lower retail fuel prices, we do typically see a lower utilization credit cards. Now, credit card utilization in the quarter was up about 15%. That’s probably a function more of the fuel saver program driving more gallons, and so we have seen an uptick in utilization. So, credit card fees in totality were $27.8 million in the quarter and so we did see -- which were up about -- a little over $3 million respective to the comparison a year ago, but generally speaking we're right on point.

Great. Thank you.

Thanks.

The next question comes from the line of Ben Bienvenu with Stephens Inc. Please proceed.

Yes thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Hey Ben. How are you?

Good. Just wanted to get an update on the distribution center as it relates to timing, if anything has changed there? Are you still on pace? And then also, do you have a feel for -- once that facility opens, how many stores will be transferred from the existing distribution center? What sort of remaining capacity might be left for either new stores or acquisitions in the market?

Yeah, Ben. Good question. And it is on pace. It continues to be on pace from an opening in early fiscal -- early calendar year 2016; so that is on pace. When that goes online, it’s anticipated about 40% of our store base will be transferred to that facility and so, we’ll have plenty capacity from that point forward in both facilities to grow our business.

Okay, great. You mentioned the pizza test -- online pizza test, I’d love to hear for what you’re learning there? How that’s gone and where you see the future of that going potentially?

Well, it’s very preliminary. We’ve only been testing it in a very, very small group here over the last month, the two months. And when I say a small group, it is specifically two individuals in the corporate office testing the system within the City of Ankeny. And just to make sure that it does flow and we don’t have any problems from either end, so, we will -- I really can’t tell you how quickly we’re going to roll that out. We’re going to be deliberately rolling that out. Certainly we want to make sure that when it does go live, we have thought through all the aspects of that and had any bugs worked out of the program. So, I would say maybe that’s a question for the next conference call. We’ll update you as to where the progress is on the testing roll out.

Fair enough. Thanks. And then lastly just housekeeping, I may have missed it in the comments, but you mentioned that you’re going to do 80 new pizza initiative upgrades next year for pizza delivery, 25 remodels. I didn’t hear the number for 24 hours, are you guys still working through conversions on 24 hours? Is that sort of tapered off?

For this year, for this fiscal year -- those numbers are for this fiscal year. Our plan is kind of for this fiscal year were to do 100, 24-hour conversions. We actually did all of those in the month of May. Typically, we float those out throughout the year, but we made the decision to do it at that point. The 25, major remodels will be for this fiscal year. So, we have about another 20, scheduled to open, from where we’re at. And then 80 would be the total number of pizza delivery programs rolled out in this fiscal year. So we have about another 70, that's continue to roll out.

Okay. Great, thanks for clarifier.

You bet. Thanks Ben.

Your next question comes from the line of Brent Rystrom with Feltl. Please proceed.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning Brent.

Just quick couple of questions. Could you remind us, Bill, in normal economic environments, not on the recession years, that what impact lower gas prices have on shopping in store, in frequency?

Well, typically several things happened with lower retail prices generally speaking. One, you would typically see an increase in gallons per transaction, which would be reflected in your same-store gallon movement, and we are seeing that currently. And generally speaking, I think Ben Brownlow had a question earlier about credit card utilization. Generally speaking, credit card utilization goes down with lower retail prices. In this case we actually had seen an uptick in that and it's a function of more increase, the gallon movement as well as higher retail prices on cigarettes and quite frankly other products. Now, the other side-effect is that, that we haven’t talked about is, same-store customer count. Retail prices, as you know and everybody on the call knows, has gone down in the last several months and continues to go down. We typically see an uptick in same-store traffic and over the last several months we've seen that. In fact the month of October, we saw little over 4% increase in same-store customer traffic. That's the height it's been in about last year. And so people are coming out and coming to our stores travelling a little bit more. I think that’s always a benefit for us.

Okay. And quick follow-up to that, historically, lower gas prices, retail prices, have led to tighter gasoline margins. Is that a headwind you see in the current quarter, or do the wins in some of the other activities kind of offset that?

No, I don’t necessarily equate that to headwind. It’s always hard for me and anybody else to predict future gas margins. But, I can tell you that currently the RIN environment is roughly about $0.55 per RIN. Last year, as I mentioned earlier, in the third quarter, the average RIN value was $0.28, it was $0.47 in the fourth quarter. So, assuming that that RIN value stays consistent at this point, there is a potential tailwind from the RIN impact in both quarters. Also, it's truly a function of the retail price in relation to the wholesale cost on the margin. And we have seen a relatively gradual wholesale cost decline over the last two to three months and typically speaking Brent, that’s a positive environment for our gas margin and that’s what we’re seeing currently.

And then, last quick question. Anecdotally it seems like weather so far to the start of this winter has been better than last year, at least in our area down to your area Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, the Dakota, Nebraska, there are so far a lot less snow, it’s easier to get around that sort of thing. Do you view weather this quarter so far as a tailwind?

It’s hard to say. We’re not -- we’re only half way through the quarter. I will say, November -- I know you guys had a pretty significant snow storms there. But in November, the weather comparison to a year ago is a little bit more inclement. And so in a short period of time, i.e. a month that, that can have a little bit of a swing factor, but so far in December, it’s been a good comparison from a weather perspective. And you’re right on point, precipitation, in this case snow, is certainly working to our favor across our market area.

Thanks guys.

You bet.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Grambling with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Hey, good morning. Just a quick follow up to, I think it was Irene’s question. You had said that you were potentially going to be offsetting some of the cost through scaling back maybe pizza delivery. And I just want to make sure I heard that correct, and is that just more of a labor management initiative or are you actually have a couple of areas where you plan to cut the offer entirely?

No it's a labor management, typically. And as I mentioned, we’re going to be discontinuing pizza delivery in a number of stores and shortening the window of delivery and days of the week of delivery. And certainly from a wage perspective, that's really your biggest impact. There will be probably a smaller impact on utilities obviously in that area, but that’s going to be the biggest impact there. And then also, as I did mention in Irene’s question about somewhat of an anomaly with health insurance and those high dollar claims coming through in the quarter.

Right. Okay. And then, I guess changing gears little bit, as you look at some of the new markets, can you just talk about some of the availability of locations that are available I guess as you move into some of those new markets that you discussed?

Yes as far as -- looking at the units that we’re putting up this fiscal year and looking ahead, we think there is certainly strong opportunities in some of the newer states that we have that we have penetrated over the last several years. Roughly about half of the locations are going to be coming into those newer states. And then -- so certainly we believe there's opportunities to geographically grow our business. But at the same time, Stephen, I think there's opportunities to do a lot of in-field work as well, both acquisition and new store construction.

And so on those markets, is it primarily going to be organic or are there more -- is it more likely going to be an acquisition type strategy?

In the near term, it’s going to be more organic. But we are looking at -- and continue to look at acquisition opportunities in those areas especially as we have a second distribution center coming online in little over a year.

Great. Thank you so much. Best of luck.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Chuck Cerankosky with Northcoast Research. Please proceed.

Thanks guys. Sorry about my questions getting -- questions ending inadvertently the last time I was on. But I did have one more, Bill. That 19% increase in enrollment, is there any way to translate that into dollars of operating expense going forward per quarter or fiscal year basis?

Well, we believe the impact - the 19% increase predominantly was related to the fact that we were required to have an open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act and as a result of that, we anticipate about $5 million to $6 million incremental impact over the next -- basically it will be calendar year, 2015.

All right. Thank you. And good quarter by the way.

Thank you very much.

Next question comes from the line of Anthony Lebiedzinski with Sidoti. Please proceed.

Good morning. I was actually cut for couple of minutes actually from the call. So, these questions may have been answered already, but just wanted to check in -- have you actually locked in any cheese prices or any other commodity items?

Currently we’re not locked into a forward buy. That is something that we -- as you know, even following this for a while. We continue to look at. We’re looking stronger and stronger at that opportunity right now. And so we're looking to evaluate that as we look at the cheese price environment. But currently right now, we’re not locking on any cheese or any other commodity.

Got it. Okay. And also, as far your fuel gallon comps, can you just break out like the same-store gallons with the Ivy related stores versus the non-Ivy impacted stores?

Sure. For the quarter, the Ivy -- the fuel saver stores were up about 2.5% on the same-store gallon movement and the non-fuel saver stores were up about 1.9%.

Okay. Got it. Okay. And as far as the store base, how many store closings do you expect in fiscal '15?

We really don’t have an estimated closing. We evaluate that I think throughout the fiscal year. We do close stores. We try to make that transparent. So, there was no goal I would say or an expectation on closing. So, I really don’t have an answer specifically in that regard.

Okay. All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

There are no further questions in queue at this time, Bill.

Well, thank you everybody for joining us. And just again as a reminder, we will release same-store sales on Monday, December 15, for the month of November. Again, thanks for joining us and have a great week.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. That concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.