Earnings Labs

America's Car-Mart, Inc. (CRMT)

Q2 2014 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 20, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning everyone. Thank you for holding and welcome to America’s Car-Mart’s Second Quarter 2014 Conference Call. The topic of this call will be the earnings and operating results for the company’s fiscal second quarter 2014. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded and will be available for replay for the next 30 days. The dial-in number and access information are included in last night’s press release, which can be found on America’s Car-Mart’s website at www.car-mart.com. As you all know, some of the management’s comments today may include forward-looking statements, which inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from management’s present view. These statements are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company cannot guarantee the accuracy of any forecast or estimate, nor does it undertake any obligation to update such forward-looking statements. For more information regarding forward-looking information, please see Item 1 of Part 1 of the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended April 30, 2013 and its current and quarterly reports furnished to or filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Forms 8-K and 10-Q. Participating on the call this morning are Hank Henderson, the company’s Chief Executive Officer and President; and Jeff Williams, Chief Financial Officer. And now, I’d like to turn the call over to the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Hank Henderson.

Hank Henderson

Management

Well, good morning everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. And we are pleased that we continue to move in the right direction on our top line with an increase of little over 10% for the quarter year-to-year, but we are not satisfied with the overall short-term results we saw for this quarter. Our older stores, I mean, those over 10 years were down from 30.8 sales per month for the same time last year to 30.2 sales this year. On an individual store basis, that’s not a significant change, but considering that half of our stores fall into that category, it does add up. Over time, as our stores mature or they each grow their core base of loyal repeat customers and tend to drift up a bit on average price is having the inventory to move customers up into a nicer vehicle than the previous one is helpful in preserving repeat business. However, if the inventory is weighted too heavily to the higher end, we can miss out on some sales by not having an adequate selection of entry level vehicles. This past month, we have heard more and more from our General Managers that more customers are looking for a lower priced car and we feel we may have missed out an a few sales for lack of adequate selection at that end. So we are in the process of correcting this and do expect to pick up some additional sales going forward. It’s not a radical change to not have any significant impact on average prices we are simply looking to broaden our offering on several of our older stores to pick up some of these sales we feel like we have missed. For as long as we have been in this business, we’ve continually had…

Jeff Williams

Management

Okay, thank you Hank. Total revenues for the second quarter were right at $121 million, up over 10% that’s made up of a sales increase of 9.7% and an increase in interest income of 13.6%. Same-store revenues were up 3.8% with about a third of that coming from our stores in the 5-year to 10-year category and two-thirds of that coming from the stores in that less than 5-year category. Revenues for stores 10 years old and older were flat as higher interest income did offset some lower volumes. Given the challenging competitive environment, we are generally pleased with our top line growth. Our average retail sales price for the quarter was up 2% to 9,710, but down 1.3% sequentially due to our continuing efforts keeping our selling prices down for affordability purposes. As always, we will work hard to supply our customers with the very best mechanically sound cars to meet their basic transportation needs. We will leverage our purchasing strengths to the benefit of our customers and we would welcome flat to slightly decreasing overall sales prices, some of which could relate to the efforts on our older lots that Hank mentioned, which could help with affordability and ultimate customer success. Of course, the supply and demand of cars for our market will dictate where we land on this, but taking this longer term view for customer success has always been what sets Car-Mart apart and we feel like this is the perfect environment to ensure we stick with this core philosophy. The down payment percentage was 6.2% for the quarter, down from 6.4% or around $20 per unit sold. Collections, as a percentage of average finance receivables, was 13.6% compared to 14.5% last year. Our average initial contract term was up to 27.3 months compared to 26.6…

Hank Henderson

Management

Thanks, Jeff. There is no question that the business has been ever changing in various ways in our 30 plus years of business. But one thing that has never changed is our customers need for dependable transportation and financing with the local face-to-face relationship that helps them work through the challenges as they arise. So we are very excited about our future. We have opened five new stores since the beginning of this fiscal year which was May 1 two in Georgia, I mean Rome and Covington. And then also we opened in Grove, Oklahoma, Richmond, Kentucky and Meridian Mississippi bringing us to 129 locations. We presently have four more underway, two in Alabama and then one each in Oklahoma and Tennessee. Before we go on to your questions I would like to comment on the retirement of Eddie High, our COO. Obviously first and foremost the comment I would have is a big thank you to Eddie. He has been with Car-Mart for 30 years and without question played a very major role in the growth of our company throughout his 30 years here. Eddie is a big reason the culture and values of our company had been well preserved. He has passionately held on to them himself and passed them on to many associates along his way. And fortunately for us he will still be around to continue to do so. He has joined our Board of Directors and for this next year he will be working with our training department to ensure that all have an understanding and commitment to carrying forward our company values and culture that have got us to where we are today. That concludes our prepared remarks. We would like to move on to your questions at this time. Operator?

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) At this time, the participants will now answer questions from the callers. I would like to reiterate that my earlier comments regarding forward-looking statements applies both to the participants' prepared remarks and to anything that may come up during this Q&A. (Operator Instructions) Our first question is from John Hecht of Stephens. You may begin.

John Hecht - Stephens

Analyst

Good morning guys. Thank you so much for taking my questions. First question is if I heard you right that the term - relative to last quarter, the terms were slightly shorter, but in the press release you talk about you have to consider longer terms and lower payments to compete effectively. I am just wondering which direction you are thinking about going for the near term, and how do you balance the extended terms versus the kind of credit experience with those?

Jeff Williams

Management

Some of that is seasonal. We – as we get closer to tax time, we are able to have some special payments out there and limit the overall term. So the sequential decrease is somewhat seasonal, but I think with some of the efforts that Hank talked about and offering a little lower dollar car and as focused on the down payments we are pushing hard to keep that term extensions lower. But we realize that we might have to make some adjustments and continue to look at that as an option for better customers in face of competition. So we don’t have an exact answer, but our expectation is that maybe on a quarter-to-quarter basis, we will be faced with some additional term extensions. But we are going to try to keep those to the minimum and maybe if we have some success with these lower priced cars maybe be able to bring that back down some so.

Hank Henderson

Management

I would add to that, the thing where we do have the longer terms we are trying as best can to mostly offer the longer terms to the repeat customers, it’s a retention tool that the general managers have. And as we said as customers graduate up into the nicer or to our higher end that’s presently where we see more of the competition and that’s one of the things that we are seeing from increased availability with the longer term which helps to do the payment down. And so there is more risk for us for the longer term, but there is also substantially less risk with a repeat customer. And so we hope there is offset there and we pretty well are eliminating that to the repeat customer.

John Hecht - Stephens

Analyst

Okay that’s helpful. Thanks. And then second question is do - you discussed some of the pricing pressures and in part those are related to your quest to be the lowest cost retailer. I am wondering on the pricing side or on the supply side the Manheim I know it’s not the same type of composition as the type of car you are buying, but Manheim has been trading lower. Is there any relief on the supply side that you see in the near-term?

Hank Henderson

Management

Yes. We have a good supply and we are in good shape going into our tax time on the inventory. And as Jeff just mentioned about the seasonality of tax time we typically begin to see prices get pushed up this time of year as more people are looking for that same car as we get closer to tax time. So I would anticipate that over the course of next couple of months we will see some pressure on that car pushed up.

Jeff Williams

Management

Overall, with the new car sales levels being up and up, I think we are in great shape on inventory and then the guys in purchasing are doing a super job and we should be in good shape on both the cost and the quality and the mix.

John Hecht - Stephens

Analyst

Okay. And then the GPS, I was just – you guys did mention this last quarter, so it’s nothing new, but Jeff in hearing you, do you expect to push this expense to the consumer, will you bear some of it, if you do will there be any margin impact from the GPS on those cars?

Jeff Williams

Management

No, it’s not going to be anything pushed to the customer there. It’s going to be an internal cost for us. It’s going to be an SG&A item, but we do expect some direct cost reductions to offset that, but the big benefit is going to be just the enhancement of efficiencies as we try to manage 60,000 or 100,000 accounts. We are going to view this as infrastructure investment to enhance efficiencies in the productivity out in the field.

John Hecht - Stephens

Analyst

Okay, that’s very helpful. And my final question, this has been a medium cycle of intense competition, I mean, you guys are in a very good position to deal with it, but evaluating the mom and pop competitors would feel like they are at a competitive disadvantage or maybe to a material degree in this type of cycle. What are you seeing with the mom and pop competitors and are any expressing distress or shutting down?

Hank Henderson

Management

Well, I wouldn’t say we are seeing more shutdowns, but they are definitely - I think you are exactly on the point and we have had some of those same discussions here just in the past few days, yes, they are definitely feeling some of the pressure, I would guess, that their sales are down year-to-year.

John Hecht - Stephens

Analyst

Thanks guys.

Hank Henderson

Management

Alright, thank you John.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Jeremy Frazer of JMP Securities. You may begin.

Jeremy Frazer - JMP Securities

Analyst

Good morning gentlemen. I am on the line for David. And I guess, some of my questions were kind of answered already, but just kind of big picture, how should we think about maybe normalized environment for provisioning expense, where terms are maybe even extended past that 30-month term and the down payments are kind of below 6%?

Jeff Williams

Management

Well, I wish we had exact answer for you. We are certainly aware of the fact that the credit loss provisions on the income statement will be elevated with longer terms. We know we can do better internally on our collections efforts. We think that the GPS product and credit reporting and the other efforts we have going on, but the collections are going to help over time. And then if we get any relief on the macro side from the customer or competitive side on funding, then we hope to get some offset there, but no, our credit losses any time you have term extensions just the nature of – the timing of losses is going to be a little more front end. And then on a cash basis, you are going to have the interest income for the pool that’s going to be stretched out over a longer period of time. So you are going to be taking more credit losses on your income statement upfront, but then recognizing more interest income over a longer period of time. So the provisioning on the income statement is certainly going to be higher as terms expand, but if we have some success with keeping those terms down, we should see some leveling off and hopefully even some improvements with some of these other factors down the road.

Jeremy Frazer - JMP Securities

Analyst

Okay, thank you. And then just as a kind of housekeeping, I just kind of missed it, could you give me the quick breakdown of the number of lots by age?

Jeff Williams

Management

Sure. We at the end of quarter 38 of our lots were from zero to five years old, 26 were from five to 10 and the remaining 65 were 10 years old or older.

Jeremy Frazer - JMP Securities

Analyst

Alright, thank you guys.

Hank Henderson

Management

Thank you.

Jeff Williams

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operational instructions) We have a question from Daniel Furtado of Jefferies. You may begin.

Daniel Furtado - Jefferies

Analyst

Good morning guys. Thanks for taking my question.

Hank Henderson

Management

Hi, good morning

Daniel Furtado - Jefferies

Analyst

Good morning. So I just kind of want to get a bigger picture question and if we think about the current environment, this influx of securitized lenders in the marketplace, could you compare and contrast it to the last time we saw this, which I believe and correct me if I am wrong was kind of like the ‘04, ‘05 and ’06 time periods. Is this substantially similar or do you see differences between this current environment and the last time we saw this type of competitive flex?

Hank Henderson

Management

Yes, I would say it is definitely more significant than it was before. I think some of the deals and offerings we hear are more aggressive than that time period. And actually, it seems to be sustained longer this time than it was before. And again, I would tell you this is not a complete overlap of our business, but more so, on that upper end vehicle that we have. Yes, it’s definitely more aggressive than I think we saw the last time.

Daniel Furtado - Jefferies

Analyst

Okay. Okay, well thank you for that color.

Jeff Williams

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. I will turn the conference back over to Hank Henderson for closing remarks.

Hank Henderson

Management

All right. Well, thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. And as Jeff mentioned earlier, we are getting into our tax time. We have that promotion in place now and we certainly do expect as we get a little better at this each year. I think we are looking forward to some good success with this plan. And so with that, we do anticipate some better results going forward. So thank you all. Have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference. Thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day.