Jason Berg
Analyst · Zacks. Please go ahead
Thanks, Sebastien. I am speaking to you from Phoenix, Arizona this morning. I have a few minutes of prepared remarks that I want to go over and then we will go ahead and open it up for questions-and-answers. Yesterday we reported fourth quarter earnings of $3.76 a share, as compared to $6.24 a share for the same period in fiscal 2020. I did want to remind you though that in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 that was when we recorded the additional that tax benefit of $146 million, which was $7.45 per share when we recognize the effects of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security or CARES Act. So I believe that another useful supplemental measurement is to look at our earnings excluding this item. This results in adjusted losses for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 of $1.21 per share. For the full year of fiscal 2021, we reported net earnings of $31.15 a share. For fiscal 2020, the unadjusted number was $22.55. However, if you exclude the aforementioned CARES Act tax benefit, our earnings per share for the full fiscal year in 2020 were $15.10. We have a reconciliation of this in our press release as well. Let me start with a few comments on our equipment rental revenue. We experienced an increase of 33% or approximately $172 million for the fourth quarter versus the same period last year and we finished the full year up 15% or $391 million. For the fourth quarter and the full year, we saw increases across most our categories. One way and in town revenue and transactions both increased in double digits. Average miles per transaction increase and our one way rates remains strong. Our corporate account business or what many might refer to as last mile experienced a strong increase in revenue for the quarter and for the year. Compared to the same period last year we increased the number of retail locations and independent dealers. As you may recall, it was during the first quarter of fiscal 2021 that we began to experience the effects of COVID and we had a 13% decrease in equipment rental revenues. We are now beginning to run into those months on a comparative basis. We saw no such weakness in April and May of this current year, and in fact, revenue trends continued on a very strong fashion. Capital expenditures on new rental equipment were $870 million for fiscal 2021. That’s down from a $1,374 million in fiscal 2020. Our original plan for fiscal 2021 was to reduce capital spending on the fleet. Between that plan COVID delays and now the microchip situation facing our manufacturers, we are working to normalize our truck rotation schedule. Capital expenditures for the rental fleet and again this projection is dependent upon manufacturer availability are expected to increase to approximately $1.2 billion in fiscal 2022. That’s before netting any sales proceeds against them. So speaking of sales proceeds, sales proceeds from retired rental equipment decreased by about $150 million this last year to a total of $527 million. Sales volume for fiscal 2021 was below last year’s levels. However, sales price per unit improved. Should the availability of new equipment allow for us to complete our planned purchases this coming year, I would expect to see our volume of sales and related proceeds increased in fiscal 2022. The fourth quarter was another good quarter for filling the self-storage units. Looking at our occupied unit count at the end of March we had an increase of 69,000 occupied units compared to the same time last year. To put this into context, during last year’s fourth quarter call I reported to you that we had increased occupied rooms just over 49,000 rooms in the previous 12 months. We have increased the pace of filling rooms by about 40% or 20,000 more rooms than we filled last year. This pace of filling rooms has continued to accelerate into April and May. Storage revenues were up $21 million, which is a 19% improvement and for the full year -- that was for the quarter, for the full year revenue increased just under $60 million or 14%. For the third quarter in a row, our all-in blended occupancy rate experienced an increase. The fourth quarter rate went from 66% last year to 74% this year. We have added just over 36,000 new rooms into the portfolio during fiscal 2021. For fiscal 2021 we invested $505 million in new real estate acquisitions and in development of self-storage and U-Box warehouse space. That was down from fiscal 2020 when we spent $750 million. Our goal going into fiscal 2022 is to increase the pace of investments. We currently have approximately 6.7 million new square feet in development. We still have about 50 properties that are not yet in the active development phase that at a bare minimum would add about 2.5 million square feet and we are now starting to see our acquisition pipeline beginning to accelerate a bit. We have approximately $150 million worth of acquisitions currently in escrow. Retail products sales increased 40% for the quarter. All three of our major product lines moving supplies, hitches and towing accessories, and propane saw revenue and volume increases during the quarter. These lines are continuing to improve into April and May. In the moving and storage segment, while operating expenses increased for the quarter. We continued to see an improvement in our operating margin for both the quarter and for the full year. If you look at either our GAAP operating margin of total cost total revenue or EBITDA margin we posted improvements from the fourth quarter and for the full year. Operating expenses in the quarter increased $78 million, which is higher than usual. However, the quarter included some costs that are better evaluated within the context of the entire fiscal year. For fiscal 2021, we saw -- for the full year we saw the smallest increase in operating costs since 2016 and if you look back across the last 10 years it was the second smallest increase in operating costs. Our three largest operating expense categories, personnel, maintenance and repair and liability costs did see quarterly increases, but they remained below the rate of revenue increase. I alluded to on our third quarter call that we were going to make a contribution to our employee stock ownership plan. We did that in the fourth quarter is about a $19 million charge that was recognized in the quarter. I also highlighted in the press release that fleet maintenance has increased as the need for preventative checks has gone up in relation to additional rental miles in the fleet and as we have had -- as we haven’t been able to rotate in as many new trucks, there is some portion of the $6 million quarterly decrease in the fleet depreciation that is now being reflected in increased maintenance costs. Operating earnings at the moving and storage segment increased by $138 million, bringing our earnings for the quarter to $117 million. We continue to improve cash and liquidity position at the end of March, cash and availability from existing loan facilities at the moving and storage segment totaled a $1,115 million. With that, I would like to hand the call back to our operator, Tom, to begin the question-and-answer portion of the call. Thank you.