Amerco (UHAL -0.01%) reported its fiscal first-quarter 2018 earnings after the market closed on Wednesday. The parent company of the do-it-yourself moving leader and growing self-storage player U-Haul, which also has two insurance company subsidiaries, posted a 3.8% year-over-year increase in revenue, while earnings per share declined 14.2%.
Shares of Amerco closed down 7.9% on Thursday.
Amerco earnings: The raw numbers
|
Metric |
Fiscal Q1 2018 |
Fiscal Q1 2017 |
Year-Over-Year Change |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Revenue |
$957.9 million |
$923.2 million |
3.8% |
|
Operating income |
$229.0 million |
$259.6 million |
(11.8%) |
|
Net income |
$126.2 million |
$147.2 million |
(14.3%) |
|
GAAP earnings per share (EPS) |
$6.44 |
$7.51 |
(14.2%) |
Data source: Amerco. GAAP = generally accepted accounting principles.
While year-over-year revenue grew, a rise in operating expenses resulted in operating income declining, which flowed through to the bottom line. Depreciation expense, net of gains and losses on equipment disposals, increased $31.3 million due to increased costs of acquisitions and lower relative vehicle sales values compared to the same period last year.
The company has been dealing with a lower resale market for vehicles for some time.
Image source: Getty Images.
What happened with Amerco in the quarter?
- Revenue in the U-Haul segment, which accounted for 92.1% of total revenue, increased 4.3% from the year-ago period to $882.5 million.
- Revenue in the insurance segment (comprised of one property-casualty and one life-insurance company) declined 2.4% to $76.8 million. (Revenue from the two segments adds up to slightly more than the company's total revenue because there's a small revenue elimination, which eliminates the sale of goods and services between the two business units.)
- Within the U-Haul segment, DIY-moving equipment rental revenue grew 3.6% from the year-ago period to $669.9 million. Growth was driven by increases in both one-way and in-town transactions. Relative to the year-ago quarter, the company's rental fleet size is larger, as is the number of rental locations, which include independent dealers and company-owned locations.
- Within the U-Haul segment, self-storage revenue increased 13.3% to $76.7 million. Revenue growth was driven by a combination of improved occupancy at existing locations plus the addition of new facilities.
- Room count grew to 328,000 at the end of the quarter compared to 287,000 at the end of the year-ago period.
- Average occupancy rate based on room count was 73%, down from 77.4% in the year-ago period. This marks the seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines in the occupancy rate. However, it's up sequentially, as last quarter's rate was 72.1%.
- DIY-moving and self-storage product and service sales revenue increased 2.1% to $78.9 million, while property management fees grew 2.4% to $6.8 million. These are fees the company collects from managing self-storage units owned by others.
- Operating income in the U-Haul segment declined 11.3% to $220.5 million.
- Operating income in the insurance segment dropped 22.3% to $11.4 million.
What management had to say
Here's what CEO Joe Shoen had to say in the press release:
Our opportunity is to continue to better utilize the investments we've made in our rental fleet and self-storage locations to serve more customers. Our base businesses are solid. We need to continue to focus on management.
Looking ahead
Overall, it was a challenging quarter, with operating income declining about 12% and net income and EPS decreasing about 14%. However, there were some relatively brighter spots: The core U-Haul segment's revenue grew 4.3%, and the average occupancy rate based on room count in the self-storage business ticked up from last quarter.
Amerco doesn't provide guidance. And there's just a single Wall Street analyst who provides estimates, making them of little value.
