U-Haul (UHAL) 2027财年第二季度业绩电话会：利润增长，资本支出下降

核心要点

• U-Haul Holding Company公布2027财年第二季度净利润为1.37亿美元，高于上年同期的1.06亿美元；无表决权股份每股收益从0.54美元增至0.71美元。
• 搬家及仓储业务调整后EBITDA增加500万美元至5.48亿美元，但调整后EBITDA利润率下降约90个基点。
• 设备租赁收入增加3700万美元，主要得益于同城业务交易量提升，以及同城和单程市场的单笔交易收入均有所改善。
• 自助仓储业务收入增长1600万美元，增幅约为6%。同店出租率下降110个基点至89.5%，而整个业务组合的每已租平方英尺平均收入增长略低于3%。
• U-Haul继续降低资本密集度。上半财年车队净资本支出减少2.23亿美元，管理层仍预计全财年降幅将超过5亿美元。
• 货运与运输仍是主要的成本压力来源，使第二季度支出增加略低于2450万美元。管理层预计短期内行业货运成本不会回落。

核心财务数据

业务与经营表现

设备租赁

租赁收入增长反映了同城和单程市场的双双提升。同城业务交易量实现增加，同时由于每笔交易里程增加以及每英里收入提高，两类业务的单笔交易收入均有所改善。

在2025年9月至2026年9月期间，U-Haul新增了63个直营网点，并将其独立经销商网络净增加了500多个网点。管理层认为，拓展经销商是公司优化车队调配的主要内部催化剂，但同时也承认进展慢于预期。

10月的交易趋势释放了初步积极信号。按过去12个月计算，交易量转为正增长，但在数百万笔交易的基数下，改善幅度仅约为2.3万至2.4万笔。此外，单程搬家平均距离已连续三个季度提升，单程每英里收入也略有增加。

自助仓储与U-Box业务

新客户自助仓储平均租金同比上涨约2%。退租客户租金仍比迁入客户租金低约1%。管理层指出，随着对比基数不再受去年清理欠费仓位的影响，每已租平方英尺收入的部分改善效应将会消退。

本季度，U-Haul新增了10处仓储网点，净可出租面积共计100万平方英尺。公司目前在建项目有110个，在建面积约为550万平方英尺，另有550万平方英尺处于待建储备中。这些数据均低于上一年的水平（当时在建面积为650万平方英尺，储备面积为770万平方英尺）。

U-Box业务恢复收入增长，发运箱量和在库箱量均实现提升。多数U-Box仓储客户仍是通过搬家服务接触到该产品。管理层认为，在传统仓储设施满载时，进一步将传统自助仓储需求转化为U-Box使用存在良好机会。

成本、折旧与车队处置

人员、财产税以及自保责任成本合计增加略高于2100万美元。货运与运输成本增加了略低于2450万美元，主要集中在U-Box业务。

车队折旧减少450万美元。租赁设备处置亏损改善3400万美元，本季度处置亏损收窄至420万美元。管理层将这一改善归因于过去12个月计提的额外折旧以及具有韧性的转售所得款项。此外，较新的厢式货车初始成本更低，因此折旧费用也相应减少。

股份回购

本季度，U-Haul斥资1010万美元回购了149,927股有表决权普通股，并斥资6820万美元回购了1,095,478股无表决权普通股。截至财报电话会议召开时，剩余回购授权额度略低于2.24亿美元。管理层表示，面对金融市场波动，公司正在股份回购与保持流动性之间寻求平衡。

管理层指引

• 管理层继续预计，全财年车队净投资降幅将略超5亿美元。
• 随着公司完成在主要市场的仓库布局，U-Box相关房地产支出预计将继续呈下降趋势。规划中的室内仓储建设规模约为一两年前设想水平的一半左右。
• 自助仓储开发支出的节奏正趋近于管理层认为的可能稳态水平。
• 管理层预计，2027财年下半年车队责任成本将显著改善。
• 管理层表示，10月的收入走势略好于第二季度的表现。

风险与关注点

• 预计货运承运商短期内不会降价，这使得U-Box利润率持续承受高额运输成本的压力。
• 同店仓储出租率降至89.5%，净迁入量仍低于管理层目标。
• 管理层目前尚未在搬家或自助仓储业务中看到结构性的外部需求催化剂。
• 经销商拓展计划进展尚不够快，管理层暂时无法对最佳车队规模做出最终评估。
• 随着前期清理欠费仓位带来的基数收益消退，自助仓储定价同比改善的部分效应预计将逐步减弱。

分析师问答要点

管理层表示，缓解U-Box货运压力主要依赖三项举措：优化内部流程、在向客户定价时体现运输成本，以及扩大载货共享（load-share）计划。该计划将U-Box集装箱运输与单程卡车租赁客户进行匹配，为这些客户提供租金折扣，从而以低于传统承运商的成本完成集装箱运输。

谈及公司的收入结构时，管理层强调了自助仓储以及U-Box仓储业务的经常性收入特征。仓储客户使用该产品的平均时长超过30个月。随着设备租赁占总收入的比例逐渐下降，管理层预计利润率将实现结构性改善。

管理层还将交易量增长和单笔交易里程视为潜在经营复苏的关键指标。这两项指标近期的趋势均有所改善，但公司尚未将其作为正式的需求展望发布。

在季节性淡季期间，一线团队将重点关注仓储运营、客户评价以及延期维护。U-Haul还在部署AI工具以辅助员工，但管理层表示，尚未将任何流程或规程完全交由AI自主处理。

业绩电话会完整纪要

完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to U-Haul Holding Company's Second Quarter Fiscal 2027 Investor Call. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the conference over to Sebastien Reyes. Please go ahead.

Sebastien Reyes

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the U-Haul Holding Company Second Quarter Fiscal 2027 Investor Call. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that certain of the statements during this call, including without limitation, statements regarding revenue, expenses, income and general growth of our business may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended.

Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified. Certain factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. For a discussion of the risks and uncertainties that may affect the company's business and future operating results, please refer to the company's public SEC filings and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, which is on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

I'll now turn the call over to Jason Berg, Chief Financial Officer of U-Haul Holding Company.

Jason Berg

Thanks, Sebastien. Good morning to everyone. I'm speaking to you today from our home office here in Phoenix, Arizona. Our CEO, Joe Shoen, is speaking at an industry event today and is unavailable for this call. Here in the office with me in addition to Sebastien are Sam Shoen and J.T. Taylor, the President of our U-Haul International subsidiary.

Yesterday, we reported second quarter earnings of $137 million compared to earnings of $106 million for the same quarter last year. In terms of earnings per share, that's $0.71 per nonvoting share this year compared to $0.54 last year. From here on out, all of my references in the prepared remarks are going to be for the second quarter of this year versus last year, unless otherwise noted.

Earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation, what we call adjusted EBITDA at the Moving and Storage segment increased $5 million for the quarter to $548 million. Included in our release and the financial supplement that we post on our website is a reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to GAAP earnings.

Starting off with equipment rental revenue. For the quarter, it rose $37 million with gains in both our in-town and one-way markets. Within that, we saw in-town transactions increase, while revenue per transaction improved across both in-town and one-way. This was driven by more miles per transaction and higher revenue per mile. By the end of September of this year versus last year, between those 2 dates, we added 63 new company-operated locations, and we increased our independent dealer network by a net total of over 500 locations.

October revenue has trended a bit higher than what our second quarter results were. Capital expenditures for new rental equipment were $466 million. That's a $275 million decrease compared to the same period last year, while proceeds from the sales of retired rental equipment went down by $21 million to a total of $198 million. For the first 6 months of the fiscal year, we are down $223 million now on net fleet CapEx. We're still projecting a decrease of a little over $500 million for net fleet investments by the end of the fiscal year.

Storage revenues were up $16 million. That's about a 6% increase. Average revenue per occupied foot for our total portfolio, so I'm including both same-store and lease-up locations, improved by just under 3%. Some portion of this year-over-year improvement is going to dissipate now that we're a full year past the cleanup of delinquent rooms. Our average new customer rental rates have increased by about 2% year-over-year, while rates for customers leaving are still about 1% lower than what the move-in rates are.

Same-store occupancy decreased by 110 basis points to 89.5%. We're seeing net move-in and move-out activity consistent but remains behind what our goal is.

During the first 6 months of fiscal 2027, we invested $432 million in real estate acquisitions along with the development of self-storage and U-Box warehouse. That's a $94 million decrease over the first 6 months of last year. Just in the second quarter, we added 10 new locations with storage totaling 1 million net rentable square feet.

We currently have approximately 5.5 million new square feet being developed across 110 projects. And our pipeline of projects not yet started is about 5.5 million square feet as well. To put that in context, last year, active development was about 6.5 million square feet and the pipeline was 7.7 million. So we're making progress in moderating the pipeline of new storage projects. The pace of our development spending is approaching likely our steady state.

Moving to storage. Operating expenses increased $54 million. Compared to the same quarter last year, our adjusted EBITDA margin went down by about 90 basis points, but we did have an improvement in our operating margin, largely due to depreciation. Personnel, property taxes and self-insurance liability costs increased by a combined just over $21 million. The issues that arose in the first quarter with freight and shipping costs continued into the second quarter, increasing by just under $24.5 million.

As an industry, I don't see freight carriers lowering costs in the near term. Our U-Box team, which accounts for the largest portion of this variance is working to make sure that our customer rates reflect the reality of the situation as well as continuing to advance our load share program that teams U-Box shipments with our one-way truck rental customers. While we're on U-Box, we saw the program return to revenue growth this quarter. We had an increase in the number of containers shipped as well as the number of containers in storage.

We had fleet depreciation reach an inflection point that we've been talking about for a while now. It decreased by $4.5 million in the quarter, while losses from the disposal of rental equipment decreased $34 million, resulting in a loss of $4.2 million for the quarter. The equipment that we sold had a lower cost, primarily from the additional depreciation that we've recognized over the last 12 months, while proceeds in the resale market have been resilient.

The newer cargo vans that we've added to the rental fleet the last 9 months have a lower initial cost, and therefore, we're seeing lower depreciation charges. As of September 30 this year, we had cash along with availability from existing loan facilities at the moving and storage segment of $1.335 billion.

A quick update on the share repurchase program. During the second quarter, we repurchased 149,927 shares of voting common stock at a cost of $10.1 million, and 1,095,478 shares of nonvoting common stock at a cost of $68.2 million. As of today, the maximum amount that we can still repurchase is just under $224 million. Given the volatility in -- that we're seeing in finance markets, we're balancing our plan to maintain adequate liquidity with our belief that our common stock and in particular, the nonvoting shares continue to be undervalued.

Before I hand the call back to our operator, I wanted to reiterate a couple of very important trends that give me optimism in the quarter. First, revenue growth, while slower than we'd like to see, has been durable and steady. Second, the adjustments that we've made over the last year plus to slow our growth CapEx plans for both fleet and self-storage are showing tangible results in lower spending and depreciation.

And finally, on the expense front, our largest expense, personnel is in line with revenue growth. We should also run a sizable positive variance on fleet liability costs over the second half of this year. And outside of the freight shipping costs, our other expenses really are not out of line.

With that, I'd like to hand the call back to our operator, Connor, to begin the question-and-answer portion of the call.

Operator

The first question is from the line of Steven Ramsey of Thompson Research Group. A reminder to unmute yourself locally.

分析师问答

Steven Ramsey

Can you hear me at this point?

Jason Berg

Yes, Steven, we can hear you. Thanks for your patience.

Steven Ramsey

Okay. Great. And thank you for the color so far. With self-storage up 6% and U-Box storage growing as well, can you talk about if U-Box storage is growing faster than self-storage, obviously, at a lower base? And are there any observations you're seeing on the ground why customers are choosing one or the other when they have the option for both? Or is this more reflective of internal efforts to guide customers to one or the other?

Jason Berg

Well, we certainly have efforts in place to try to guide customers towards the U-Box storage product. I would say that still the majority of the storage customers that we're seeing in U-Box are the result of them using the product for a move. And then it goes into storage. So as we increase the number of moves, we're seeing the number of containers and storage increase. Anecdotally, we have some centers across the system that have figured this out and are doing a fantastic job of converting storage customers when they're full on traditional self-storage, converting them into U-Box containers. But I wouldn't say that, that's been a meaningful increase across the system yet. That's a big opportunity for us.

Steven Ramsey

Okay. That's great. And then it appears that U-Box covered warehouse space growth continues to outpace U-Box revenue growth even with both moving and storage usage growing. Is that the right perception? And if it is, do you expect U-Box investment to also be reduced in the coming quarters?

Jason Berg

Yes. As I look at the pipeline, the projected covered spaces that we're looking to build are probably about half of what they were a year ago or 2 years ago. And that's -- that's a function of we've been building out this network of warehouses across the country to get them into areas where we have, I don't know if they really want to call it this, but I'll call it a hub-and-spoke type situation where customers can access the U-Box at just about any U-Haul location, but then the storage of it takes place at these larger warehouses that we've been building.

And as we work our way through all of the major markets that need warehouses, we're not going to have to go back in and build more warehouses. So I fully expect the spend on U-Box-related real estate to continue to trend down.

Steven Ramsey

Okay. That's helpful. And then last one for me. Freight and shipping costs, again, a pressure with U-Box. Can you talk about where you see that going in the next couple of quarters or settling out?

Jason Berg

Yes, a few things. There's -- what I've focused on a lot in the calls here is just the increase in cost from an industry perspective. I think what our team here at the home office and out in the field is focused on is things that they can do a little bit better to make sure that they're not causing a situation where we have to pay more for freight. So I think we're making progress on that front, and we're going to optimize the freight costs as much as we can, even though they're going to go up.

So first, we're trying to make sure our processes are bulletproof, so we're not causing an increase in freight expense. Second, we're then trying to make sure that the realities of the freight cost for shipping these boxes around is appropriately reflected in the rates that we're charging customers, right? These shipping costs are not unique to us. They're universal to anyone that's shipping containers around the country. So everyone has the same challenge, and we should be pricing appropriately.

And then third, we have a program internally where it was a program that Sam developed years ago that we group U-Box shipments that are going to markets that we also have one-way customers driving U-Haul trucks to and the U-Haul customers then for a deal on their truck rental, take the boxes with them. And that's another way of doing shipping for us. And there's a certain amount more that we need to compensate customers for because of the increase in fuel prices, but it's not nearly the same increase that we're seeing in over-the-road carriers.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steven Ralston with Zacks.

Steven Ralston

Congratulations on another record revenue quarter. Just one question for me today. I dug into the composition of those total revenues, and I realized I need to get a better gauge on the operating leverage of the self-moving rental business. I noticed that the peak quarter for the self-moving rental revenue is actually the second quarter of fiscal 2022 when moving activity was elevated due to COVID. And since then, that peak in that segment, self-moving revenue is actually down 2.6%.

The growth drivers that contributed to the record revenue quarter this quarter were self-storage, which is up almost 71% over that period since the second quarter of fiscal '22 and other revenue, which is mainly U-Box, which is up about 30%. As a result, together, both lines make up now over 25% of total U-Haul revenue. However, it really looks like the self-moving business looks well positioned for a leveraged growth phase. The fleet is relatively young and depreciation is at a cyclical peak. Much as it was in 2 other periods when U-Haul stock dramatically outperformed, one, starting, I think, in 2004 and the other one in 2009.

I wish Joe was here to answer this with a historical perspective, but are there any similarities between those periods and today other than the peak in depreciation? And even if not, what were the drivers then that signaled an earnings growth phase was beginning?

Jason Berg

Great question. I appreciate you going back in history like that. The -- in both of those situations, I think you can attribute a lot of the success that we had back then to management focus. So the 2004 time frame, we were coming out of a financial restructuring process. There was a lot of noise that kind of took focus off of what the core operations were. The fleet was allowed to age a bit. That was in the early 2000s, and then by 2004 and then '09. And then I also think of '16, it's times where we had the fleet in excellent shape.

And then we did something that expanded our reach. And I would say today, what we're focused on in order for trying to create our own catalyst here is this dealer expansion program, right? Because if we look out into the marketplace, I don't think there's anything either on the self-storage front or on the moving front that looks like a structural demand catalyst out with the customers. So then it's just us having to do a better job of trying to place the trucks and the dealer program is that.

Is it going to result in as big of improvements as we saw back then? I think the jury is still out on that. We're up a net 500 dealers. I think we would have liked to have been up more than that by this time. We made comments 9 months ago that we're going to see after the summer months, how the dealer program was able to absorb the fleet. And I don't think we made enough progress on the dealer front to really make a final call on the fleet size. So I think that, that call is going to be pushed out a little bit.

So Steve, I don't know if I answered the question to your liking. I'm sure Joe would have done a little bit better job at that. But I think in each of those instances, there was a degree of management focus that we're able to get back to because I don't recall a significant event outside of the COVID run-up that would cause the increase in demand. And I may just be forgetting it.

Steven Ralston

Thank you for reminding me about the catalyst of the dealer expansion program. Could you make any comment on this dichotomy of the growth rates between the core self-moving rental business and those 2 top line growth engines? It personally surprised me when I started looking at the numbers.

Jason Berg

Yes. I think what excites us about the evolution of the company is the stickiness of the nonmoving revenue, right? So if you think about storage and then part of U-Box, which is the storage component, there's -- when you get a customer, there's an ongoing annuity, right, that they stay in the product for a longer period of time, whereas a move, you make the move and then you're done and then you get ready to help the next person, whereas in storage, they're staying in excess of 30 months on average.

So I think we're excited about that piece of it. And that's why I have a slide in the investor deck that shows as that ratio of equipment rental revenue declines as a percent of the total, I anticipate our margins continuing to improve structurally.

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Jeff Kauffman with Citizens Bank.

Jeffrey Kauffman

Congratulations on the improvements that are there, I think, despite a slow revenue market. I want to follow a little bit along the last question. So I'll throw it out to you, Jason, Sam and J.T. You mentioned that you don't see any structural demand catalysts like we had in COVID, right? But nobody saw COVID coming. But yet, it does feel like a lot of other companies that I'm watching are coming off the bottom of a long cycle of slow growth, no growth mediocrity.

We are starting to see depreciation and gains on sale normalize. You're working to get occupancy a little higher, and that is working, maybe not as quick as we'd hope. But if you take a look at previous cycle bottoms and kind of leveling out toward higher growth, are there certain canaries in the coal mine that tend to show themselves when we're getting back to a more normalized growth rate? And absent kind of the big mega catalysts that are out there, are you seeing anything that convinces you things are getting slightly better or slightly worse in the external environment?

Jason Berg

Sure. The data points that I look at internally to kind of see which direction the ship is headed, one would be just overall transactions, right? The last couple of years, we've survived a lot on trying to recoup the cost increases that we've faced by passing some of that along to customers. And that's been buoying up revenue. Our -- when transactions begin to turn, I think that, that's a sign that business should be improving for us. And the last 2 months or so, we've had a pretty good transaction growth.

And I look at kind of a trailing 12-month transaction count and compare it to the previous 12 months. And we've been running negative on that measurement here for quite some time. And in October, we shifted over to positive. Now it's several 23,000, 24,000 transactions on millions, but it's headed in the right direction. And I would say any time that we start to see transaction growth, that has typically been a positive sign for us in the long term.

Another point that I would say is miles per transaction. We've been running now for several years kind of negative miles per transaction numbers on the one-way fleet. And now we've compiled 3 quarters in a row where we're starting to see small improvements in the average distance of people's moves. We -- and positively with that is we also saw a little bit of an improvement on revenue per mile for one-way. And typically, the longer the move that you get, the harder it is to pick up revenue per mile, we saw both go up. So those are 2 things that internal statistics that we look at that typically would say something right is happening underneath.

Jeffrey Kauffman

And then just kind of taking that a little further in the extension, and thank you for that granularity. So we're getting out of the stronger seasonal quarters. We're heading into the more moderate quarters of the year. What do you think in terms of when you look at where the company is now, are there hatches to batten down further? Are there projects that you want to engage in that will make things stronger for the upturn?

Are there things -- and I know depreciation is starting to settle in the right direction, gain on sale starting to settle in the right direction. We've slowed down growth in the storage business. But as we head into the slower seasonal time of the year, are there opportunities that are out there for you to take advantage of?

Jason Berg

Absolutely. This is the time that our field team starts to get a little bit of a breather from the hectic pace of the moving season, and they can start to focus on a few other things, making sure that the storage product at their location is cleaned up the way that it should be, perhaps finishing some projects and generally focusing on other items that in the heat of the moment, we don't want to laden them with one more thing to do.

So this is normally the time that we can get to other projects. And Joe and J.T. are communicating with the team, I think storage is a big focus of that right now as far as making sure we're reading customer reviews and addressing them at a location-by-location basis because things just tend to get a little bit behind, especially if the location is heavy on equipment rental, there's things that you maybe just don't get a garage door fixed right away or there's something else falls behind on the maintenance side, we can address those items. And then as far as other things we're doing here at the home office, the rollout of our teams here utilizing the AI tools that we have is really exciting. We haven't handed any processes or procedures over to AI on an autonomous basis where it's doing it itself. But we're working hand in glove with the tool and the output that at least what I'm seeing is really powerful.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Jason Berg

Well, I appreciate everyone attending. I'm sure that on the next call, Joe will be able to be here for -- to answer some of the other questions I might not have been able to for you. Otherwise, our team looks forward to building on the success of this quarter. I think it was a really hopeful quarter, and then we'll report back to you on our progress the first week of February. Thank you very much.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.