U-Haul (UHAL) 2027 財年第二季財報電話會議：獲利上升，資本支出下降

重點摘要

• U-Haul 控股公司公布 2027 會計年度第二季獲利達 1.37 億美元，高於去年同期的 1.06 億美元。無表決權股每股盈餘從 0.54 美元增至 0.71 美元。
• 搬運與倉儲業務調整後 EBITDA 增加 500 萬美元至 5.48 億美元，但調整後 EBITDA 利潤率下降約 90 個基點。
• 設備租賃營收增加 3,700 萬美元，受惠於市內租賃交易量成長，以及市內與單程租賃市場每筆交易營收的提升。
• 自助倉儲營收成長 1,600 萬美元，增幅約 6%。同店出租率下滑 110 個基點至 89.5%，而整體物業組合每出租平方英尺平均營收成長近 3%。
• U-Haul 持續降低資本密集度。上半年車隊淨資本支出減少 2.23 億美元，管理層仍預期全年度縮減規模將超過 5 億美元。
• 貨運與運輸仍是主要的成本壓力來源，使第二季費用增加近 2,450 萬美元。管理層預期該產業的貨運成本短期內不會下降。

核心財務數據

業務與營運表現

設備租賃

租賃營收成長反映了市內與單程市場的雙雙提升。市內交易量有所增加，同時受惠於每筆交易行駛里程增加及每英里營收提高，兩類業務的每筆交易營收均有所改善。

在 2025 年 9 月至 2026 年 9 月期間，U-Haul 新增了 63 個直營據點，並使獨立經銷商網絡淨增 500 多個據點。管理層指出，經銷商網絡擴張是改善車隊配置的主要內部催化劑，但也坦言進展速度慢於預期。

10 月交易趨勢釋出早期的正面訊號。以過去 12 個月來看，交易量重回正成長區間，但在數百萬筆的基數下，增幅僅約 23,000 至 24,000 筆交易。平均單程搬運距離也已連續三季改善，且單程每英里營收略有成長。

自助倉儲與 U-Box

新客戶的自助倉儲平均租金年增約 2%。退租客戶的租金仍比新遷入客戶租金低約 1%。管理層指出，隨著去年清理欠費倉位的比較基期效應消退，每出租平方英尺營收的部分增幅將會減弱。

本季期間，U-Haul 新增 10 個倉儲據點，合計增加 100 萬平方英尺淨可出租面積。公司目前有 110 個進行中的開發項目，面積約 550 萬平方英尺，另有 550 萬平方英尺尚未動工的儲備項目。這些數據低於去年同期積極開發中的 650 萬平方英尺及 770 萬平方英尺儲備規模。

U-Box 營收重回成長，出貨貨櫃量與在倉貨櫃量均見成長。多數 U-Box 倉儲客戶仍是透過搬家需求而開始使用該產品。管理層認為，當傳統倉儲設施額滿時，將傳統自助倉儲需求轉化為 U-Box 使用將有進一步的機會。

成本、折舊與車隊處分

人事、財產稅及自保責任成本合計增加略超過 2,100 萬美元。貨運與運輸成本增加近 2,450 萬美元，主要來自 U-Box 業務。

車隊折舊減少 450 萬美元。租賃設備處分損失改善 3,400 萬美元，使本季處分損失降至 420 萬美元。管理層將此改善歸功於過去 12 個月認列的額外折舊以及強韌的轉售收益。此外，較新的廂型貨車初始成本較低，因此折舊費用也較少。

股票回購

U-Haul 於本季以 1,010 萬美元回購 149,927 股有表決權普通股，並以 6,820 萬美元回購 1,095,478 股無表決權普通股。法說會召開時，剩餘回購授權額度略低於 2.24 億美元。管理層表示，在金融市場波動之際，公司正在股票回購與保留流動性的需求之間取得平衡。

管理層指引

• 管理層持續預估全年度車隊淨投資額將減少略多於 5 億美元。
• 隨著公司在主要市場完成倉庫覆蓋，U-Box 相關房地產支出預計將持續走低。規劃中的室內空間建設規模約為一、兩年前構想水準的一半。
• 自助倉儲開發支出的步調正接近管理層所認為的可能穩定狀態水準。
• 管理層預期 2027 會計年度下半年車隊責任成本將出現顯著的有利差異。
• 管理層表示，10 月營收走勢略高於第二季表現。

風險與關注焦點

• 貨運承運商短期內預料不會降價，使 U-Box 利潤率持續暴露在高昂運輸成本的風險中。
• 同店倉儲出租率降至 89.5%，淨遷入活動仍低於管理層目標。
• 管理層目前在搬家或自助倉儲領域均未見到結構性的外部需求催化劑。
• 經銷商擴張計畫的推進速度不夠快，管理層尚無法對最佳車隊規模做出最終評估。
• 隨著前期清理欠費倉位的效益在比較基期中消退，預計自助倉儲價格的部分年增幅將會減弱。

分析師問答重點

管理層表示，緩解 U-Box 貨運成本主要仰賴三項措施：改善內部流程、將運輸成本反映在客戶定價中，以及擴大其載貨共享計畫。該計畫將 U-Box 運送與單程卡車租賃客戶配對，透過提供租金折扣讓這些客戶協助運送貨櫃，其成本低於傳統承運商。

針對公司的營收結構，管理層強調了自助倉儲與 U-Box 倉儲業務的經常性特質。倉儲客戶平均使用該產品超過 30 個月。隨著設備租賃佔總營收比例下降，管理層預期利潤率將迎來結構性改善。

管理層亦將交易量成長與每筆交易行駛里程視為潛在營運復甦的關鍵指標。近期這兩項指標的走勢均有所改善，但公司並未將其作為正式的需求展望。

在季節性淡季期間，第一線團隊將專注於倉儲營運、客戶評價以及延期維護工作。U-Haul 也正在導入 AI 工具以支援員工，但管理層表示，尚未將任何流程或程序完全自主交由 AI 處理。

完整法說會逐字稿

完整財報電話會議逐字稿

管理層陳述

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.

分析師問答

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.