CrossAmerica Partners Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 8, 2025

There are 3 speakers on the call.

Operator

Morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CrossAmerica Partners First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. At this time, all lines are in listen only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press 0 for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, 05/08/2025.

Operator

I would now like to turn the call over to Mora Topper, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining the CrossAmerica Partners First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. With me today is Charles Nifeng, CEO and President. We'll start off the call today with Charles providing some opening comments and an overview of CrossAmerica's operational performance for the first quarter, and then I will discuss the financial results. We will then open up the call to questions.

Speaker 1

Today's call will follow presentation slides that are available as part of the webcast and are posted on the CrossAmerica website. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's call, including the question and answer session, may include forward looking statements regarding expected revenue, future plans, future operational metrics, and opportunities and expectations of the organization. There can be no assurance that management's expectations, beliefs, and projections will be achieved or that actual results will not differ from expectations. Please see CrossAmerica's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including annual reports on Form 10 ks and quarterly reports on Form 10 Q for a discussion of important factors that could affect our actual results. Forward looking statements represent the judgment of CrossAmerica's management as of today's date, and the organization disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

During today's call, we may also provide certain performance measures that do not conform to U. S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP. We have provided schedules that reconcile these non GAAP measures with our reported results on a GAAP basis as part of our earnings press release. Today's call is being webcast, and a recording of this conference call will be available on the CrossAmerica website for a period of sixty days.

Speaker 1

With that, I will now turn the call over to Charles.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Maura. Maura and I appreciate everyone joining us this morning, and thank you for making the time to be with us today. During today's call, I will go through some of the operating highlights for the first quarter. I will also provide commentary on the market and a few other updates as I typically do on our calls. Laura will then review in more detail our financial results.

Speaker 2

Now if you turn to slide four, I will briefly review some of our operating results. Overall, it was another difficult start to the year for us and for the industry. While our results on an EBITDA basis were marginally better than the first quarter of the prior year, it was nonetheless a challenging start to the year. Fuel and inside store merchandise demand remained subdued for the first quarter. After many consecutive quarters of us outperforming the market, our retail same store fuel volume for the first quarter was approximately in line with the overall market and, while our same store merchandise sales, excluding cigarettes, outperformed the market, they were still under the prior year first quarter results.

Speaker 2

Turning to the specific numbers, for the first quarter of twenty twenty five, our Retail segment gross profit increased 16% to $63,200,000 compared to $54,400,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. The increase was driven by an increase in both motor fuel and merchandise gross profit. Our retail fuel margin was a relative highlight for the quarter compared to the prior year. For the quarter, our retail fuel margin on a cents per gallon basis increased 10% year over year as our fuel margin was 33.9¢ per gallon in the first quarter of twenty twenty five compared to 30.8¢ per gallon in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. In comparison to the prior year, we saw a steady increase in crude oil prices during the quarter.

Speaker 2

Crude oil prices were more volatile during the first quarter of twenty twenty five. And as a result, our retail fuel margins were higher year over year. Our retail fuel margin results reflect this volatility and are not the result of any changes in our pricing strategy towards greater fuel margin at the expense of our volume performance. For volume, on a same store basis, our overall retail volume declined 4% for the quarter year over year. In regards to our same store statistics that we provide, I should note that February 2024 included an additional day with the leap year.

Speaker 2

The impact to our first quarter of twenty twenty five same store numbers was approximately 100 basis points, or 1%. So the four percent decline that I just provided would be 3% when adjusted for the additional day. Based on national demand data available to us, national gasoline demand unadjusted for the additional day was also down approximately 4% for the quarter. Our volume performance this quarter was impacted by significant winter weather during the first two months of the quarter, with weather impacting volume in broad geographic segments of our portfolio in both our retail and wholesale segments. Also, Easter was in the quarter last year, as Easter was on March 31 the prior year, so the higher Easter week fuel demand that was in the quarter last year also contributed towards our relatively lower year over year volume in this year's first quarter.

Speaker 2

In the period since the quarter end, retail same store volume, both company operated and commission, has been down slightly less than 2%, performing better than overall national demand, which is down approximately 4% for the same period based on the data available to us. In the same period, retail fuel margins, both company operated and commissioned, have been higher, in part due to the sharp drop in crude oil prices at the April. The sharp drop in crude oil prices to start April, where crude oil prices dropped from around $70 a barrel to around $60 a barrel, was, of course, one of the many financial market reactions that happened in response to tariffs that were announced on April 2. During the first quarter, earlier tariffs impacted the fuel market in the New England area when Canadian gasoline, which supplies a substantial portion of the market in New England, was temporarily subject to a tariff, the implementation of which was paused and then ultimately exempted from the tariff. In the brief period of time where there was a tariff on Canadian gasoline imports, we saw wholesale gasoline costs in the New England market rise to reflect the cost of the new tariff, as one would expect.

Speaker 2

The New England fuel market notwithstanding, while we don't generally source directly any of our fuel supply or store merchandise items from outside the country, we do, of course, carry products in our stores that are produced outside of The United States. At first glance though, the relative percentage of products in our stores produced outside The United States would appear to be small. However, some products have surprising foreign components, as I learned recently about a major beverage supplier that produces its beverage syrups outside of The United States. So the impact of all these substantial potential changes due to the tariffs is difficult to know and adds to the overall uncertainty right now, which is reflected by the large number of public companies that have withdrawn their financial guidance for the year this quarter. In the meantime, we continue to execute on our business strategies, focusing on what we control and remaining nimble to adjust to the market as circumstances dictate.

Speaker 2

For inside sales, on a same site basis, our inside sales were down approximately 1.5% compared to the prior year for the first quarter. Inside sales, excluding cigarettes, declined 1% year over year on a same store basis for the quarter. As was fuel demand, based on national demand data available to us, national demand for inside store sales was weak for the first quarter, down approximately 3% on an overall sales basis year over year. So, on a relative basis, our retail segment inside sales outperformed the industry for the quarter. On the store merchandise margin front, our merchandise gross profit increased 16% to $24,900,000 driven by our increased sales from the higher store count.

Speaker 2

The store merchandise margin percentage declined slightly for the quarter compared to the prior year. In the period since the quarter end, same store inside sales have been up 3% to 4% compared to the prior year, with a portion of that increase due to the inclusion of Easter and Easter week in this period compared to the prior year, where Easter was in the first quarter. Nonetheless, it is an encouraging sign to see the relative sequential increase to prior months in the April data. In our retail segment, if you look at our company operated site count for the end of the period, we are up 33 company operated retail sites from the prior year and 11 company operated sites from the end of the fourth quarter. The increase in company operated site count was primarily driven by our conversion of lessee dealer sites to company operated retail sites.

Speaker 2

Our commission agent site count at the end of the quarter increased by 31 sites relative to the first quarter of twenty twenty four and five sites relative to the end of the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, as we continue to execute on our strategic class of trade conversions to the retail channel. In total, we increased our overall retail site count by 64 sites during the first quarter of twenty twenty five compared to our retail site count at the end of the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Based on these numbers, you can see that we were very active during the past twelve months with site conversions and executing on our strategy to increase our exposure to retail fuel margins and the retail business in general. Overall, it was a challenging first quarter for the retail segment, reflecting a difficult operating environment. A highlight of the quarter was the relative strength of our retail fuel margins and the continued relative outperformance of our same store inside sales to the market.

Speaker 2

As I just touched on, we continue to add sites to the Retail segment, positioning us to grow our motor fuel and merchandise gross profit and overall segment profitability in the future. Moving on to the Wholesale segment. For the first quarter of twenty twenty five, our Wholesale segment gross profit declined 1% to $26,700,000 compared to $27,000,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. The decrease was primarily driven by a decline in fuel volume and rental income. The primary factor for the fuel volume and rental income decline by a significant degree was the conversion of certain lessee dealer sites to company operated and commission agent sites, which are now accounted for in the Retail segment.

Speaker 2

Our wholesale motor fuel gross profit increased 8% to $15,800,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five from $14,600,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Our fuel margin increased 23% from 7.9¢ per gallon in the first quarter of twenty twenty four to 9.7¢ per gallon in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. The increase in our wholesale fuel margin per gallon was primarily driven by movements in crude oil prices and its impact on our fuel purchase on index pricing under our fuel supply agreements. We have also continued to be successful in our efforts to improve our overall cost of product, which positively impacted our wholesale fuel margin for the first quarter and materially contributed to the year over year improvement in our wholesale fuel margin per gallon. Our wholesale volume was 162,900,000 gallons for the first quarter of twenty twenty five compared to 184,000,000 gallons in the first quarter of twenty twenty four, reflecting a decline of 11%.

Speaker 2

The decline in volume when compared to the same period in 2024 was primarily due to the conversion of certain lessee dealer sites to our retail class of trade. The gallons from these converted sites are now reflected in our retail segment results. For the quarter, our same store volume in the wholesale segment was down approximately 3% year over year. So the additional approximately 8% drop in volume, the difference between the overall volume decline of 11% and our same store volume decline of 3% for the segment, was largely due to converting sites to the retail segment. As mentioned in my retail segment comments, national demand data available to us indicated national fuel demand was down around 4% for the quarter.

Speaker 2

So our same store wholesale volume performance for the first quarter slightly outperformed overall national demand. In the period since the quarter end, wholesale same store volume has been down around 2%, outperforming national volume demand, which is down approximately 4% year over year for the same period. Regarding our wholesale rent, our base rent for the quarter was $10,100,000 compared to the prior year of $12,400,000 a decrease due to the conversion of certain lessee dealer sites to company operated sites as well as our real estate rationalization efforts. As you know by now, the rent dollars from the converted sites, while no longer in the form of rent, are now in our Retail segment results through our fuel and store sales margin at these locations, which helped to drive our increase in retail segment operating income for the quarter. We also continue to evaluate our portfolio and look for opportunities to divest non core properties.

Speaker 2

For the first quarter of twenty twenty five, we divested seven sites for $8,600,000 in proceeds. We expect this momentum to continue through 2025 as this continues to be an area of focus and effort for us, and we expect to outperform our results for 2024 in this area. As I stated at the beginning of my remarks, the first quarter was a challenging start to the year from weather impacts to continued inflationary pressures and, after the end of the quarter, the uncertainty on the overall economic environment due to the addition of material tariffs. Despite these challenges, we continued with the execution of our strategy, converting more sites to our retail channel and continuing to recycle capital out of sites that are not in our long term plans for the portfolio. Our retail sites volume performance was in line with the overall market for the quarter and has shown signs of returning to outperforming the market since the quarter end.

Speaker 2

And our company operated sites generated strong inside sales relative to the overall market, a sign of the successful execution of our retail strategy. Our Wholesale segment generated strong fuel margins for the quarter, reflecting the work we have done to improve our product costs. Still, we are glad to put the first quarter in our rearview mirror and are looking forward to the road ahead into summer and peak driving season. With that, I'll turn it over to Maura to further discuss our financial results.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Charles. If you would please turn to slide six, I would like to review our first quarter results for the partnership. We reported a net loss of $7,100,000 for the first quarter of twenty twenty five compared to a net loss of $17,500,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. As I'll discuss in a moment, our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was up slightly from the prior year, with the improvement in our net loss position materially being driven by various aspects of our ongoing class of trade conversions and real estate rationalization efforts. Our first quarter of twenty twenty four net loss was burdened by a $15,900,000 of lease termination expense as a result of the GAAP treatment of our acquisition of locations from Applegreen during that quarter.

Speaker 1

Our first quarter twenty twenty five results did not have this charge, but did include a net gain of 5,000,000 associated with our ongoing asset sales during the quarter, as well as an $8,500,000 non cash impairment expense related to certain locations moved to assets held for sale during the quarter. Finally, our first quarter of twenty twenty five net loss was impacted by a $2,300,000 increase in interest expense year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $24,300,000 for the first quarter of twenty twenty five, an increase of 3% from adjusted EBITDA of $23,600,000 for the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Our distributable cash flow for the first quarter of twenty twenty five was $9,100,000 a decline from $11,700,000 for the first quarter of twenty twenty four. The decrease in distributable cash flow was primarily due to our higher cash interest expense and sustaining capital expenditures during the quarter, both of which I will touch on in a few moments.

Speaker 1

Our distribution coverage for the trailing twelve month for the period ended 03/31/2025 was 1.04 times, compared to 1.37 times for the same twelve month period ended 03/31/2024. Coverage for the first quarter of twenty twenty five was 0.46 times, compared to 0.59 times for the same period of 2024. As we have noted in the past, the first quarter is our seasonally weakest quarter, where we historically have seen our coverage fall below one times during the lower activity winter months. During the first quarter of twenty twenty five, the partnership paid a distribution of $0.05 $25 per unit. Charles provided information in his comments on our volume and merchandise performance during the quarter and how they benefited our adjusted EBITDA compared to the prior year.

Speaker 1

I will now touch on the expense portion of our operations. Operating expenses for the first quarter increased $6,800,000 compared to the first quarter of twenty twenty four, comprised of an $8,600,000 increase in our Retail segment, offset by a $1,700,000 decrease in our Wholesale segment. The year over year increase in retail segment operating expenses was approximately 20%, primarily driven by a 17% increase in average segment site count year over year due to our class of trade conversions, specifically the company operated class of trade. On a same store store level basis, operating expenses in our retail segment were up approximately 6% for the first quarter of twenty twenty five compared to the first quarter of twenty twenty four, with approximately 1.5% of that increase due to elevated snow plowing and other weather related expenses in the areas of repairs and maintenance. Our labor expense increase during the quarter was higher on a percentage basis than prior quarters, but still a moderate percentage overall.

Speaker 1

And we feel good about our approach and management of labor, our largest single retail segment expense category. We remain focused on efficient expense management at our locations as we move into the summer driving season of 2025, ensuring that we are investing in customer facing areas that will drive the long term health and sustainability of our sites. Operating expenses in our wholesale segment declined by $1,700,000 or 19% for the quarter year over year due to declines in site level operating expenses and management fees as our wholesale segment average site count declined 12% year over year. Our G and A expenses increased 12% for the quarter year over year, primarily driven by higher management fees and equity compensation expense, partially offset by lower acquisition related costs. Moving to the next slide, we spent a total of $10,100,000 on capital expenditures during the first quarter, with $7,400,000 of that total being growth related capital expenditures and $2,700,000 of that total being sustaining capital expenditures.

Speaker 1

As we have increased our site count in the retail segment, specifically our company operated locations, we have expected to see an increase in our sustaining capital expenditures at these locations as our highest investment locations. Our increase in sustaining capital spending as we have increased the retail segment site count is in line with our expectations. Moving to our growth capital spending during the quarter, our spend remained focused on our company operated locations and included targeted fuel brand and backcourt refresh projects, oftentimes supported by our wholesale fuel supplier partners, as well as projects to increase food offerings, both our own and QSRs. During the year, we have opened four new QSR locations in our company operated convenience stores and continued the expansion of our food and beverage programs at various stores. These growth investments have and will contribute to merchandise sales and margin results and help drive customer traffic onto our lots and into our stores.

Speaker 1

As of 03/31/2025, our total credit facility balance was $778,000,000 and our credit facility defined leverage ratio was 4.27 times. We remain focused on the cash flow generation profile of our business to manage our leverage ratio at approximately four times on a credit facility defined basis. Our cash interest expense increased from $10,100,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty four to $12,400,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. During the first quarter of twenty twenty four, we benefited from a series of valuable interest rate swaps from the first quarter of twenty twenty, which expired at the end of the first quarter last year. Our first quarter of twenty twenty five interest expense increase was primarily due to those advantageous swaps having expired.

Speaker 1

We benefited from the interest rate swaps we entered into during 2023 during the quarter as well. At this time, a little more than 50% of our current credit facility balance is swapped to a fixed rate of approximately 3.4% blended, which remains an advantaged rate in the current rate environment. Our effective interest rate on the total capital credit facility at the end of the first quarter is 6.1%. In conclusion, as Charles noted, the partnership had a challenging first quarter of twenty twenty five, facing headwinds from the macroeconomic demand environment and difficult operating environment, as well as the seasonal challenges from our historically most challenged quarter. We did successfully continue to execute on our strategy of optimizing our class of trade operations by location, as well as our ongoing real estate rationalization activities to generate additional capital to strategically invest in our business.

Speaker 1

We remain focused as a team on continuing to execute across the business and are looking forward to the year ahead, maintaining a strong balance sheet and generating value for our unitholders. With that, we will open it up for questions.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star button followed by the number one on your touch tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star button followed by the number two.

Operator

If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. It appears there are no questions at this time. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Charles Nifong, President and CEO, for closing comments.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you. Should you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us. Otherwise, we thank you for joining us today and hope you have a great day.

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Earnings Conference Call
CrossAmerica Partners Q1 2025
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