CarMax Q1 2023 Earnings Report

CarMax EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.56
• Consensus EPS: $1.51
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.05
• One Year Ago EPS: $2.63

CarMax Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $9.31 billion
• Expected Revenue: $9.38 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$63.75 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

CarMax Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2023
• Date: 6/24/2022
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Friday, June 24, 2022
• Conference Call Time: 9:56AM ET

CarMax (NYSE:KMX) is a specialty retailer of used vehicles and one of the largest automotive retailers in the United States. The company sells a broad selection of used cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles through its retail locations and online platform. CarMax also purchases vehicles from consumers and other sources, providing customers with a streamlined alternative to traditional private-party sales.

In addition to retail sales, CarMax operates wholesale vehicle auctions for vehicles that do not meet its retail standards or business requirements. The company offers financing through CarMax Auto Finance and works with third-party lenders, while its service offerings include vehicle protection products and automotive repair and maintenance services.

CarMax was founded in 1993 as a used-car retail concept developed by Circuit City and became an independent, publicly traded company in 2002. The company serves customers throughout the United States through a combination of physical dealerships, inventory distribution and digital purchasing tools, including online vehicle research, appraisal and transaction capabilities.

CarMax Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Total Q1 sales reached $9.3 billion, up 21% year-over-year, as total units sold fell 5.5% to ~427,000 due to a 12.7% decline in retail used-unit sales.
• CarMax gained market share each month from January through April, reflecting the strength of its omni-channel platform despite industry-wide used car sales declines.
• Retail gross profit per used unit rose by $134 to $2,339, while wholesale volume grew 2.7% (over 10% adjusted for calendar and reallocation impacts) with stable GP per unit, underscoring margin resilience.
• Q1 EPS dropped to $1.56 from $2.63 a year ago, driven by an $82 million normalized loan-loss provision swing, a nonrecurring $22 million investment gain last year, and higher SG&A deleverage.
• Digital adoption advanced, with online retail unit sales rising to 11% from 8% and online transactions comprising 31% of total revenue (up from 24%), aided by new self-progression capabilities.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to the CarMax First Quarter Fiscal Year 2023 Earnings Release Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to David Lowenstein. Please go ahead, sir.

[David Lowenstein, VP of Investor Relations at CarMax]

Thank you, Orlando. Good morning. Thank you for joining our fiscal 2023 First quarter earnings conference call. I'm here today with Bill Nash, our President and CEO, Enrique Mayor-Mora, our Executive Vice President and CFO, and Jon Daniels, our Senior Vice President, CarMax Auto Finance Operations. Let me remind you, our statements today that are not statements of historical fact, including statements regarding the company's future business plans, prospects, and financial performance, are forward-looking statements we make pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on our current knowledge, expectations, and assumptions, and are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. In providing projections and other forward-looking statements, we disclaim any intent or obligation to update them.

[David Lowenstein, VP of Investor Relations at CarMax]

For additional information on important facts that could affect these expectations, please see our Form 8-K filed with the SEC this morning and our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended February 28th, 2022, previously filed with the SEC. Should you have any follow-up questions after the call, please feel free to contact our investor relations department at 804-747-0422 extension 7865. Lastly, let me thank you in advance for asking only one question and getting back in the queue for more follow-up. Bill?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. For the first quarter of FY 2023, our diversified business model delivered total sales of $9.3 billion, up 21% compared with last year's first quarter, driven by growth in average selling prices and wholesale volume gains, partially offset by a decline in retail used units sold. Across our retail and wholesale channels, we sold approximately 427,000 cars in total during the first quarter, down 5.5% versus last year's period. In our retail business, total unit sales in the first quarter declined 11% and used unit comps were down 12.7% versus the first quarter last year.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Our performance was driven by the same macro factors that led to a market-wide decline in used auto sales during the quarter, including lapping material stimulus benefits paid in the prior year, widespread inflationary pressures, including challenges to vehicle affordability and lower consumer confidence. We began the first quarter with a double-digit decline in comp sales during March, continuing the fourth quarter performance we discussed on our last earnings call. Comps then improved sequentially, with May ending in a low single-digit decline. While we don't intend to talk about it each quarter, market share data provides additional context to our performance and indicates that our relative performance remains strong. Based on external data, we gained share each month from January through April, the latest periods for which title data is available.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

We believe this share gain reflects the strength of our business model and omni-channel platform, which gives us the ability to successfully manage through cycles like this one. In short, we remain focused on delivering the most customer-centric experience in the industry, and we believe we are well positioned to deliver profitable market share gains in any environment. We reported first quarter retail gross profit per used unit of $2,339, up $134 per unit versus the prior year period. We continue to focus on striking the right balance between covering cost increases, maintaining margin, and passing along efficiencies to consumers to support vehicle affordability. Wholesale units were up 2.7% versus the first quarter last year, despite a calendar shift which negatively impacted auction volume compared with the prior year.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Wholesale volume was also pressured by our decision to reallocate some older vehicles from wholesale to retail to meet consumer demand for lower-priced vehicles. We estimate that without these two factors, our wholesale unit growth would have been above 10%. Wholesale gross profit per unit was $1,029, in line with $1,025 a year ago. We are pleased that we continue to drive wholesale unit growth even as we lap last year's nationwide launch of our instant online appraisal offering on carmax.com and in the face of the industry-wide decline in used sales. We believe our wholesale business provides an incremental growth lever and is a valuable component of our diversified business model. We bought approximately 362,000 vehicles from consumers and dealers during the first quarter, up 6% versus last year's period.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

We continued to be the nation's largest buyer of vehicles from consumers, purchasing approximately 345,000 cars in the quarter, up 3% versus last year's record results. This enabled our self-sufficiency to remain above 70% during the quarter. We also sourced approximately 17,000 vehicles through our MaxOffer, our digital appraisal product for dealers that we mentioned during our last call. This is up 183% versus last year's period. As a reminder, buying directly from consumers and dealers lowers our acquisition costs, enhances our inventory selection, and provides profitable incremental wholesale volume. CarMax Auto Finance or CAF delivered income of $204 million, down from $242 million during the same period last year as the provision for loan losses normalized versus last year's favorable adjustment.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Jon will provide more detail on customer financing, the loan loss provision, and CAF and CAF's contribution in a few moments. At this point, I'd like to turn the call over to Enrique, who will provide more information on our first quarter financial performance. Enrique?

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Thanks, Bill, and good morning, everyone. First quarter net earnings per diluted share was $1.56, down from $2.63 a year ago. While the decline in used sales was a key contributor, the comparison was also impacted by the following two items. First, as Jon will discuss, an $82 million year-over-year swing in the provision for loan losses, reflecting a more normalized environment. Second, earnings in last year's first quarter reflected a $22 million unrealized gain on an investment. Total gross profit was $875 million, down 5% from last year's first quarter. This decrease was driven primarily by the 11% drop in total used unit sales, which was partially offset by the increase in retail gross profit per unit and the continued growth in wholesale units.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Wholesale vehicle margin was $192 million, up 3% despite the headwinds in the quarter that Bill noted. Other gross profit was $120 million, down 15% from last year's first quarter. This decrease was driven primarily by the effects of lower retail unit sales on service and EPP profits. Service results declined $31 million as lower sales and secondarily impacts from inflationary pressures drove a deleverage in results. EPP gross profit decreased by $18 million or 13%, slightly more than the retail unit sales rate decline. While penetration was stable at approximately 61%, this year's first quarter also reflected a $2.3 million dollar unfavorable shift in the return reserve adjustments versus last year's period.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Partially offsetting this decline in other gross profit was favorability in third-party finance income, which improved by $8 million, with income of $3.4 million compared to a cost of $4.6 million last year. This improvement was driven by lower Tier 3 volume compared with last year's first quarter. First quarter also benefited from $20 million of margin contribution from Edmunds. On the SG&A front, expenses for the first quarter increased to $657 million, up 19% from the prior year's quarter due to an increase in staffing costs and marketing, the continued investment in our strategic initiatives, growth costs related to the increase in appraisal buys and used stores, and the consolidation of Edmunds. SG&A as a percent of gross profit deleveraged to 75% from 59.9% during the first quarter last year.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

The increase in SG&A dollars over last year was mainly due to three factors. First, a $61 million increase in compensation and benefits, excluding share-based compensation, driven by the annualization of the strong growth in staffing we experienced in the back half of last year, the inclusion of Edmunds' payroll this quarter versus a year ago, wage pressures, and a ramp in field staffing in anticipation of a stronger tax season. Partially offsetting this increase was a $16 million decrease in share-based compensation. Second, a $26 million increase in other overhead. The primary drivers of this increase include investments to advance our technology platforms and strategic initiatives, as well as growth-related costs. Third, a $16 million increase in advertising expense. This increase was primarily due to last year's lower level of spend in the first quarter, given our then tight inventory position and robust customer demand.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

In addition, this quarter's spend had anticipated a stronger tax season. We've navigated many challenging consumer cycles throughout our history and remain committed to operating efficiently and effectively in every macro environment. We have already begun to better align staffing in our stores and CECs to consumer demand as part of our ability to quickly adapt our business. From a capital structure perspective, we remain in a very strong position. We ended the quarter with an adjusted debt-to-capital ratio in the middle of our targeted range of 35%-45%. We also generated sufficient cash to both pay down our revolver by more than $580 million and increase the pace of our share repurchase program relative to the back half of fiscal year 2022. In the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 1.6 million shares for $158 million.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

First quarter also marked our entry into the New York City metro market. We opened a store in Edison, New Jersey, and in the second quarter, we expect to open stores in Wayne, New Jersey, and East Meadow, New York. We anticipate adding two more stores in this market next year. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Jon.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

Thanks, Enrique, and good morning, everyone. Our CarMax Auto Finance business delivered solid results again this quarter, despite the volatile broader lending environment. During the first quarter, CAF's net loans originated was over $2.4 billion. The weighted average contract rate charged to new customers was 9%, which was in line with a year ago, but a significant increase from 8.2% in the previous quarter. The majority of this quarter-over-quarter change came from increased rates charged to consumers rather than from the mix of credit. As the Fed clearly signaled interest rate hikes at the beginning of the calendar year, CAF was able to quickly test and methodically adjust consumer rates to carefully manage sales, finance margin, and penetration.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

As a result of these proactive rate changes, CAF's penetration in the first quarter, net of three-day payoffs, was 39.3% compared with 43.7% last year. Of importance, CAF saw its penetration level improve during the quarter as we observed banks and credit unions raising their own consumer rates during this period. Our Tier 2 partners continued to compete for the attractive CarMax business, resulting in a penetration rate of 25.2% compared with 22.8% last year. Tier 3 accounted for 7.1% of used unit sales compared with 10% a year ago, and we believe this is an indication that these customers have been impacted the most by challenges to vehicle affordability.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

CAF income for the quarter was $204 million, a decrease of 15% or $37 million from the same period last year. I want to take a moment to clarify the year-over-year swing in our loan loss provision. You will recall that last year, CAF recognized $24 million of income in Q1 related to the loan loss provision as we continued to adjust our reserve based on favorable loss performance versus expectations set at the start of the COVID pandemic. CAF's loan loss provision this quarter was $58 million, reflecting a more normalized dollar amount given the loss performance observed within the quarter. Significantly offsetting the provision headwind was our total interest margin, which grew $53 million year over year, including a $36 million increase in interest and fee income and a $17 million reduction in interest expense.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

The lower interest expense was supported by a $9 million benefit from our hedging strategy. The current quarter's provision of $58 million resulted in an ending reserve balance of $458 million or 2.85% of managed receivables. This is a slight increase from the 2.77% at the end of the fourth quarter and includes a 5 basis point adjustment for the growth in Tier 2 and Tier 3 volume originated by CAF. We remain confident in both the resiliency of the CAF consumer and our ability to serve them well. While delinquency rates have increased, our Tier 1 credit losses remain comfortably within our historical operating range of 2%-2.5%. At this point, I would like to also provide an update on our industry-leading online finance experience.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

As a reminder, our unique finance-based shopping engine, or FBS, allows for multiple lenders to decision a single customer or co-applicants on our entire retail inventory, providing a full suite of personalized decisions available at the consumer's fingertips within CarMax.com. During the month of March, we further enhanced this experience by introducing a no impact to your credit score prequalification feature, along with the streamlined application process that provides real-time credit decisions on our full inventory. We are extremely excited about the results thus far. It is currently available to approximately 25% of our online customers, and we anticipate scaling nationwide during the rest of the year. Now I'll turn the call back over to Bill.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Great. Thank you, Jon. Thank you, Enrique. For the past several years, our priorities and investments have focused on building a leading e-commerce platform that integrates buying and selling cars with our best-in-class store experience. I'm pleased to share that during the first quarter, we achieved a significant milestone as we have now enabled online self-progression capabilities for all of our retail customers. Our journey to this point required a massive organizational transformation, and I want to thank all our associates for their tremendous support throughout as we work together to create our omni-channel experience for our customers. In regard to our first quarter online metrics, approximately 11% of retail unit sales were online, up from 8% in the prior year's quarter. Approximately 54% of retail unit sales were omni sell this quarter, down slightly from 56% in the prior year's quarter.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Online, omni, and in-person sales can vary from quarter to quarter, depending on consumer preferences and how they choose to interact with us. While we expect our online and omni sales to grow over time, our goal is to provide the best experience, whether that's in store, online, or a seamless combination of the two. Our wholesale auctions are virtual, so 100% of wholesale sales, which represents 23% of total revenue, are considered online transactions. Total revenue resulting from online transactions was approximately 31%. This is up from 24% in last year's first quarter. Our e-commerce engine, combined with our unparalleled nationwide physical footprint, is a competitive advantage. Our ability to deliver integration across digital and physical transactions gives us access to the largest total addressable market relative to others in our industry and is a key differentiator.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

We're now going to turn our efforts to further improving the experience for our customers and our associates by focusing on the seamlessness of our online and in-store offerings. Some of our key areas of focus include, first, as Jon just mentioned, we're deploying a more sophisticated version of our finance-based shopping product. As interest rates rise, consumers' ability to confidently secure financing is more important than ever. The expansion of our best-in-class prequalification product, once fully deployed, will provide frictionless and seamless access to multi-lender credit terms on every car within our retail inventory. Whether the consumer chooses to browse and purchase from the comfort of their home, walk the lot on their own with their mobile device or shop alongside one of our exceptional sales consultants.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

A second area of focus is continuing to leverage data science, automation, and AI to approve and improve efficiency and effectiveness across our buying organizations, business offices, and customer experience centers. Finally, we will continue to use MaxOffer to acquire vehicles and build on our market-leading position as a buyer of cars. With MaxOffer, we can utilize the Edmunds sales team to open new markets and sign up new dealers for the service. It's another example of our ongoing focus on innovating and finding new opportunities in the white space adjacent to our existing capabilities. We are currently live in over 30 markets and anticipate launching additional markets throughout FY 2023. Staying on Edmunds for a moment, I want to acknowledge that as of June 1st, we reached the one-year anniversary of this acquisition.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

We are glad to have all of the talented Edmunds associates on our team and have been very pleased with the value that's been created so far. We are equally excited about our path forward as we continue to build out together our vehicle and customer acquisition programs. Before closing, while I want to acknowledge there's uncertainty in the market and in regard to consumer behavior, we believe that our fundamentals are strong and that our diversified business model enables us to gain profitable market share in any environment. Multiple opportunities exist to grow the business as we roll forward, and we're excited about the future. With that, we'll be happy to take your questions. Orlando?

[Operator]

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If using a speakerphone, make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, if you'd like to ask a question, press star one at this time. All right, we will take our first question from Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

[Brian Nagel, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Good morning. Can you hear me?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yes. Good morning, Brian.

[Brian Nagel, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Oh, sorry about that. I think I had a transmission problem. Congrats on the continued progress. The question I want to ask, and this from a bigger picture perspective, you know, as we look at the sales trends here, and, you know, Bill, in your prepared comments, you mentioned again some of the same factors. Obviously, the difficult comparisons last year against stimulus and then, you know, elevated prices, confidence, and such. As we're progressing now into 2022, are you seeing more clearly kind of how the consumer really is behaving, the underlying health of the consumer? What's, you know, and what's really driving the business at this point? You know, particularly as you mentioned the, I guess, the strengthening trend through fiscal Q1.

[Brian Nagel, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

You know, is the health of the consumer getting better, or is that more of a function of comparisons?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah, Brian, look, I think overall, the consumer is absolutely a little softer just because of all the things that I've talked about. You know, I think it's hard to quantify, you know, if you think about lapping the stimulus, vehicle affordability, the general inflationary pressures, rising interest rates. You know, if you think about those, it's hard to quantify the impact of each one. Now, I would tell you, the further we've gotten from lapping the stimulus, obviously, the better we've performed. As I noted in my opening remarks, we got sequentially better on comps throughout the quarter, which is encouraging. That being said, I think the consumer is softer, but there's still some demand out there. I think that's what we're trying to really maximize on.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

You know, we're taking several steps to take advantage of that. You know, it's one of the reasons why we continue to take efficiencies and pass what we can along to consumers to make the vehicles a little bit more affordable. In my opening remarks, I talked about selling a little bit more of older vehicles. You know, making the vehicles a little bit more affordable because we know some of the consumers are looking for that. In fact, Brian, you've followed us long enough to know that we used to have what we called a ValueMax, which was really a six-year-old vehicle, older than six or more than 60,000 miles. Typically, that type of inventory runs, let's call it, you know, in a given year, 20%-25% of our sales.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Well, for this quarter, it was more like 35% of our sales. So there is some demand for that. I think the other thing that I would point out is, it's the reason why we also have the lending platform that we do, that we have great third-party lenders, and CAF just to make sure that we can get the most competitive interest rate for our customers. So I think those are the things that we're doing to kind of work through this. While the consumer is softer, you know, there's still some demand out there.

[Brian Nagel, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

That's very helpful. Bill, I mean, if I can just slip one follow-up into that. Are you seeing, you know, as you look at, maybe across the different cohorts of your business, you know, higher priced vehicles, lower priced vehicles, are you seeing a now more significant demand dynamic across those cohorts?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

On the vehicle prices?

[Brian Nagel, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Yeah. Just to get an idea of that.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Okay. Yeah.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Well, what's interesting about it, Brian, is if you look back a year ago, 70% of our inventory was under $25,000. Fast-forward to today, you know, it's more like 43%-45%. That's really a result of inflationary pressures, which again, is one of the reasons why we're focused on you know, getting more affordable inventory out there. That's what our big push is right now. Realizing some folks aren't interested in a higher mile car and or an older car, but again, that's what our focus is right now.

[Brian Nagel, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Okay. I appreciate the color. Thank you.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yep.

[Operator]

Next question will come from John Healy with Northcoast Research. Please go ahead.

[John Healy, Analyst at Northcoast Research]

Thank you. Wanted to try to follow up on that first question, maybe in a little bit different way. When I think about, Bill, what you kind of talked about going on in the business, you've remerchandised, you've got investments into the sales and labor force. Obviously, those mature at different rates. You know, if you looked at kind of going from low double-digit declines in, say, March or April to, you know, low single-digit declines now in comps. What would you attribute the improvement to? Is it conversion? Is it the people in the stores? Is it that consumer might have paused and now they're realizing they have to make a transaction?

[John Healy, Analyst at Northcoast Research]

I would just love to kinda hear how you and the team are attributing the sequential improvement and maybe to what initiatives or are they more consumer related?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

It's a good question, John. I mean, obviously I'd love to tell you that it's because of our continued focus on improving the experience, getting the right inventory in there, improving prices and all that. While I do think that's a factor, I don't think that you can ignore the fact that, you know, a year ago in March, the biggest stimulus checks hit the ground. When you think about it, you know, tax season this year versus last year would've looked very similar. The only difference though is last year, you know, a $1,400 check went out to consumers during tax season. That did not happen this year. That absolutely had an impact. You know, I'm not gonna sit here and say it's all us that's driving that.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

I think there are some macro factors that are allowing it to improve the further you get away from that stimulus.

[John Healy, Analyst at Northcoast Research]

Understood. Thank you.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

I do think as well, like our success in buying cars directly from consumers, as reflected in our self-sufficiency rate, really allows us to buy those older cars. As Bill talked about, you know, our percent of sales coming from older cars went up because the consumer demand is there. Those cars are not easy to buy in auctions, so it's really a nod to our ability to buy cars directly from consumers.

[John Healy, Analyst at Northcoast Research]

Great. Just one follow-up question. I think you mentioned the auction calendar working against the wholesale business this quarter. Will that revert? Will we pick that up in Q2? I was just curious how the timing impact might if there might be a benefit quarter here as we look out for the remainder of the year.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah. No. Great question. First of all, we're very pleased with the auction performance, wholesale performance in general. We're pleased with the fact that we actually grew it. The dynamic was that we had one less Monday sale and swapped it for a Tuesday, and Monday is a bigger auction volume day than a Tuesday. That actually, we got the benefit of that at some point last year. That will not be a pickup. The other thing that I cited though was that we have made the decision to pull some, what we normally run through the auctions, and build those cars to retail. Absent those two things, if you pulled them out, the wholesale would've grown, you know, by more than 10%, which again, we're excited about.

[John Healy, Analyst at Northcoast Research]

Great. Thank you.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yep.

[Operator]

Up next, we'll hear from Sharon Zackfia with William Blair. Please go ahead.

[Sharon Zackfia, Analyst at William Blair]

Hi. Good morning.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Good morning.

[Sharon Zackfia, Analyst at William Blair]

As you think about offering some more value-oriented cars, have you also considered kind of swaying from the, I guess I would say fully reconditioned status that you've historically had, and maybe leaving some scratches or whatever and marking it as is to further enhance the value proposition? I know that's been something you've been leery of in the past from a brand perspective. Then secondarily, obviously, there's a lot of concern that things are gonna get worse before they get better. I mean, how are you positioning from a controllable standpoint in the event that there's another leg down? I mean, how should we think about SG&A and what you can cut if you need to cut it?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yep. I'll tackle both those. I'm sure Enrique will have some comments on the kind of concerns going forward. From your first question as far as the older inventory, Sharon, no. If we're gonna make it a CarMax car, it's gonna be a CarMax car. You know, you take these older cars, not all of them can make the cut. You know, we'll end up trying to run some through retail, and they won't make it. We're bringing them up to the CarMax standards. I think that answers your first question. The other thing I would just point out there is, those cars, and we've talked about this, but we haven't talked about it for a while, those cars are generally more profitable.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

They also provide us a tailwind when you think about margin management, pricing inventory, that kind of thing. We'll continue to do that. We'll continue to bring them up to CarMax standards and not go with a lower standard. As far as the concerns about what may manifest in the future with the consumer and where the consumer is going, you know, Sharon, we've been through this several times in the past. You know, whether it's 2008, 2009 recession, whether it's the depths of COVID, we've been able to navigate it profitably both times. We have lots of levers.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

We've shown that we've been able to pull those levers, whether they're expense levers. You think about, you know, you can slow down some of your growth, you can slow down some of your initiatives, you can pull back on advertising. Your variable will adjust. If it's just, you know, if you wanna secure cash, you know, you can modify your stock buyback. You can stop on some of your capital expenditures or delay. These are just some of the levers that you know that we've pulled in the past, and we're gonna continue to monitor the conditions.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

I'll tell you, as I sit here today, yeah, the consumer's soft, but, now is not the time, I don't think, to be pulling back on our initiatives because the initiatives are what are gonna really help us grow in the future. But that being said, we're certainly aware of the outside factors and we'll continue to monitor.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Yeah. I would just add to that by saying, you know what, we're gonna do it. Our objective really is to ensure that our expenses are in line with customer demand, while at the same time making sure that we're investing in the key areas of the business that are gonna enable us to grow profitability and market share over time. You know, and as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, with the view of that, we've already begun to kind of align our cost structure to current demand through scheduling, through natural attrition. We've already done those. Look, if a recession comes, you know, we're confident in our ability to weather it as we're coming at it from a position of strength. We're profitable, we have a strong balance sheet, and we generate cash.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

We feel, again, as Bill mentioned, we've been through these cycles before, and we feel confident we can manage through it effectively while growing market share as well.

[Sharon Zackfia, Analyst at William Blair]

Okay. Thank you.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Thanks, Sharon.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

[Rajat Gupta, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. You know, nice execution on the retail gross profit per unit. You know, could you help us unpack that a little bit, you know, versus the prior quarter? You know, what drove the sequential uptick there? You know, is it, you know, reconditioning savings? You know, is it just the sourcing mix? You know, is it pricing related? I'm curious if you could bucket those, if possible, and have a follow up.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Rajat. Yeah. The way I think about it, and I talked about this in the opening remarks, you know, we're really trying to walk a fine balance here. We have some efficiencies. Historically, we've always passed our efficiencies along. You know, the big efficiencies that we're working with right now are the fact that we've got self-sufficiency still at a high. But we also have this new dynamic where we're selling some more older cars. As I talked about earlier, these older cars generally carry more margin. That's also an opportunity to manage your margin and pass along efficiencies to the consumers.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

You know, this quarter, you know, obviously it's a little higher than, you know, last year and even our five-year average, and that's 'cause with these efficiencies, we continue to pass along in price savings, but we also took a little bit more to the bottom line, and we monitor, you know, sales elasticity, competitors, inventory levels, that kind of thing. We'll continue to do that going forward. You know, we feel really good about our margin position right now. You know, barring, you know, any other big changes and, you know, keeping an eye on the testing, we feel good about the margins going forward as well.

[Rajat Gupta, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Got it. Relatedly, you know, on that topic, you know, just shifting to SG&A. I mean, is any of this, like, change in, you know, the sourcing mix or, you know, trying to maintain that GPU coming in some way, you know, at the expense of more cost, you know, on the SG&A side? You know, you're at roughly $2,700 per unit, and this is the seasonally strongest quarter typically of the year. So curious, like, what takes this down further, as the year progresses? You know, where are the areas of opportunity? You know, if you could just give us inputs and takes on that front, on how the SG&A per unit should progress, you know, going forward.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah. I'll pass to Enrique in just a second, but just to be clear, like, these. The margin improvements are not coming at the expense of SG&A. The way we think about margin, you know, when we're building the cars, we've absolutely seen inflationary pressures in the build of cars, which goes through the COGS, but we're also working very hard to offset those. Not only are we passing along some savings to the consumer, you know, through some of these efficiencies, but I also feel like because we're offsetting these costs, that's also passing along to consumers because some competitors won't have levers. As the costs go up, which everyone's seeing, whether it's gas, it's parts, it's labor, if they don't have levers to pull, their prices are going up.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

I think about that as also an efficiency on price as well.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Yeah. I would say, just to build on that, you know, there is some pressure on SG&A from the amount of buys, right? We've had tremendous success around the amount of buys. There, you know, we have to staff up to make sure we can accommodate that, and that then flows through to our sales efficiency rate. There is some pressure on SG&A. What I'd tell you, the story in Q1 and the important story on the deleverage is really driven by a couple things, right? Year-over-year, when you look at the deleverage. Number one is, like, we were understaffed last year in the first quarter. As you recall, going back to the pandemic, coming out of the pandemic, we were understaffed, and we spent the back half of last year understaffed, or staffing up. Last year was understaffed.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

We also spent less on a per unit in marketing last year in the first quarter because our inventory was fairly limited, so we spent a little bit less, and we had very strong demand. We're comping over those two things in the first quarter, which put a fair bit of pressure on that leverage rate. I think the second thing as well is in anticipation of a stronger tax season, performance, we had staffed up in our stores and in our CECs, and we had spent more in marketing. Now, those sales didn't come, but as I've talked about, you know, we're fairly nimble, and we can manage those back down, which is what we've already begun to do when it comes to staffing in the CECs and in our stores.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Again, we're doing that through just attrition and through better scheduling, but we can manage that down. I think it's important to understand the Q1 deleverage, and what drove it.

[Rajat Gupta, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Got it. Great. Thanks for the color. I'll jump back in queue.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Thank you, Rajat.

[Operator]

All right. Up next, we'll hear from Daniel Imbro with Stephens Inc. Please go ahead.

[Daniel Imbro, Analyst at Stephens Inc]

Yeah. Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking our question. I wanted to ask on the competitive environment for CAF right now. You know, I think last quarter we talked about how some of the other lenders were extending terms to 84 months, that they weren't passing through higher cost of funds. It feels like you mentioned in your prepared remarks that they were starting to pass through some of those higher cost of funds during the quarter, but just curious how that competitive backdrop's changing. Obviously, CAF penetration went down in the quarter. I mean, was that intentional on your part, walking away from business, or can you talk about what drove that? Thanks.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

Sure. Yeah, appreciate the question, Daniel. Yeah. Thanks for the recognition. The prepared remarks we did state, yeah, I think that the story or the headline for penetration this quarter was really about CAF pricing moves. We're not walking away from business at all. If you looked at the average APR we charged for our customers last quarter, it was 8.2%. This quarter, it's 9%, largely coming from us passing along our increased costs onto the consumer. It's always a delicate balance. You're trying to figure out, you know, managing, making sure you're highly competitive to your customer. Remember, we're competing directly with predominantly credit unions and, to some degree, external banks. We saw that. What we observed, we just went a little sooner than they did.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

Our kind of trough of penetration in the quarter was more in that February than March timeframe, and we watched our competition.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

We observed them raise rates throughout the quarter. We were just a little sooner, and therefore our penetration came back to the cadence within the quarter. I think it'll continue to be that way. Again, trying to manage our penetration, our net interest margin capture, and obviously making sure we're extremely competitive for our customers. It's a delicate balance. It'll continue on, you know, we'll continue to watch what our competitors do and what the Fed does.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Jon, while our penetration went down, those consumers that brought their own financing went up.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

Right. That's generally the offset.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

You know, in our space, usually a customer sees the car, they want it. They can either choose the financing from CAF or again, that's what's great about our program, is they can go externally and not feel like they have to walk away from the car, and that's generally what they do. They just chose to do that this quarter.

[Daniel Imbro, Analyst at Stephens Inc]

Got it. I'll hop back in the queue. Thanks a lot, guys.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Thanks, Daniel.

[Operator]

All right. Up next, we'll take a question from Seth Basham with Wedbush Securities. Please go ahead.

[Nathan Friedman, Analyst at Wedbush Securities]

Yeah. Hi, this is Nathan Friedman on for Seth. Thanks for taking my questions. The first question I want to ask is regarding retail gross profit per unit. Are you expecting this level of GPU going forward given the current used car pricing environment and a return to normalized or possibly accelerated depreciation through the duration of the year? How should we be thinking about that?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah, Nathan, you know, as I said earlier, we feel good about our margins. We've got some tailwinds there. I would tell you know, we've navigated through times of depreciation before, and I think we excel at it. In those times of depreciation before, we've been able to maintain our margins. I would expect that to be similar. I think the only times where our margins have come under pressure a little bit is when you see rapid depreciation over a very short period of time. Even then, it's short-lived. We feel very comfortable about our ability to continue to maintain margins.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Again, we're gonna also, like I said earlier, we'll be testing a lot of different things and making sure that we have an outward eye on where the consumer is and sales elasticity, competitors and all that.

[Nathan Friedman, Analyst at Wedbush Securities]

All right. Thanks for that. My second question is focused on your strong net interest margin performance this quarter and the sequential increase here. Despite your last ABS securitizations margins experiencing pretty large sequential margin declines. Can you provide more detail or quantify how much benefit you experienced from your hedging strategy this quarter and how you're envisioning net interest margins going forward?

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

Sure. Yeah. We, Enrique and I'll probably tag team on that. First, just to talk about the net interest margin growth that we saw during the quarter. Again, the key to remember is our business model and our accounting processes, we earn over time rather than a gain on sale model. You know, the assets that are providing our net interest margin in this quarter are coming from a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, where spreads were incredibly healthy. Obviously, what we bring on this quarter and most recent ABS transaction is really gonna offset what we're rolling off of the portfolio. It just so happens that timing is such that such strong margin assets still remain in our portfolio and will for some time.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

Eventually, if we can keep our margin high, we'll continue to keep, manage that well, then the fall off will be maybe minimized or at least slow on the downturn. With regard to a hedging strategy, I'll let Enrique talk to that.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Yeah. As Jon mentioned in his prepared remarks, you know, we experienced in the quarter a $9 million gain from a hedge benefit. Just to maybe explain that a little bit more, you know, the vast majority of our receivables are funded through the securitization market, and we have an accounting hedge on all of those. We also have alternative funding vehicles, as we've been talking about for a few years, right, with our banking partners. A portion of those receivables have a cash flow hedge, but not an accounting hedge. That's really due to our desire to maintain flexibility in the funding profile. Those receivables that don't have an accounting hedge get marked to market every quarter. We benefited this quarter given the recent sharp and material change in interest rates.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Moving forward, we'd only expect this to be material to any degree in periods, again, where there's sharp and material changes in the interest rate.

[Nathan Friedman, Analyst at Wedbush Securities]

Understood. Thank you for the time and best of luck.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Thank you.

[Operator]

All right. Up next, we will take a question from John Murphy with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[John Murphy, Analyst at Bank of America]

Good morning, everybody. I just wanted to go back to the shift towards older vehicles. Bill, I mean, as we look at the next, you know, few years, the zero- to six-year-old car population is likely to shrink pretty dramatically or not really recover much if that, because what we're seeing on the new vehicle sales side, I mean, new vehicles just don't exist in reality. As you look at going older to beyond six years, it just seems like there's a real opportunity. These seven- to 10-year-old vehicles are, you know, high-quality products. They're very different than they were 10 to 20 years ago. You can rep them pretty well to the consumer. They're good products for you to rep and, you know, sell.

[John Murphy, Analyst at Bank of America]

Just curious, as we think about, you know, this idea that I think you said you went from 25% ValueMax or ValueMax-like vehicles to 35% this quarter, you know, could that be significantly higher over time? Is this the kind of thing that could be not just sort of a move to offset, you know, some of the shortage of supply on the zero to six-year-old side, but something to be more structural and if you think five to 10 years down the line could dramatically increase your addressable market for each store or, you know, in total?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah. Good morning, John. Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, the beauty of our business is whatever the consumers are looking for, we'll put out there. Now, obviously, it's a little harder to find some of these vehicles and build them. You know, we've been through a similar situation. If you go back to 2008 and 2009 in the recession when the new car sales dropped dramatically. It was actually more pronounced back then. I think what that did to like a ten-year supply of newer type cars, because, you know, the SAR was down to really low double digits. I think at one point it's not even below that. There was this bubble that had to work itself through.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

You know, I would expect to see a similar bubble, but not nearly to the magnitude that we saw back in 2008 or 2009. I would tell you the great thing that's different than back then, we were able to navigate then. The great thing that we have now that we didn't is just our self-sufficiency. When I think about that type of inventory, our best source of that is from consumers. The fact that our self-sufficiency is so high, it just gives us a lot of that inventory. You know, I talked a little bit about those over six, but it really doesn't matter. If you break it down zero to four, you know, that's generally like a year ago. That's 66% of our sales or so.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

You know, this quarter is about 50%. Five- to seven-year-old vehicles, again, it's 20%-25%. Now it's 30%-35%. Eight-plus, it's like 15%. It's across the board, and we have a better source of inventory now. We're excited about the opportunity going forward.

[John Murphy, Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay. Maybe just to follow up on that, on the acquisition side, it's you're doing a good job on the self-sufficiency side. But if you think about that consumer buying that vehicle, it sounds like they actually have a higher propensity than the younger vehicles to actually purchase online. I mean, when you're looking at your omni-channel efforts and actually conversion based on the age groups, I mean, is that true that basically this seven-plus-year-old vehicle is actually. That buyer is actually more apt to buy online than sort of the one- to three-year-olds bucket? I mean, I'm just curious what you're seeing there.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah, John. To be honest with you, off the top of my head, I don't know if that's necessarily true. I mean, what we're seeing from an online sales perspective is it's a wide swath of consumers looking for different merchandise. I don't think that's necessarily true that it's the older stuff that's selling online. There's some of it, but I don't think it's disproportionate.

[John Murphy, Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay. All right. Thank you very much.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Thank you, John.

[Operator]

All right. Up next, we'll hear from Michael Montani with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

[Michael Montani, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Good morning.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Morning.

[Michael Montani, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Just wanted to ask first, if I could, if you all could share some incremental color around the buying trends you're seeing. I don't know if you can segment it out by income cohort, kind of $40,000 and below versus $100,000 plus households. But just talk about maybe what you saw there in the quarter and then how that has evolved if the sales have kind of stabilized at down low single digit.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Michael, I don't have the cohort that you're looking for as far as household income. You know, both our online and store appraisal lane has really resonated broadly with all consumers. I will tell you, interestingly for the quarter, you know, it may not be a total surprise. We bought more, what I would call larger SUVs, pickup trucks, from consumers. That may be because of gas prices. You know, on the flip side, we also sold more of that. There were consumers, you know, I think if you pay the right and you have it priced right, that they'll sell. We actually saw that.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

You know, I don't have the data in front of me to tell you, okay, household income, you know, what does that look like on a sale? I will tell you, it's the product that we have out there has really appealed across the spectrum.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Yeah. I guess what I would add to that, just from the credit perspective, you know, trying to align maybe household income with the credit quality of the customer coming through the door. I think we mentioned it before. I think there is demand out there. You see the lower credit quality customer who is still shopping, still applying for credit. They just seem to be maybe priced out of the market at times because of the price of the vehicle and ultimately the monthly payment. I think the demand is there. I think as inventory comes down, they're going to be able to get there. Again, provided there's some correlation between that consumer and the lower income consumer, you know, I think the demand is there.

[Michael Montani, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

If I could just follow up on the profit front. You know, earlier this year, you all had mentioned that gross profit dollars would need to grow kind of high single digits to leverage given some of the investments underway. Just wanted to think about that into the back half of the year. You know, does ad expense kind of step up here given the multi-channel has been initially rolled out? You know, headcount, you know, sounds like it could moderate a bit. Just help us to understand kind of how to think about the pace of SG&A dollars for the back half.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Yeah. What we said last call was we expect in fiscal year 2023, actually, we're going to need an excess of that historical range of high single digit, right? We need more than that to leverage this coming year because what I talked about earlier, largely the annualization of the success in staffing. Q1 really is the quarter where we see most of that impact. We are committed to ensuring that our expenses are in line with customer demand. I talked about that, the steps we've already undertaken. Q1 really from a year-over-year leverage perspective is our toughest quarter.

[Michael Montani, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Thank you.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Thank you.

[Operator]

All right. Up next, we will take a question from Craig Kennison with Baird. Please go ahead.

[Craig Kennison, Analyst at Baird]

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question as well. I wanted to dig into your sourcing mode and really understand your MaxOffer tool a little bit better. Can you give us a feel for the economics of that tool and, you know, why do dealers choose to use it given you're also, you know, competitors in that local market? Are those cars as profitable as cars you source directly from the consumer or from auctions? Thanks.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah. Craig, yeah, we're like I said earlier, we're excited about MaxOffer. It's been a product that we've been working on. It took a little bit of a back seat to the IO, but we're leveraging, you know, similar algorithms. When I think about the profitability, obviously the. Well, first of all, the MaxOffer buys are absolutely more profitable than buying off-site. As I rank them, as you know, I think the most profitable are certainly the IOs that are consumers who bring us the cars for obvious reasons. We're not playing logistics, that kind of thing. But for the MaxOffer, they're not as profitable as a consumer, but they're still more profitable than buying off-site, which again, makes sense because we're not having to pay buy fees.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

As far as why dealers would choose to use it, look, there's lots of dealers out there that have inventory that they're not interested in, or they have appraisals that they're looking at that they really don't know how to value it. This is a service that can be provided, you know, at no cost with a backing on it. You know, it's proven to resonate. Like I said in the call, we're a little over 30 in 30 markets. We have plenty of opportunity to continue to expand it. Edmunds has thousands of dealers that they work with. Our auctions, we have thousands of dealers. We think there's a lot of potential here.

[Craig Kennison, Analyst at Baird]

Can you shed any light on the fee structure? Are you getting a fee or are they getting a fee?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah. We make it worth their time. They actually do make some money on these. And, you know, that's kinda how we work it.

[Craig Kennison, Analyst at Baird]

Perfect. Thank you.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yep.

[Operator]

All right, our next question will come from Evan Silverberg with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Evan Silverberg, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Good morning, all. Evan Silverberg on for Adam Jonas. Recognizing there was some color in the prepared remarks on comps per month year-over-year. Curious if you could give any additional color on an absolute basis, how sales trended throughout the quarter and what you're thinking in terms of, you know, exit rate into 2Q.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah. I mean, like I said in my opening remarks, they got better progressively throughout the quarter from double digits to, you know, low single digit negative comp for the end of the quarter. We've been pleased with that trend. Obviously we'll talk about, you know, June and second quarter at that time. Again, we feel pleased as we exited the quarter.

[Evan Silverberg, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Even within the quarter, are you seeing any trends within the tiers of the consumer, or you think it's pretty steady throughout the different classes?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

No, I think it's pretty steady through the different ones. As Jon pointed out earlier, I think that lower FICO customer is probably being impacted the most by vehicle affordability. But, you know, again, that's the way it started out at the beginning of the quarter, and that's the way it ended the quarter. I think it's fairly consistent throughout the quarter.

[Evan Silverberg, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Thank you.

[Operator]

All right, our next question will come from David Whiston with Morningstar. Please go ahead.

[David Whiston, Analyst at Morningstar]

Thanks. Good morning. It's great to see free cash flow generation along with buybacks and the debt pay down. I was just curious on the roughly $1 billion due two years from now. Is your goal to just get rid of that revolver through internal free cash flow generation before that time, or are you willing to do a five-year or 10-year bond offering at some point?

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

You know, well, as you said, I mean, we are very pleased with our cash flow performance in a quarter, you know, despite a challenging sales quarter. Certainly, our business model was able to generate cash, so we're really pleased. It allowed us to pay down a fair chunk on our revolver, almost $600 million and accelerate our share repurchase program. In terms of what we're gonna do moving forward, I think the way to think about it is, you know, we'll be nimble to the environment. We're gonna do what's right for our shareholders. While taking a look at how we're performing and kind of what the options are for us.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

I think the way to think about it is, you know, we intend on managing within our capital structure at 35%-45% adjusted debt to cap, and that's how we kind of manage the business. We do that by taking on debt, with pulling down debt, and also by our share repurchase program. Those are the levers that we use. Moving forward, you know, we'll end up managing to that rate.

[David Whiston, Analyst at Morningstar]

Okay. On the free cash flow generation, looks like you got a lot of help from inventory reductions, which you hadn't gotten that help in working capital the past several quarters. Just curious, was your inventory decline here intentional to get some free cash flow generation, or is it perhaps a function of buying more older vehicles?

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Yeah, it was a little bit more seasonal. You know, this time of year in the first quarter and leading into the first half of the year, we ramped down on our inventory as we worked through tax season. A little bit of that. We also saw quarter to quarter, just the average cost of our inventory went down a little bit, too. We did see that, and that helped us a little bit as well.

[David Whiston, Analyst at Morningstar]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

All right, moving on, we'll hear from Chris Bottiglieri with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

[Chris Bottiglieri, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to ask a follow-up question on kind of CAF funding cost. I just wanna understand a few things, like the interest rate hedge question. Are you saying that interest rates stay at these levels that the $9 million hedging benefit would unwind? I'm trying to understand, like, how long these hedges last for. Then separately, for the warehouse facility, I can't find it in the 10-K. Like what's the benchmark rate for the warehouse facility? Is that like LIBOR or whatever replaced LIBOR, SOFR, whatever that's called? Just, you know, and then. Sorry, one last follow-on to this. Bigger picture, from what I could tell, you probably passed on about 50 basis points of rate some of the customer.

[Chris Bottiglieri, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

You know, how much of that 300 basis point increase in benchmark rates do you ultimately think you'll pass through? That's it for me.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

I'll take the last one first. Actually, yeah, as you mentioned, we certainly have passed along rates to consumers. You know, as I said previously, it's gonna constantly be a test and assess.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

You recognize what we're trying to manage, penetration, margin, customer experience, all of those things. Yeah, we're gonna watch it very carefully. What I was very pleased with this quarter was, you know, it wasn't just a single move and then forget it, and then absorb it. It was identify pockets of populations that we think are less elastic, more elastic, test, adjust, you know, look at what our competition is doing, and that's generally how we operate. Again, we are not looking to absolutely lead the market in passing that rate along. We wanna make sure we remain highly competitive. Again, fortunately, we have that three-day payoff option the customers may take advantage of to make sure we still sell the car.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

I can't speculate exactly how much we'll pass along, but you understand how we're managing it.

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

Yeah. For the other two questions, in terms of the cost basis in our warehouses, it really is LIBOR and more and more SOFR as that tool kinda matures somewhat. In terms of the hedging question, very specifically the $9 million where we do not have an accounting hedge, we have a cash flow hedge. Again, that really is gonna change. It either be a benefit like it was this quarter, it could be a detriment, only when interest rates are gonna change sharply and materially. That's when they're gonna change because we have that hedge. You know, the hedge is over the life of the loan that we have, right?

[Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations at CarMax]

Again, it's only really gonna change from quarter to quarter when there's a sharp and material change in those interest rates, and that's where we see a benefit or a hit.

[Chris Bottiglieri, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Yeah. That's okay.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

That's on, as I mentioned earlier, the vast majority of our receivables are through the securitization market, will not be impacted on a quarter to quarter basis with that. It's really the very small and much smaller pool of receivables that we have through our banking partners, through alternative funding where we'll see that. If those interest rates don't change sharply or materially, you're really not gonna see anything impactful quarter to quarter.

[Chris Bottiglieri, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

That's okay. Then bigger question, the GPUs. I mean, this feels like a two, three standard deviation move in the GPU. Like, usually you're pretty methodical about kind of passing on to the consumer, taking market share, just kind of, you know, you're pegging that GPU and kind of letting your ASPs being output. So I guess it kind of sounds like from what I could tell, you're comfortable running at this higher GPU level. Like, what's philosophically changing that's causing you to kind of shift towards GPU and maybe less about market share? Or maybe I'm wrong here and just understanding incorrectly. How would you frame it?

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

No, I think you're right. It is a lot. I mean, any given quarter you can be $50-$80 difference. This is a lot, obviously, a little bit more than that, and it was a conscious decision. But again, the way we approach this is we really look for efficiencies first and foremost. If we find the efficiencies, then you have the decision to make. Do you take a little bit more to margin? You have to look at a lot of factors in order to determine that, and how much do you put towards the price. Just based on all the factors, you know, we took some of these efficiencies, so it's really not on the backs of the consumer, what they were paying before.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

We're actually passing some of the efficiencies, some of these additional ones from the older vehicles and the self-sufficiency. We continue to pass them, and then we took a little bit more this quarter. It was a conscious decision. As far as going forward, we'll continue to monitor things and what competitors are doing and the elasticity and make decisions as we always do during the quarter.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

We've been able to do that while growing our market. Share-

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Within the quarter, right? We've been able to grow margin-

[Chris Bottiglieri, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Oh, no, absolutely. Yeah.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

Our market share.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah.

[Chris Bottiglieri, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Yeah. Sure. Okay. Cool. Thank you.

[Operator]

All right. We'll take a follow-up from Chris Pierce with Needham. Please go ahead.

[Chris Pierce, Analyst at Needham]

Hey, good morning. You guys have talked about better aligning expenses, but you've also talked about growing market share, and then just that last question, the GPU comfort you have at this higher level. Just curious how to think about advertising going forward, because you've kind of got a hobbled competitor out there, but I know the end market isn't really, you know, on fire either. So I'm kind of curious how you're thinking about advertising and advertising per vehicle going forward.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah. Yeah, thank you for the question, Chris. Look, I think our stance on advertising is still what it's been, as we've said for this upcoming year. You know, we expected to have a step up. I mean, keep in mind, if you go back pre-COVID, I think, Enrique, we're 70% up in-

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

In total dollars.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah.

[Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO at CarMax]

On a per unit basis, it was about 60%.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Yeah. You know, when I think about advertising, we had a lot of good things to say. It's even though obviously the consumer's soft, there's a lot of advertising dollars being put in by everybody. I think the way that we will continue to go forward is you know, with the guidance that we originally gave, which was you know, really more in the ballpark of, let's call it the $350 per unit. A little bit higher this quarter, but I think that's a good way to think about it as we go forward. You know, we've got lots of new capabilities. When you think about online self-progression, we do anticipate at some point later in the year that we'll start to advertise that.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

When we do that, we'll shift some dollars around. You know, we're always moving things between acquisition and awareness and whether it's appraisal, awareness, whether it's, you know, consumer, retail consumer awareness. We're always moving things around on any given quarter. You know, I would look for some, you know, new messaging later on this year.

[Chris Pierce, Analyst at Needham]

All right. Thank you.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We have no further questions at this time. I'll turn the conference back over to Bill for any closing remarks.

[Bill Nash, President and CEO at CarMax]

All right. Well, great. Well, thank you all for joining the call today, and as always, thank you for your questions and your support. As I always do, I wanna thank our associates for everything they do and their commitment to making a positive impact on the customers and each other in our communities, and even particularly the environment. We just recently published our 2022 Responsibility Report. If you haven't had a chance to look at it, I would highly encourage you to take a look at it. We're really proud of the values that we live every day and our ongoing commitment to all of our stakeholders to drive long-term sustainable value creation. Again, thank you for your time today, and we'll talk again next quarter.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. We thank you again for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Bill Nash, President and CEO
• David Lowenstein, VP of Investor Relations
• Enrique Mayor-Mora, EVP and CFO
• Jon Daniels, SVP of CarMax Auto Finance Operations

Analysts

• Brian Nagel, Analyst at Oppenheimer
• Chris Bottiglieri, Analyst at BNP Paribas
• Chris Pierce, Analyst at Needham
• Craig Kennison, Analyst at Baird
• Daniel Imbro, Analyst at Stephens Inc
• David Whiston, Analyst at Morningstar
• Evan Silverberg, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• John Healy, Analyst at Northcoast Research
• John Murphy, Analyst at Bank of America
• Michael Montani, Analyst at Evercore ISI
• Nathan Friedman, Analyst at Wedbush Securities
• Rajat Gupta, Analyst at JPMorgan
• Sharon Zackfia, Analyst at William Blair