Earnings call transcript: U-Haul Holding Co Q2 2026 misses EPS forecast, stock dips

U-Haul Holding Co reported its second-quarter 2026 earnings, revealing a notable miss on both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue forecasts. The company posted an EPS of $0.54, falling short of the anticipated $0.66, marking an 18.18% negative surprise. Revenue came in at 1.72 billion, slightly below the forecast of 1.73 billion. Following the earnings announcement, U-Haul's stock declined by 1.54% to $53.40, reflecting investor disappointment.

Key Takeaways

• U-Haul reported a significant decrease in quarterly earnings compared to the previous year.
• The company missed both EPS and revenue forecasts for Q2 2026.
• Stock price dropped 1.54% post-earnings announcement.
• U-Haul continues to expand its dealer network and U-Box services.
• The company anticipates stabilization in vehicle costs by early next year.

Company Performance

U-Haul Holding Co's performance for Q2 2026 showed a decline in earnings, with net income falling to $106 million from $187 million in the same quarter last year. Despite the earnings drop, the company saw growth in its moving and storage segment, with adjusted EBITDA increasing by 6% to nearly $32 million. The equipment rental and storage revenues also experienced growth, increasing by 2% and 10%, respectively.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 1.72 billion, slightly down from the forecast of 1.73 billion.
• Earnings per share: $0.54, compared to $0.96 in the same quarter last year.
• Adjusted EBITDA in moving and storage: Increased 6% to nearly $32 million.
• Equipment rental revenue: Increased by $23 million (2%).
• Storage revenues: Up nearly $22 million (10%).

Earnings vs. Forecast

U-Haul's Q2 2026 earnings missed analyst expectations, with an EPS of $0.54 against a forecast of $0.66, resulting in an 18.18% negative surprise. Revenue also fell short of expectations, coming in at 1.72 billion compared to the forecasted 1.73 billion. This miss is a departure from previous quarters where the company had met or exceeded expectations.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, U-Haul's stock price dropped by 1.54%, closing at $53.40. This decline reflects investor disappointment over the earnings miss and aligns with the stock's movement within its 52-week range of $52 to $75.92. The broader market trends have shown resilience, but U-Haul's performance indicates specific challenges facing the company.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking forward, U-Haul expects depreciation expenses to peak by the end of this year or early next year. The company is focusing on expanding its dealer network and investing in the self-storage and U-Box segments to drive growth. U-Haul anticipates potential normalization of vehicle costs, which could positively impact future profitability.

Executive Commentary

Sam Shoen, an executive at U-Haul, emphasized the company's market share gains, stating, "We're gaining market share unquestionably." Chairman Joe Shoen commented on industry challenges, noting, "It's been a political agenda all along, and not a manufacturing agenda." These insights highlight U-Haul's strategic focus and the external factors affecting its operations.

Risks and Challenges

• Increased depreciation due to fleet expansion.
• Loss incurred on the disposal of retired rental equipment.
• Competitive pressures in the self-storage market.
• Impact of existing home sales depression on the moving market.
• Potential challenges in vehicle pricing and tariff impacts.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about U-Haul's depreciation methodologies for different vehicle types and explored the challenges in vehicle pricing and tariffs. The company also discussed its U-Box strategy and potential profitability, as well as self-storage market dynamics and pricing strategies. These discussions provided insights into U-Haul's operational strategies and market positioning.

Full transcript - U-Haul Holding Co (UHAL) Q2 2026:

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the U-Haul Holding Company's second-quarter fiscal 2026 investor conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a timed call. If you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, November 6, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sebastien Reyes. Please go ahead.

Sebastien Reyes, Company Representative, U-Haul Holding Company: Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the U-Haul Holding Company's second-quarter 2026 investor call. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that certain of the statements during this call, including, without limitation, statements regarding revenue, expenses, income, and general growth of our business, may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified. Certain factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected.

For discussion of the risks and uncertainties that may affect the company's business and future operating results, please refer to the company's public SEC filings in Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2025, which is on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. I will now turn the call over to Joe Shoen, Chairman of U-Haul Holding Company.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Thanks, Sebastien. The earnings crush of increased depreciation and change from booking gains on equipment sales to booking losses on equipment sales became evident this quarter. We reported this over two years ago, that we were having to pay too much for trucks. This pounding is likely to continue for some time as OEM manufacturers continue to bring current pricing in line. Resale values will likely decline roughly proportionally. While I'm glad to bring on new vehicles at lower costs, this likely will depress earnings in the current period. Since July, we have been working to expand our dealer network well above the historical pace. This should help us better balance truck and trailer inventories. By increasing demand. I expect some success here. We spent more on repair in the quarter than I had anticipated. We are working a plan to slightly reel these repair cost increases.

As you all know, our customers drive the equivalent of to the moon and back more than 12 times a day, so repair or maintenance will always be a significant cost. Mileage, however, is not up, so we can reel this expense back a bit. Self-storage is a positive, but it remains a slugfest. Not very many gains are coming easily, even on good projects. I am focused more on expanding our footprint than in increasing our depth. Competition is strong. Customers are value-conscious. That is an environment that U-Haul usually competes in well. Self-storage is still viewed positively by lenders, which is encouraging new competitors to enter in some markets. The administration is having success in reducing ICE regulation that has driven unnecessary dislocations in the transportation economy. It has long been a dirty little secret that these regulations are politically and not environmentally driven.

As the unproductive regulations on vehicle manufacturers and users subside, I expect a reordering that will benefit citizens and businesses alike. This is very positive for the transportation economy, although the transportation economy overall will have to eat some huge residual costs from the ill-conceived green regulation. In summary, our various business lines are solid, and our results have covered a lot of expenses but are short in return to shareholders. I will now turn the meeting over to Jason to closer review the financial results.

Jason, Financial Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Thanks, Joe. Yesterday, we reported second-quarter earnings of $106 million. That's compared to $187 million for the same quarter last year. This is a $0.54 per non-voting share EPS number this quarter compared to $0.96 per share non-voting share in the second quarter of last year. Earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation, what we're calling adjusted EBITDA, in our moving and storage segment increased 6% or nearly $32 million for the quarter. This is about the same amount of improvement that we saw in the first quarter of this year. Revenue growth across all of our moving and storage product lines led to this increase. Included in our earnings release and financial supplement is a reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to GAAP earnings.

Once again this quarter, the largest difference between adjusted EBITDA and GAAP earnings is depreciation, and that's also the cause of the largest negative variance in earnings year over year. During the second quarter of this year, we reported a $38 million loss on the disposal of retired rental equipment. Whereas last year at this time, we reported an $18 million gain. Cargo vans that we purchased over the last two years that are now being sold came into the fleet with a higher cost. And the current market resale values are not reflecting that. Resulting in the loss. We have increased the pace of depreciation on the remaining units to reflect this new reality. Additionally, we have depreciation from increasing the size of the box truck fleet by approximately 10,000 units compared to September of last year.

Between fleet depreciation and the loss on disposal, we experienced a $107 million cost increase for the quarter compared to the same time last year. Translated to EPS, that's about $0.43 a share. As a reminder, our total decline in earnings per share for the quarter was $0.42. For the second quarter, our equipment rental revenue results had a $23 million increase. That's about 2%. Revenue per transaction increased for both our in-town and one-way markets compared to the same time last year. There was a decrease in overall transactions. In a move intended to improve customer convenience, we're increasing the number of independent dealer locations across our network. In the last 12 months, we've added nearly 1,000 new locations. In fact, for the first time in our history, we have eclipsed the 25,000 location count, and the plan is to continue adding.

This, in conjunction with the increase in the size of our truck fleet, we believe there's an opportunity to grow moving transactions. October results came in below trend. We're working for an improved November. Capital expenditures for new rental equipment for the first six months of this year were $1,325 million. That's up $169 million compared to last year. For the last 12 months, so the trailing 12 months, our gross fleet spend has been approximately $2,032 million. If you net out equipment sales, it was $1,358 million. I estimate that close to $640 million of the gross spending was growth-related. We had another strong quarter for self-storage. Storage revenues were up nearly $22 million, which is about 10%. Average revenue per foot continued to improve across the entire portfolio by just under 5%. While same store was up about 4%.

We are seeing the cumulative effects of our rate increases flowing through to revenue. Our same store occupancy decreased by 350 basis points in the quarter to 90.5%. As I mentioned last quarter, in July, we took on an effort system-wide to increase the number of available units at our existing locations by focusing on delinquent units. This effort did not affect revenue directly, as we do not record revenue until it is collected, but it did have the effect of reducing our reported occupancy levels for now. Of that 350 basis point decline in same store occupancy, about 220 basis points of that was related to removal of delinquent tenants. Net tenant move-ins, while slower than recent years, have picked up compared to where we were at last year adjusted for delinquent units.

During the first six months of fiscal 2026, we invested $526 million in real estate acquisitions along with self-storage and U-Box warehouse development. That is down $208 million over the first six months compared to last year's first six months. During the second quarter, we added 23 locations with storage. That translates to about 1.6 million new net rentable sq ft. We currently have 6.5 million sq ft being actively developed across 116 projects. Our U-Box revenue results are included in other revenue in our 10-Q filing. This line item increased $12 million, of which U-Box was a large part of that. We continue to have success increasing moving transactions as well as increasing the number of containers that our customers keep in storage, although the pace of growth for both slowed in the quarter. Moving and storage operating expenses were up $19 million for the second quarter.

As a percent of revenue, we improved compared to the second quarter of last year. The largest component of the—one of the larger components of the increase was personnel, which was up $12 million, but that increased at about the same rate as revenue increased. Our liability costs associated with the fleet were up $23 million, and fleet repair and maintenance, as Joe mentioned, was up $10 million. Regarding the liability costs, we've made progress on the self-insurance reserves for moving and storage. Over the last six months, we've increased our liability by $43 million. As of September 2025, cash, along with availability from existing loan facilities at our moving and storage segment, totaled $1,376 million. Supplemental financial information as of the end of September is available at our investor website, investors.uhall.com, under what we call Investor Kit.

With that, I would like to hand the call back to our operator, Angeline, to begin the question and answer portion of the call.

Speaker 1: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star 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 followed by the number two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Steven Ralston with Zacks. Please go ahead.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: I'd like to talk about the forest, looking at the forest instead of the trees. I'd like to congratulate you on a record top line of any quarter in the company's history. Granted, the second fiscal quarter is your strongest seasonal quarter, but nevertheless, it's a record. Now to the trees. As we all know, these depreciation expenses have recently been dragged to the top line. I'd like to start the conversation by clarifying your method of depreciation. I think in the past, you've mentioned that you use accelerated depreciation now. But I've noticed that sometimes the depreciation is higher in the seasonally high quarters. Is there any component of usage involved in the depreciation scheduling?

Jason, Financial Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Steven, hi. This is Jason. For our rental fleet, we have two basic methodologies for depreciation. The first would be for our box trucks. That is a dynamic depreciation model that depreciates faster in the earlier years and then slows down over time. We hold those assets generally 12-15 years, and that schedule has not changed. It does result if you have uneven purchases of box trucks, you can have that number either go up or down in a year. The second part of the fleet is our cargo vans and pickups that we hold anywhere from 12-24 months. That is a straight-line method that is a little more responsive to what the resale market is because we sell them so much quicker. What we are seeing today is.

A cargo van that would have depreciated at a certain level three years ago is now depreciating two to three times that rate per month because of what we're seeing in the resale market.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Thank you. When do you expect the depreciation expenses to peak on a quarterly basis? You have better insight into what your anticipated expenses, purchases are going to be and also the pricing.

Jason, Financial Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Again, I'll look at it in two components. On the box truck fleet, I think our initial look into next year is we're going to be buying fewer of those trucks. I would expect the box truck depreciation to peak towards the end of this year, beginning of next year, then start to trend down. On the cargo vans, the price that we're looking to pay for model year 2026 cargo vans is going to be coming down. That's going to be dependent upon the resale market, and that's tough to judge right now. I'd like to think that we're peaking by the end of this year, and then it should maybe flatten out and start to come down. We are not increasing the size of that part of the fleet, so at least the total number of units subject to additional depreciation isn't growing.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Okay. I want to add there, Jason. I want to add that. The question always is, do you take the hit every month? Do you take the hit when you turn the vehicle? It's a bit of a guessing game, and we will routinely look at that and then mid-course make a correction because it's just how things work out. We go in with what we think is a reasonable rate of depreciation. These last 18 months, and it's really come clear here, the depreciation has been significantly greater. When I look at this number, I add the depreciation and the loss on sale to try to understand what's going to be the peak. It's a little bit hard for us to forecast.

Not consulting Jason here, but speaking from my personal opinion, I think we're a year away from the peak on the pickups and vans. So much of this depends on how the new vehicles get priced. Because used vehicles just kind of are a reflection of new vehicle pricing. If new vehicle pricing comes down, it could affect our assumptions. Oh, that's good. At which point we'll have the depreciation. Thank you. A little harder question is, could you anticipate what the level of depreciation is going to be at the next trough? To put it into context, in the beginning of the 2000s, actually pre-COVID, your level of depreciation on an annual basis was about $600 million. Actually, during COVID, because you weren't buying more vehicles, as many as you wanted, it actually dropped below $500 million for two years.

Now we're at a run rate of basically $1.1 billion of depreciation. If you could get back to a trough of $600 million, the earnings this quarter would have tripled from what you reported. That's how much of an effect this has. Given this run rate of over $1 billion in depreciation, at some point, it should peak and then trough out. Do you have any idea where that trough would be, dollars-wise?

Jason, Financial Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: This is Jason. I'll take a shot at that. From when we went into COVID to where we're at today, the fleet is at least 20,000 units larger, and the trucks are costing more. Those are the two factors that are pushing the annual depreciation number up, right? If we were ever to get to a point where we bought the same number of trucks every year, our maintenance CapEx number would end up becoming our depreciation number over time. Going into COVID, at that time, I was quoting something $600 million in for the trucks at least, not including trailers or the U-Box containers. Where we should end up is going to be much closer to hovering around the $700-$750 million range, I would think, at a normalized number, given the size of the fleet today.

It's going to take a little bit of time to get there.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Thank you. That's very helpful. Last question on a completely different topic. I've noticed on social media, I've seen a lot of clips concerning some of your employees talking about day-to-day operations and innovations in equipment design. Is that a new effort of yours, or have I just been missing it prior to this?

Sebastien Reyes, Company Representative, U-Haul Holding Company: This is Sebastien. I think what you might be seeing a lot of is around our toy hauler, Steven.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Mm-hmm.

Sebastien Reyes, Company Representative, U-Haul Holding Company: Yeah. I mean, that's a real exciting opportunity for us. We've got a lot of really great pickup on that from really big automotive publications. I think it's a market that we weren't serving as good as we could have before and is just a natural extension of 80 years of being in the trailer business. I think there's a lot of excitement around that. I think the public's starting to realize that as well.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Thank you for taking my questions.

Speaker 1: Thank you. The next question comes from Steven Ramsey with Thompson Research. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6: Good morning, everyone. I wanted to ask a couple of questions on growing the dealer network. You're optimistic on that effort. Can you share some of the reasons why you're optimistic, and what is the timeline for gaining momentum on this effort as far as driving more moving transactions?

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: This is Joe. I'll speak to it. I think I'm expecting to see visible numbers by May, maybe before then. It depends how well I can get the organization to perform. Always, you're looking at market penetration. When I segment out market penetration across various markets, I continue to see areas where we're lagging our own performance. I don't believe that the market is that different or the potential is that much different in one market from another. Let's say eliminating Manhattan and places like that, but going to more communities: Denver, Phoenix. I think that there is substantial opportunity for increased penetration, and dealers is our most effective way to enter that. Over the last 30 years, dealers have hovered at just under half of our truck and trailer rental revenue. Today, they're running maybe 3 percentage points below where they've been running.

I think we've got it out of kilter about that much. Nothing is certain, but I have significant indicators that tell me we've neglected this. Whether. I think there's a nice increase here. Also, for better or worse, we actually are a little bit overfleeted right now, which is why Jason reports we have a little bit lower utilization. You see, oftentimes in the past, I couldn't do this maneuver. I didn't have enough equipment to allocate. Today, I have equipment I can allocate. To me, it's a big opportunity. Of course, if I can't do this, then Jason and other people in the company will insist we squeeze the fleet down a little bit in order to up utilization. These are just kind of opposite forces. I believe there's significant room in market penetration, and that's what I'm driving on.

We should see results by June, I believe. I'll see them sooner than that because I'll see different numbers than you see. I believe by then, we should see some results.

Speaker 6: That's helpful color. Maybe thinking even further out than this, on this effort to grow the dealer network, can you talk about the long-term insights or goals as far as creating new owned U-Haul locations and the potential benefits of more U-Box warehouses in these markets? If this were to come about, is this something two years out, four years out, if this comes to fruition?

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: I have been steadily driving the whole company, not just me. The whole company has been steadily driving on increasing our storage and U-Box footprint, quicker than our U-Move footprint. I think that is because, to justify a big company-owned operation, you are going to suck; you have to suck in a fair amount of revenue. That may not be available in markets where there is plenty of U-Box and U-Store business. Of the stores that we have opened in the last, I do not know, two or three years, nearly every one of them is going to do more self-storage than it does truck and trailer rental revenue. That would be, I think, a continuing pattern.

Speaker 6: Okay. That's helpful. You talked about, as you described, the slugfest in storage. Would you say that the competitive intensity there is equal to what it has been, or is it intensifying further? What are you looking for that might show this is evolving to be a bit more healthy competitive environment than it has been in this recent period?

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Jason always brings me move-in, move-out rental rates for our competition. They quote that. Their move-in rental rates are massively below their move-out rates, which means they're bringing you in on kind of a little bit of an overly zealous discount and then cranking the rate up. My experience is that offends a lot of customers. They would rather just be told about what it's going to cost them, and then they'll figure it into their budget. That causes our people at the point of sale to be quoting a first, say, three or four months rental rate that's going to be higher than what they're going to quote from the competition. A 30% gap would not be a big gap. I've seen 50% gaps. This to me is foolish.

It sets up an expectation in the customer that we can't provide the product at those low rates. It's not economical for anyone. Our competition, the big rates primarily, are dead set on that pricing mechanism. We are just—it just comes kind of being a little bit of a slugfest. Overall, I think relatively, we're coming out well. Now, it's a tough thing to know because everybody does their information a little bit different. I think we're coming out well overall. I see a lot of runway ahead of us. As I said in my prepared comments, we're focusing a little bit more on breadth of coverage than depth of coverage, where I think, due to their management structure, a lot of our rate competitors are focusing more on depth of coverage than breadth.

Primarily because we're already in all these markets because of truck and trailer rentals. We have just a little different strategy. I'm not saying it's a better or worse strategy. It's a little different. Which is fine for me. I like a little differentiation.

Speaker 6: Okay. That's helpful. Then last quick one for me. I know your activity in moving and storage is generally tied to overall economic activity and life events. In this time period, with existing home sales being so depressed, I'm curious if you think in a recovery scenario on existing home sales, if that would be a wave that would lift the growth of one-way moves and lift U-Box growth even further, maybe just the general linkage of one-way moves and U-Box to existing home sales.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: I don't think it'll be enough of a boost that you'll be able to see it. No doubt there's some boost there, but the transaction volume it takes to move that is pretty significant. I think that there's been a lot of consumer confusion or uncertainty. I think as that becomes stable, my experience has been that we see a little more one-way rentals and a little bit longer one-way rentals. We're not seeing that presently. This is a pattern that I've seen three, maybe four times in my career. I don't have a good way to estimate how long this will continue. This has been a trend for a little while now. We'll see. We saw just the opposite during COVID. We got a little longer rental and a little more percentage of one-ways. It was strangely that.

Turned out people were very eager to move. No, I do not think that home sales are going to be something that would be good for you to use as a tent stake to try to drive a prediction.

Speaker 6: Okay. That's helpful color. Thank you for the time.

Speaker 1: Thank you. The next question comes from Andy Liu with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4: Hey, thank you. Good morning, guys. Yeah. You said a lot of color around the depreciation here. I want to focus more on kind of the cash side, right? Thinking through your comments of the input cost being higher to get the new trucks and the second-hand market not catching up to that, I just wonder, on a capital allocation standpoint, as you look at it today, how does the return there compare to money to spend elsewhere, for example, the storage side on the development you guys previously called out? A 10% yield on this. Just wondering, when you think about the avenues or where you could deploy capital, how does spanning the fleet versus storage compare?

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: I want to say one cautionary note. That is, what is a business cycle? The problem with, not the problem, but part of what you have to look at with the truck, it's a little bit longer asset than many people think. Certainly, storage is. With that, I'll let Jason speak to it.

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: I was going to say about the same thing. Comparatively speaking, where costs are at and where revenue is at today, the return on trucks has directionally gone down from where it used to be. It is a combined product offering for us. There were times when storage was not returning quite as well, and the trucks and trailers carried the day for us. I do not think we are going to, because of just the current cost structure for a few years, we are going to adjust the long-term strategy of the company. We do have some work to get out of this cycle.

Speaker 4: Okay. Yeah. I totally hear you on that point there. Double-clicking on the sort of moving side of business, you guys mentioned sort of the transaction volume side has been coming down. I'm just curious how that has kind of trended through the quarter. On a year-over-year basis, have things—the year-over-year trend for, say, July to September—has that been roughly the same through the three months, or have things been trending better or worse throughout the quarter? Just want to get a sense of—I get that the quarter is down, but just wondering how that trended. Is it sequentially improving through the quarter, or is it about the same through the three months?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Yeah. On transactions, we will have a good month, and then we kind of recede a little bit. I would say I think the fourth quarter of last year, the first quarter of this year, that six-month period, we had started to trend up in transactions. Then this quarter, we took a little bit of a step back. We saw a little bit more of that same sort of step-back trend in October. It has been the last couple of years, it has been tough to get the transaction number to turn.

Speaker 4: Got it. Got it. No, that's helpful. That's helpful. And then my last question, kind of shifting to the storage side, I know you guys called out last quarter that you were working through getting some tenants out who weren't paying. I see there's some impact on the occupancy here. I just want to get a sense of, is that—are you guys—have you guys gone through the bulk of that and you're set up to backfill those spaces and get occupancy up? Or is there still a good amount of evictions that you guys have to do on the storage front?

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Yeah. This is Joe. Yeah. We're through that, and we're now in the cycle of where I want us to be, which is now re-rent those rooms all to paying customers. We're making some gains there. Of course, going into the fall is the wrong time to execute this maneuver because overall demand isn't as strong as it is in the spring. Seeing gains right now, I think we did the right thing. Overall revenue is up. If you measure money, which a lot of us do, the money is working out correctly. It also, psychologically, with my managers, opened up more opportunity. I think that that's going to have a subtle but very positive effect as we come into spring. Just how the winter's always a little bit goofy, but it's always down a little bit, but sometimes not as much.

We're going to continue to drive on this. I think we're through it. It was the right move. Now the question just is, how fast can we drive revenue?

Speaker 4: Okay. Awesome. That's super helpful. Thanks so much for taking the question.

Speaker 1: Thank you. The next question comes from Jeff Kaufman with Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2: Thank you very much, and good morning, everybody. A number of my questions have been asked, so I'm going to just kind of go in a different direction. I know you buy most of your vehicles domestically. Ford and General Motors. But have you seen any impact to vehicle prices or vehicle costs from the tariffs that are out there?

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: I'll try this. We buy some Stellantis vans that are assembled in Mexico. We buy some General Motors products that are assembled in Mexico, or final assembly. These parts, you know better than I do, come from all over the planet. They would be who we thought we would see the worst impact. So far, they've been picking their way through that minefield successfully, would be what I would say. In other words, when it reflects down to us and we see the net cost, they're still not clear out of the ballpark. Going in, we thought we might see the GM product built in Mexico be 15%-20% non-competitive. We're not seeing that presently. I don't know how the numbers are working at their end. So far, Ford has a little advantage here, I think. They advertise that.

They have higher domestic content, and they're a little bit less influenced. Here again, some of their raw materials come through this foreign supply chain, and it's very complex. In speaking with people, they all are dreading it, but none of them have something they can make stick with the end user, if that makes sense. Now, this could change as time goes on. I'm sure they all hedge stuff and did a whole bunch of things, and we're kind of living on that right now.

Speaker 2: Now, does this show up primarily in the cost of your vehicle purchases and CapEx, or does some of this show up in repair and maintenance costs for you?

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: It's going to be primarily in new vehicle costs. Although parts prices are going up, that's just a fact of life. And a lot of these components, let's pick an alternator, many of those are made non-domestically. They're sourced non-domestically. They're going to encounter some tariff difficulties. In the big number, it's not showing up yet, but everybody who's in the purchasing end of this is very wary and constantly trying to find some way to wiggle and hold prices a little longer. We've put a lot of pressure on suppliers to hold prices. I think a bunch of them could see this, and so they hedged their situation somehow and have kept the price increases way below these. You see numbers quoted on tariffs of 20% and 25%. We're not seeing that come through. I don't know.

Jason, do you want to address it?

Speaker 2: No, I haven't seen that either. All right, that's my question. Thank you.

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Jeff, thanks for initiating coverage also. We appreciate that.

Speaker 1: Thank you. The next question comes from Jamie Willen with Willen Management. Please go ahead.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Thanks, Alison. Just wanted to touch base on U-Box a little bit. First, when does it come to the point in time where it has to be its own segment? I thought it was 10% of the revenues. I think we're approaching that. Can you discuss U-Box's positioning? Obviously, the revenue growth in U-Box is far greater than the rest of the company. What are the dynamics there that are causing U-Box to have such large increases, and are they gaining market share? Lastly, as their revenues increase, do they reach an inflection point on operating profitability?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Hi, Jamie. This is Sam Shoen. Can you repeat the last part of your question one more time?

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: As revenues are gaining and growing in U-Box, is there an inflection point where profitability dynamically moves forward?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Got it. I'll let Jason answer that last part. I'll just touch on some general U-Box subjects. It's good to hear from you. Thanks for the questions. As you noted, we continue to find success in U-Box. We had a very hot summer, and then ended the quarter with a little bit of a whimper. Compared to the same period last year, in all our big revenue components of U-Box, we had increases on a percentage basis and gross basis as well. Those are shipping income, storage rent, and delivery income. Those are the real drivers for U-Box revenue. When you think about U-Box expenses, freight is where you need to focus on. Those are under control. Assets aren't a limitation right now. Plenty of containers, plenty of warehouse space, plenty of delivery equipment. You mentioned some of the things that are different about U-Box.

A lot is the same. U-Box is a hardwork business, just like the rest of U-Haul, but we're still poised for it to be an exciting cornerstone of the future. Does that help give you some color?

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Do you see us gaining market share? Are we having a greater percentage of the business that's overall there? Or is the market for that type of moving growing significantly as well?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: No, we're gaining market share. We've got our eyes set on becoming the market leader. That's our goal. There's no doubt you talk to anybody in the competition, we're making their life a living hell. We're gaining market share unquestionably.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Living hell is good. As far as the profitability inflection point?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Jamie, this is Jason. The interesting thing about U-Box is it has the profitability profile of both U-Move and U-Store, right? On the moving transactions, over the years, Sam has made great strides in the logistics side of the business and locking down those costs and being able to quote. I think we are on the actual over-the-road getting boxes from one city to another, through either over-the-road carriers or through our customers delivering the boxes for us. I think we are at a good margin level there. The remaining piece of the puzzle where we can really take off is getting more of these boxes in storage. The overall occupancy in our facilities is a fraction of where we are at with the self-storage product. There is a big upside on that as far as profitability explosion.

My rough estimate continues to be that we're typically on a quarter-to-quarter basis within a couple of percentage points of the overall moving and storage margin. The more boxes we fill, just like the more storage rooms we fill, our margin profile is going to increase.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Okay. Does the length of time that a U-Box is in storage, has that changed at all over the last year or two?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: No. Generally, it's very similar to what we're seeing in traditional storage, which I think is a positive.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Okay. Good. Last question about capital allocation. Obviously, we're still adding a whole bunch of self-storage, which does not contribute to profitability for a while. Would you ever think of selling off a bit of the self-storage that might be not our target markets and not our larger areas so we can sell those off at full price to be able to increase where we do have some market strength and get some greater synergies?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: I'll take that one. With very few exceptions, the answer is no. Partially because our existing footprint is. We're strong in Wyoming. We're strong in North Dakota. That is compare and contrast, let's say, to Public. Public isn't so motivated in those two states because they don't have operations. For them to initiate anything, they have to make a big push. Not to say they won't eventually make that push, but they have different priorities. We have some locations that I would say that. Actually, we have some locations we bought from either Public or Extra Space because they were fringe for their way they look at the market, but not so fringe for us. I don't think that's a good strategy for us at this time. We're not totally stressed. Typically, not always, but typically, those locations have a decent return.

They're not disadvantaged. If you get a lower rate, typically, you have a little lower going-in cost. Now, that's not true with new construction. With new construction, you'll be in Nowheresville, and it costs about what construction costs in every metro area. On existing storage, you don't end up paying. You pay a little discount in the market because it's basically NOI-driven or rate-driven.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: I guess the question is, if Public Storage wanted to go into Wyoming, would it not be to their advantage to buy a leading participant in the market and pay full price to get there?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Yes. Then that is what they will do. They will do that. Absolutely. You can count on that happening. I don't—they don't share anything with me, obviously. But sure, that's the—

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: It would seem like a logical thing that if we could get full price for a state or two and then utilize those funds to go into other areas where we could get greater returns because we're selling at high prices and buying low.

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: My experience is that it doesn't work that way. Now, you got to adjust for size of the location. Smaller locations. Have marginally less. Contribution just because that's the nature of. Rents. But if the locations are similarly sized, my experience is that we will do as well in a, let's just say. Wyoming than we will in. California. And. Sometimes we'll do better in Wyoming than California because right now, storage is so hot. You go in, even tertiary markets in California are priced really, really strong. For sale markets. So I mean, I don't know. I'm sure. A thousand places a year pass in front of me, maybe more for Jason, and then our real estate and field people more. You can kind of get a feel for the trends on this. I don't think there's an opportunity to. Sell in those areas.

Reinvest in more densely populated areas. No. I don't think that's—I don't think that's a good—

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: And Liz. Self-storage question. People have talked about the. Overbuilding of self-storage over time. Yet our revenues per foot are up nicely in this past quarter. How do you explain that we're able to do that in a market that's theoretically saturated?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Well, a great deal of it has to do with how well you manage at that level. At that level. I was in a store the other day. And of course, we're doing trucks and storage. And in walks a customer with a Starbucks and hands it to my manager. I think, "What the hell is that?" So I asked her. She said, "Well, that person's a storage customer. She brings me a Starbucks every morning." Well, that costs more than the storage room. Okay. So obviously, there's more going on than. Just renting the room. They have a personal relationship. I like to say that people rent storage from other people, and they rent trucks from companies. So. Not 100% true, but it's more true than false. So as we get a better quality manager and a manager that just simply is. Well, just a better quality, more service-oriented.

We're able to squeeze a little more rate out. We do a decent job of surveying rates on a repetitive basis, sorting for where in the mix is there a rate opportunity. We essentially never do an across-the-board rate increase. It's always very specific to a type of storage room and the size of storage room. If you just keep at that regularly, you'll kind of sort to what is the optimum price you can get in that market. I'm overall proud that we've been able to get a little bit of increases. The storage industry has struggled with increases lately. We're able to get them, but it's hard-fought. I think.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Okay.

Sebastien Reyes, Company Representative, U-Haul Holding Company: Thank you. The next question comes from Stephen Sorrell with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6: Good morning. I just have a quick question about. Box trucks. Have you seen any relief in the pricing from manufacturers yet?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: This is Jason. I'll start. On the box trucks, the percentage. Increase over the last couple of years has been. A little more sedate than what we've seen on the pickups and the cargo vans. That's really where the more material issue has been. We're seeing some relief. On those. But if you were to take. The 10-year average of what inflation was on those units pre-COVID to where we're at today. I would say that they're still. 3,000 to 3,500 more expensive than what they would have been had we never gone through this inflation cycle. On the box trucks. Don't get me wrong, they're still up. But maybe it would go from, say, a 4% average annual increase to maybe. 7 to 8.

Joe Shoen, Chairman, U-Haul Holding Company: I'll give a slightly different answer to that question, which is. Ford and General Motors are primary suppliers that have been beset with costs that are staggering as they've attempted to. Adjust to a political agenda that didn't match. The realities of the marketplace. So they've committed. God knows how many billions of dollars and disrupted God knows how many supply lines, laid off tens of thousands of internal combustion engineers. And. They have been attempting to recover those losses on customers like ourselves or the retail customer. And that's just the position they're stuck in. They have now done an about-face. I think you could see that over the last six months. Even Mary Barra now recants this stuff. And. It's. Been a political agenda all along. And not a manufacturing agenda. But they're stuck with they actually build things for money.

And so they've had to overspend and overinvest. And they're looking for somebody to lay these costs out on. Over, if you looked at this over a 30-year cycle, we could go to the manufacturer and say, "Hey, you want to complete a second shift? We can buy so many units." And we can all talk reasonably. They've been precluded from doing that. But they just now, I would say, in the last six months. Have shown a little more willingness to, "Let's all figure out how a bunch of us can make a profit as they back away from these. Unwanted and unneeded costs." And that goes clear across the line in transportation from. Pickup trucks up through Class 8 vehicles. Everybody's seeing the same. Dilemma, and. Different people are in deeper. We're very lucky in that we did not.

We did a lot of poking around, and we did plenty of test trucks, but we did not go and commit a significant amount of resources to alternative means of propulsion. Although we have been compelled in, say, California, "You cannot build a building unless you put in electric chargers." No one is going to use them, but you cannot build the building. These costs are all inflationary. To the automakers, there is so much. They are covered up with them. They are trying now, and we are going to see. I think they could hold prices constant for two or three years, and it would not hurt a damn thing. They have heard that from me. I made myself very clear to them.

Speaker 6: Given that they moved away from ICE vehicles, how long do you think it would take for them to pivot back and increase supply?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: They're already there in many models, and they're going absolutely as fast as they can make it happen because they've now admitted internally, again, this was not a customer-driven agenda. In capitalism, ultimately, the customer drives the market, and the customer is driving away from it on anything that's a utility vehicle. On passenger cars, I have no comment. I don't keep track of them. Apparently, electrics are very successful there. In utility vehicles, something like what we rent, they're a total non-starter and have been, and everybody's known it. It's been a dirty little secret, like I said. Nobody wanted to raise their hand because the political repercussions of telling the truth were terrifying to most people. The cat's out of the bag now, and I think people will speak freely about it.

I won't be the only person in a transportation company who had expressed these same thoughts.

Speaker 6: And just with moving. The competitors are facing the same problems that you guys are having just with increased costs of new vehicles. And you guys were in a better position before the costs went up. Do you think that's led them to sort of cut prices and keep utilization high?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: No. I'm doing a round of that in the middle of one right now, trying to see if we can ascertain what's really being priced in the market. We've seen some discounting, but there's always some discounting. When we do a price check, we don't just survey the computer and see what the computer shows they say they're charging. We attempt to actually deal hard like a customer would, like it was real money, and see what we can beat them down to. They're a little bit flexible. My experience so far is they're still higher than us, so the consumer net-net in most applications will be very competitive. Not in all applications. Nobody can be in all applications.

Speaker 6: Year over year, I know that fleet maintenance was up $10 million in the quarter compared to last year. Operating expenses were up about $50 million, I think. I know that you had greater insurance and liability expenses in the last two years. Are those still big drivers of the increase, or is that leveled off?

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Are you talking about the six-month numbers or the?

Speaker 6: Yeah. Six months.

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: Yeah. For the six months, personnel was up about $32 million, repair and maintenance $15 million, and liability costs $40 million. Those are still the largest components, those three. Everything else is kind of a much smaller scale.

Speaker 6: Thank you. That's all I have.

Sebastien Reyes, Company Representative, U-Haul Holding Company: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over back to the management for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Sam Shoen, Executive, U-Haul Holding Company: We look forward to speaking with everyone for our next quarterly earnings call. That will be in February. Thank you very much.

Sebastien Reyes, Company Representative, U-Haul Holding Company: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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