U-Haul Holding Co (UHAL) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Laura, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the U-Haul Holding Company Third Quarter Fiscal 2024 Investor Conference Call. (Operator Instructions). Mr. Sebastian Reyes, you may begin your conference.

早安.我叫蘿拉，今天我將擔任你們的會議操作員。此時此刻，我歡迎大家參加 U-Haul Holding Company 2024 財年第三季投資者電話會議。 （操作員說明）。塞巴斯蒂安·雷耶斯先生，您可以開始會議了。

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the U-Haul Holding Company Third Quarter Fiscal 2024 Investor Call.

早安，感謝您今天加入我們。歡迎參加 U-Haul Holding Company 2024 財年第三季投資者電話會議。

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.

在我們開始之前，我想提醒大家，本次電話會議中的某些陳述，包括但不限於有關收入、支出、收入和我們業務總體增長的陳述，可能構成前瞻性陳述經修訂的1933 年證券法第27A 條和經修訂的1934 年證券交易法第21E 條的安全港條款。

Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified. Certain factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. For a discussion of risks and uncertainties that may affect the company's business and future operating results, please refer to the company's public SEC filings and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2023, which is on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

前瞻性陳述本質上受到風險和不確定性的影響，其中一些風險和不確定性無法預測或量化。某些因素可能導致實際結果與預測結果有重大差異。有關可能影響公司業務和未來經營業績的風險和不確定性的討論，請參閱公司向美國證券交易委員會(SEC) 公開提交的文件以及截至2023 年12 月31 日的季度的10-Q 表格（已向美國證券交易委員會備案）委員會。

I'll now turn the call over to Joe Shoen, Chairman of U-Haul Holding Company.

現在我將電話轉交給 U-Haul Holding Company 董事長 Joe Shoen。

Well, thank you all for joining us again for our quarterly report. There have been a few positive signs in the consumer demand for either truck sharing or storage rentals. Our U-Box continues to grow but it is simply too small part of the total market to be considered as an indicator of moving and storage demand. We are making some modest progress in backfilling the voids created in our fleet by vehicle manufacturers and willingness to build sufficient truck product basically since the beginning of COVID. This will take several years to work its way completed through the fleet, assuming someone will build trucks. We continue to build and buy self-storage, I believe the right locations managed over a period of years are a good investment for the company. Everybody has their own opinion of what's going on in the market.

好的，感謝大家再次加入我們的季報。消費者對卡車共享或倉儲租賃的需求出現了一些正面的跡象。我們的 U-Box 持續成長，但它在整個市場中所佔的比例太小，無法被視為行動和儲存需求的指標。自從新冠疫情爆發以來，我們在填補汽車製造商在車隊中造成的空白以及製造足夠卡車產品的意願方面取得了一些進展。假設有人會製造卡車，這將需要幾年時間才能透過車隊完成。我們繼續建造和購買自助倉儲，我相信多年來管理的正確地點對公司來說是一項很好的投資。每個人對市場上發生的事情都有自己的看法。

Rising costs continue to pressure U-Haul and our customers. We are often unable to accurately predict future costs or to hedge them. My strategy is to try to absorb all legitimate costs into the present period rather than try to postpone them into an uncertain future. Our insurance subsidiaries are solid. Mark Haydukovich, the President and Chairman of our Oxford Life Insurance Group will be retiring this quarter after 45 years of leadership for this company. Mark will remain on the Board of Directors.

成本上升繼續給 U-Haul 和我們的客戶帶來壓力。我們常常無法準確預測未來成本或對其進行避險。我的策略是嘗試將所有合理成本納入當前階段，而不是嘗試將其推遲到不確定的未來。我們的保險子公司實力雄厚。牛津人壽保險集團總裁兼董事長 Mark Haydukovich 將於本季退休，此前他已領導該公司 45 年。馬克將繼續留在董事會。

I'll now pass the call to Jason Berg for some analysis of the numbers.

現在我將把電話轉給傑森·伯格，讓他對這些數字進行一些分析。

Thanks, Joe. Yesterday, we reported third quarter earnings of $99 million compared to $199 million for the same quarter last year. This translates to earnings per share of $0.51 per nonvoting share this quarter compared to $1.02 per nonvoting share in the third quarter of last year. Beginning with equipment rental revenue results, compared to the third quarter of last year, we had a $59 million decrease, which is about a 7% decline. Over the last 18 months, we've had a $379 million decrease in U-Move revenue, giving back a portion of the $1.4 billion of increases we experienced the 8 quarters before that.

謝謝，喬。昨天，我們報告第三季收益為 9,900 萬美元，而去年同期為 1.99 億美元。這意味著本季每股無投票權股收益為 0.51 美元，而去年第三季每股無投票權股收益為 1.02 美元。從設備租賃收入結果來看，與去年第三季相比，我們減少了 5,900 萬美元，下降了約 7%。在過去 18 個月中，我們的 U-Move 收入減少了 3.79 億美元，部分回吐了之前 8 個季度 14 億美元的成長。

To give you a better sense of how much of those revenues we've maintained so far compared to the last quarter of the pre-pandemic, [call it] the third quarter, which ended December 31, 2019. We've increased our third quarter revenue results by over $218 million, third quarter 2 years ago to today or on a compounded growth basis -- I'm sorry, 4 years ago by nearly 8%. Average miles per transaction continued to decrease as customers are using our equipment on shorter mileage moves.

為了讓您更了解與大流行前的最後一個季度相比，我們迄今為止維持了多少收入，[稱之為]第三季度，截至2019 年12 月31 日。我們增加了第三季度的營收季度營收超過 2.18 億美元，從 2 年前的第三季到現在，或在複合成長的基礎上——對不起，4 年前成長了近 8%。由於客戶使用我們的設備進行較短里程的移動，每筆交易的平均里程持續減少。

On a positive note, whereas transactions for the 9 months are down a little over 3% for the quarter, we were down just over 1%. And in fact, while we still had a revenue decrease in the month of December, transactions increased around 1% in the month. Unfortunately, we lost a bit of momentum in January as our results were undoubtedly affected by tough weather.

從積極的方面來看，雖然本季 9 個月的交易量下降了 3% 多一點，但我們的交易量下降了 1% 多一點。事實上，雖然我們 12 月的收入仍然下降，但該月的交易量增加了 1% 左右。不幸的是，我們在一月份失去了一些動力，因為我們的結果無疑受到了惡劣天氣的影響。

Capital expenditures on new rental equipment for the first 9 months were $1.350 billion. That is a $334 million increase compared to the same period last year. We've increased our fiscal 2024 full year net CapEx projection. From $870 million to approximately $930 million. So that's growth here just as net of proceeds. Proceeds from the sales of retired equipment are up $68 million for the 9 months to a total of $595 million. The increase in proceeds is coming from additional truck sales. Average sales price per unit has been steadily declining.

前9個月新租賃設備的資本支出為13.5億美元。與去年同期相比增加了 3.34 億美元。我們上調了 2024 財年全年淨資本支出預測。從 8.7 億美元增至約 9.3 億美元。這就是扣除收益後的成長。過去 9 個月，退役設備的銷售收入增加了 6,800 萬美元，總計 5.95 億美元。收益的增加來自卡車銷售的增加。每單位平均銷售價格一直在穩定下降。

At our current pace this year, we should make maybe 2,500 to 3,000 truck dent in our rotation backlog. And our teams have been increasing the pace of truck retirements taking out older equipment. For self-storage, revenues were up $20 million or 11% for the quarter. We increased the total number of occupied rooms, and we're also able to improve average revenue per occupied square foot by almost 4%. The year-over-year improvement in revenue per foot has been coming down as we progress through the year. Our occupied unit count at the end of December was up nearly 29,000 units compared to the same time last year. Over that same time frame, we've added 42,000 new units into the inventory. It's this differential that's led to our average, call it, all-in occupancy ratio during the third quarter to decline to 82%.

按照今年目前的進度，我們的輪換積壓訂單可能會減少 2,500 至 3,000 輛卡車。我們的團隊一直在加快卡車退役的步伐，淘汰舊設備。對於自助存儲，本季度收入增長了 2000 萬美元，即 11%。我們增加了佔用房間的總數，我們還能夠將每佔用平方英尺的平均收入提高近 4%。隨著我們這一年的進展，每英尺收入的同比增長一直在下降。與去年同期相比，我們 12 月底的入住單位數量增加了近 29,000 個單位。在同一時間段內，我們在庫存中增加了 42,000 個新單位。正是這種差異導致第三季我們的平均總入住率下降至 82%。

The same moderation in occupancy can be seen in the same-store grouping of these properties that we put in our press release with an occupancy decrease of 210 basis points to 92.9%. Our asking rents for new customers on average across the entire portfolio are up a little less than 3% year-over-year.

我們在新聞稿中列出的這些飯店的同店分組也顯示了相同的入住率下降，入住率下降了 210 個基點至 92.9%。我們整個投資組合對新客戶的平均租金要價年增率略低於 3%。

During the first 9 months of this year, we've invested $969 million in real estate acquisitions along with self-storage in U-Box warehouse development. That's a $35 million decrease over last year. Spending on acquisitions of new properties has declined, while investment in development of the existing properties that we own has increased.

今年前 9 個月，我們已投資 9.69 億美元用於房地產收購以及 U-Box 倉庫開發的自助倉儲。比去年減少了 3500 萬美元。收購新房產的支出有所下降，而我們擁有的現有房產的開發投資卻有所增加。

During the quarter, we added a little over 1 million new net rentable square feet, and we have just under 8 million square feet being actively worked on. Operating expenses and moving and storage increased $37 million for the third quarter. First, the good news from the quarter was that the fleet repair and maintenance was down $3 million. Conversely we had a $13 million increase in personnel. And the quarter also included approximately $17 million of cost that I would consider nonrecurring in nature, including a large vendor rebate that we netted against cost last year. That was a onetime event. Combined with some credit card accrual charges that were recorded this year that I would not expect to recur. Property taxes also were up about $4 million.

本季度，我們新增淨可出租面積略高於 100 萬平方英尺，目前正積極開發面積略低於 800 萬平方英尺。第三季營運費用以及搬運和儲存費用增加了 3,700 萬美元。首先，本季的好消息是車隊維修和保養費用減少了 300 萬美元。相反，我們的人員增加了 1300 萬美元。該季度還包括約 1700 萬美元的成本，我認為這些成本本質上是非經常性的，其中包括我們去年從成本中扣除的大量供應商回扣。那是一次性事件。加上今年記錄的一些信用卡應計費用，我預計不會再發生。財產稅也增加了約 400 萬美元。

We have made progress in deploying some of our cash balances to new investments but we still intend to remain conservative in regards to cash and liquidity as of December 31, this year -- 2023, cash along with availability from existing loan facilities at our Moving and Storage segment totaled $2.211 billion.

我們在將部分現金餘額部署到新投資方面取得了進展，但截至今年 - 2023 年 12 月 31 日，我們仍打算在現金和流動性方面保持保守，現金以及我們的移動和現有貸款設施的可用性儲存部門總計22.11 億美元。

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

至此，我想將電話轉交給我們的接線生勞拉，以開始電話的問答部分。

(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from the line of Steven Ralston from Zacks.

（操作員說明）。我們的第一個問題來自 Zacks 的 Steven Ralston。

Good morning. I actually only have one question and I'll start it by saying, the top line to me is roughly in line with expectations. It follows what management has been saying and what I also believe is that you're still on your historical growth rate after the blip up that caused by the pandemic. And given the economic environment, it is consistent with the premise. It's something I mentioned in the last earnings call, I have a quite detailed earnings model, and everything seems to be in line, except this particular metric that I monitor. And that's looking at the operating expenses for Moving and Storage. And it's the margin for that, so you divide it by the revenues of the self-moving equipment rentals.

早安.實際上我只有一個問題，我首先要說的是，對我來說，最重要的是大致符合預期。這遵循了管理層的說法，我也相信，在疫情造成的突發事件之後，你仍然保持著歷史成長率。而且考慮到經濟環境，也是符合前提的。這是我在上次財報電話會議中提到的，我有一個非常詳細的獲利模型，除了我監控的這個特定指標之外，一切似乎都符合要求。這也包括行動和儲存的營運費用。這是利潤，因此您可以將其除以自動行動裝置租賃的收入。

And it's popped up considerably. And I have not been following you all for a very long time, only 5 years. And that's the highest margin or level of expenses relative to revenues in those previous 5 years. I look at the 10-Q, and you do mention it. It's attributed to personnel costs, property taxes and building maintenance. And as you just said, property taxes only went up $4 million, which doesn't account for that increase on margin. So I'm sort of concluding it's in personnel costs.

而且它的出現相當多。我關注你們的時間並不長，只有五年。這是過去五年中相對於收入的最高利潤率或費用水準。我看了 10-Q，你確實提到了這一點。這歸因於人員成本、財產稅和建築維護。正如您剛才所說，財產稅只增加了 400 萬美元，這還沒有考慮到利潤的增加。所以我得出的結論是人員成本。

It seems like it's inflationary in nature. And I'd just like you to dive a little deeper into these operating expenses and what's driving this increase? Because the third fiscal quarter is relatively a clean quarter given its seasonal slowness relative to some of the others. And it just kind of sticks out at me that this operating expense number is accelerating higher than normal.

看起來本質上就是通貨膨脹。我希望您能更深入地了解這些營運費用以及推動這項成長的因素是什麼？因為與其他一些季度相比，第三財季是一個相對乾淨的季度，因為它的季節性放緩。讓我印象深刻的是，這個營運費用數字正在加速高於正常水準。

Well, I'll start with that. This is Jason. So first, our largest expense, personnel costs, that's been more of a function of the decrease in revenue, and there has not been a coincident decrease in personnel costs. We've tried to become a little more efficient at the home office with staffing and the headcount this year is only up about 2%. So we're not growing the size of the personnel so much. That's more a function of the revenue just has been coming down, and we have the capacity for more business.

好吧，我就從這個開始吧。這是傑森。首先，我們最大的開支，即人員成本，這更像是收入下降的結果，而且人員成本並沒有同步下降。我們試圖提高總部的人員配備效率，但今年的員工人數僅增加了 2% 左右。因此，我們並沒有大幅增加人員規模。這更多是收入下降的結果，而且我們有能力開展更多業務。

The repair and maintenance this quarter compared to last year is down. If you were to go back 4 years, it's up probably $70 million on a quarterly basis. So that's still higher than what we would expect. As we put on the new equipment, and you see the depreciation expense climb associated with the new equipment, you would normally expect them to see the repair and maintenance come down and the utilization of the fleet increase, and both of those have been lagging this time around. And then I did point out in the comments there are about a little over $17 million of what I would say are kind of recurring costs in this quarter. But I think you're speaking to a trend a little bit more than just this quarter.

本季的維修保養量與去年同期相比有所下降。如果你回到 4 年前，每個季度可能會增加 7000 萬美元。所以這仍然高於我們的預期。當我們安裝新設備時，您會看到與新設備相關的折舊費用攀升，您通常會期望他們看到維修和保養費用下降，機隊利用率增加，而這兩者都落後於這一點周圍的時間。然後我在評論中指出，本季的經常性成本大約有 1700 萬美元多一點。但我認為你所說的趨勢不僅僅是本季的趨勢。

Yes. I mean everything else is, the quarter is actually pretty good. Considering the environment and what you're dealing with. I'm just looking at this personnel cost while I guess it might be something else.

是的。我的意思是，其他一切都很好，這個季度實際上相當不錯。考慮環境和您正在處理的事情。我只是在考慮這個人員成本，而我想這可能是其他的事情。

The 2%, is that the headcount? Or is that the expenses, in other words, you might have to be paying the employees of a higher level of compensation in order -- in this environment.

2%，是人數嗎？或者說是費用，換句話說，在這種環境下，你可能必須向員工支付更高水準的薪水。

That was headcount.

那是人數。

That was headcount. Okay. Are the -- are the compensation going up higher than usual?

那是人數。好的。薪資是否比平常更高？

I wouldn't classify it higher than usual. It's been going up the last several years on a per hour basis. I think for the 9 months, I think we're up somewhere close to $8 million to $10 million on medical benefits and the rest is wage activity.

我不會把它分類得比平常更高。過去幾年，每小時的費用一直在上漲。我認為在這 9 個月裡，我們的醫療福利增加了近 800 萬至 1000 萬美元，其餘的是薪資活動。

Okay. Well, thank you for answering my question. And all in all, good quarter. I just had a little concern about the expenses. Thank you.

好的。嗯，謝謝你回答我的問題。總而言之，這是一個不錯的季度。我只是有點擔心費用。謝謝。

Question comes from the line of Keegan Carl from Wolfe Research.

問題來自 Wolfe Research 的 Keegan Carl。

I guess I'll start with the question I asked last quarter or 2, but just trying to think on a like-for-like basis, what you think the self-moving equipment rentals would have been down if you remove the new stores you would have added year-over-year. And I guess more broadly, how does that compare to the prior quarter? Are you seeing any sort of sequential improvement?

我想我會從我上一兩個季度提出的問題開始，但只是試著在類似的基礎上思考，如果你移除你想要的新商店，你認為自動移動設備的租金會下降多少。會逐年增加。我想更廣泛地說，與上一季相比如何？您是否看到任何形式的連續改進？

I don't know if Jason has a number. I would say probably 1% or less. That's a very -- you can't get as hard a number on that as you might think you'd be able to get. But -- so kind of another way to phrase that question is, did the new stores cannibalize same-store sales or were they additive. And I think they were probably about half the revenue they generated was additive. So that's going to be kind of my -- but I can't give you a hard number on that. But that's something, of course, to be concerned of.

我不知道傑森有沒有電話號碼。我想說可能是 1% 或更少。這是一個非常--你無法得到像你想像的那樣嚴格的數字。但是，用另一種方​​式來表達這個問題是，新商店是否會蠶食同店銷售，或者是否會增加。我認為他們產生的收入中大約有一半是累加性的。這就是我的想法——但我不能給你一個確切的數字。但這當然是值得關注的事。

As you know, we also go to the customer via what we call a U-Haul dealer. And so trying to balance total revenue and then the source of that revenue where the customer encounters the product is, of course, a concern is something we watch. And stores did a little bit more of the business than they did a year ago. So in a sense, you could say they cannibalized a little bit into dealer business. So to -- if we had stripped the stores out and hadn't done them I think we might have seen a percent maybe. Maybe not that much. I don't know, Jason, what do you...

如您所知，我們也透過 U-Haul 經銷商聯繫客戶。因此，試圖平衡總收入以及客戶遇到產品的收入來源當然是我們關注的問題。商店的業務比一年前增加。所以從某種意義上來說，你可以說他們蠶食了一點經銷商業務。因此，如果我們剝離了商店並且沒有這樣做，我想我們可能會看到百分之一的利潤。也許沒那麼多。我不知道，傑森，你要做什麼...

Every couple of years, we do a study of this to see what happens when we put a new company location and the effect that it has on dealers. That hasn't been done now for a couple of years. But what we have found historically is that the entire market ends up coming up after we put a company location in. So my generalized response to that is it doesn't -- it shouldn't have a big negative effect. And I haven't seen a market where we've got a company location the overall market has gone down. It's always -- everyone I've ever looked at. It's always caught up.

每隔幾年，我們都會對此進行一項研究，看看當我們更換新的公司地點時會發生什麼以及它對經銷商的影響。現在已經有幾年沒有這樣做了。但我們從歷史上發現，在我們設立公司地點後，整個市場最終都會出現。所以我對此的普遍反應是它不會——它不應該產生很大的負面影響。我還沒有看到我們有公司所在地的市場整體市場已經下降。總是——我見過的每個人。它總是被追上。

That's really helpful. I guess shifting gears, just specifically on the self-moving business in January. I know you mentioned it was -- it didn't have an easy month but also is weather related. I guess I'm just curious, maybe as we work through that, are you seeing any incremental improvements? I know it's early in February, but just trying to get a better feel for, I guess, how you're expecting that portion of this to trend throughout this quarter?

這真的很有幫助。我想是要換檔了，特別是在一月的自動駕駛業務上。我知道你提到過——這一個月並不輕鬆，但也與天氣有關。我想我只是好奇，也許在我們解決這個問題的過程中，您是否看到任何漸進式改進？我知道現在是二月初，但我只是想更了解一下，您預計這部分內容在整個季度的趨勢如何？

Of course. Hope springs eternal, and as anybody who tells me the weather caused them to be down business, basically, you get to (inaudible). So we're not relying on that. But if you -- I think that we really did have some of that. We had a pretty decent first 10 days of February, but February, another one of those months, a son of a gun, every 6 or 7 years, we get slaughtered either in January or February, we got slotted in January. Could we get slaughtered in February? It still could happen. California had just had another run of nasty weather.

當然。希望永遠存在，正如任何告訴我天氣導致他們生意失敗的人一樣，基本上，你會（聽不清楚）。所以我們不依賴於此。但如果你——我認為我們確實有一些這樣的東西。二月的前十天我們過得相當不錯，但是二月，又一個月份，真是個混蛋，每隔六到七年，我們要么在一月或二月被屠殺，要么在一月被安排。我們會在二月被屠殺嗎？它仍然有可能發生。加州剛剛經歷了另一輪惡劣天氣。

But so far, I'm -- again, I'm hopeful constantly. So I maybe the wrong person to say, but it doesn't look like there's anything negative in the market other than weather. In other words, not a competitive force happening. People, as Jason commented, are driving fewer miles, and we've seen this over 40 years. People are uncomfortable with their economic certainty, they tend to drive our truck shorter distances. It's -- we've seen that repeat and repeat. And there's a -- there's some kind of a little malaise kind of over consumers' heads right now that I don't have an explanation for totally.

但到目前為止，我再次充滿希望。所以我可能說錯了人，但除了天氣之外，市場似乎沒有任何負面因素。換句話說，沒有競爭力量發生。正如傑森所評論的，人們的駕駛里程正在減少，40 多年來我們已經看到了這一點。人們對經濟的確定性感到不安，他們傾向於縮短卡車的行駛距離。我們已經看到這種情況一再重複。現在消費者有一種小小的不適感，我完全無法解釋。

But until that kind of turns to a little bit more positive view, I don't expect them to drive more miles. Now I don't think we're losing long rentals to competitors. We look at those kind of things. We don't see that happening. We just see that people are just a little hesitant. And when they get that way, it's kind of logical. They don't want to move us far. They don't want to -- they'll still move because they got married, but they just don't move to a distant city.

但在這種觀點轉變為更積極的觀點之前，我不希望他們行駛更多里程。現在我不認為我們的長期租金會輸給競爭對手。我們關注這類事情。我們沒有看到這種情況發生。我們只是看到人們有點猶豫。當他們這樣做時，這是合乎邏輯的。他們不想把我們搬得太遠。他們不想——因為結婚了，他們仍然會搬家，但他們只是不會搬到遙遠的城市。

So all these things that drive business, these life events they continue on, but they're not quite as adventurous as they might have been when they were more -- they just felt more positive about their circumstance.

因此，所有這些推動業務發展的事情，這些生活事件，他們都會繼續進行，但他們並不像以前那樣富有冒險精神——他們只是對自己的處境感到更加積極。

And this is Jason. If I could just -- I think people's definitions of slaughter might be very -- for us, that's not an accounting term, probably closer to, say, like a 5% or 6% decrease.

這是傑森。如果我可以——我認為人們對屠宰的定義可能非常——對我們來說，這不是一個會計術語，可能更接近，比如說，減少 5% 或 6%。

No, that's really helpful. I guess one specifically for Joe. The press release, I actually thought the commentary was pretty positive in the beginning. You mentioned that you're seeing pockets of modest growth in certain markets and product lines. Maybe go into some more detail on this and then what markets, in particular, are you seeing improvements in?

不，這真的很有幫助。我猜是專門為喬準備的。新聞稿中，我實際上認為一開始的評論非常積極。您提到您看到某些市場和產品線出現了小幅成長。也許可以更詳細地討論這一點，然後您特別看到哪些市場有所改善？

Well, it's kind of a red state, blue state analysis about the long and short of it, probably, I think probably the same as every other business, the restaurants would tell you the same thing. So where we have, well, just take Tennessee Health. Tennessee is just a wonderful place to do business today and just what it is. And I think everybody sees that, and we'll see how it goes. We kind of end up reflecting it. So you see some places like Tennessee, and you think we push ahead, but we don't always get -- opportunities don't always present themselves only in the better markets.

嗯，這是一種關於它的長短的紅州、藍州分析，可能，我認為可能和其他企業一樣，餐廳會告訴你同樣的事情。因此，我們以田納西州衛生局為例。如今，田納西州是個經商的絕佳之地。我想每個人都看到了這一點，我們會看看事情會如何發展。我們最終反映了這一點。所以你看到像田納西州這樣的地方，你認為我們在前進，但我們並不總是能得到——機會並不總是只在更好的市場中出現。

I also am seeing a lot of -- we're going back through and sorting back at a very detailed level. Where do we have the equipment? Where do we have the outlet? And population is still shifting in this country, not like it did during the pandemic, but people are moving around and as you know, there's a tremendous amount of inborn migration. And these people are creating new -- basically new pockets of manager, whether you want to call it. And so we need to keep adjusting our basis to market to those people. We largely do that in the initial phases with our independent dealers because they're in that market running a landscaping business or something else. And so they make a good combination with U-Haul.

我還看到很多——我們正在非常詳細地進行回顧和分類。我們哪裡有設備？我們哪裡有出口？這個國家的人口仍在流動，不像大流行期間那樣，但人們正在四處流動，正如你所知，有大量的出生人口遷移。這些人正在創造新的——基本上是新的經理口袋，不管你想怎麼稱呼它。因此，我們需要不斷調整我們的基礎，以向這些人推銷。我們主要在初始階段與我們的獨立經銷商合作，因為他們在該市場上經營景觀美化業務或其他業務。因此，它們與 U-Haul 形成了良好的組合。

But then we'll start to as those communities become a little more established, we may go ahead and put company operation in that area. So other than that but nobody wants to hear red state, blue state, I would just say, it's community is growing that maybe we weren't aware of last year, I get my best information from what we call our local traffic. We have 200 traffic offices across the country. And the people there see trends first. They see them and they try to alert us and say, well, this looks like it's going to go positive.

但隨著這些社區變得更加成熟，我們可能會繼續在該地區開展公司營運。除此之外，沒有人想聽到紅州、藍州，我只想說，社區正在成長，也許我們去年沒有意識到，我從我們所謂的本地流量中獲得了最好的資訊。我們在全國設有 200 個交通辦事處。那裡的人們首先看到趨勢。他們看到了它們，並試圖提醒我們並說，好吧，這看起來會變得積極。

Of course, Florida has done great. Texas has done great, and it's about what you think. I would like to say that we had some marketing initiative that was catching fire, and I don't think we have a -- if we do, I'm not aware of it, I guess, what I'd say, other than equipment distribution. With us, it's so important to us to have the equipment where and when the customer wants it. So just because we own the equipment doesn't mean it's -- the correspondence to where the demand is. So we have a big operation trying to get that constantly trying to get it better and it's a constantly moving target because next week, we'll have tens of thousands of trucks in a different spot than they were this week. So you're constantly trying to re-optimize that.

當然，佛羅裡達州做得很好。德克薩斯州做得很好，這取決於你的想法。我想說的是，我們有一些行銷舉措正在火熱進行中，我認為我們沒有——如果我們這樣做了，我想我會說，除了設備分佈。對我們來說，隨時隨地為客戶提供設備非常重要。因此，僅僅因為我們擁有設備並不意味著它符合需求。因此，我們有一個大型行動試圖實現這一點，不斷地努力讓它變得更好，這是一個不斷變化的目標，因為下週，我們將有數萬輛卡車停在與本週不同的地點。所以你不斷地嘗試重新優化它。

Maybe shifting gears to storage here. I guess big picture, are you seeing any change in your average length of stay? And I know rate increases that are being sent out are obviously topical in the storage industry. I'm just curious, are you seeing any change in how customers are reacting to the rate increases you're sending out?

也許這裡會轉向儲存。我想從大局來看，您的平均停留時間有變化嗎？我知道正在發出的費率上漲顯然是儲存行業的熱門話題。我只是很好奇，您是否發現客戶對您發送的費率上漲的反應有任何變化？

I'll say all just the rate increases. We continue to send rate increases. That's not what's going on in the industry. We have now a great slashing 50% off and more. And that's unsettled the customer because they want to know why (inaudible) store, competitor X it's half our price. Well, they're half our price because they're going to jack you so hard 90 days from now, you're going to -- your head is going to spin. But we don't do that to people. We consider it anti-consumer activity, and we think it's destructive of the industry, but everybody has their own view of that.

我會說所有隻是利率增加。我們繼續提高利率。這不是行業中正在發生的事情。我們現在有 50% 甚至更多的大幅折扣。這讓顧客感到不安，因為他們想知道為什麼（聽不清楚）商店、競爭對手 X 的價格是我們的一半。好吧，它們的價格是我們的一半，因為從現在起 90 天后它們會狠狠地折磨你，你會——你的頭會旋轉。但我們不會這樣對待別人。我們認為這是反消費者的活動，我們認為它對產業具有破壞性，但每個人對此都有自己的看法。

So whipsawing rates. You're making a rate change more than 5%. You'd have to explain to me why something what was wrong with your original pricing. With the -- that's my feedback. And so you'll see us, typically, we're doing -- I think we did 3%, I that about what our asking rate is now over the whole portfolio -- over the whole portfolio. So -- the storage market is tighter by far than it was 2 years by far.

所以拉鋸利率。您的匯率變動幅度超過 5%。您必須向我解釋為什麼您的原始定價出了問題。這就是我的回饋。所以你會看到我們，通常，我們正在做 - 我認為我們做了 3％，我現在對整個投資組合的要價 - 整個投資組合。因此，儲存市場迄今比兩年前更加緊張。

And so you're having to look to your knitting. Well, that's kind of our game. I believe -- I like to believe when that comes up, we start to gain and it energizes us. And so that's what we're attempting to do. Offer a better overall experience for the customer but not necessarily by slashing pricing. Maybe with increased value, we -- we push value really hard.

所以你必須注意你的編織。嗯，這就是我們的遊戲。我相信──我願意相信，當這種情況出現時，我們就會開始有所收穫，並且會激勵我們。這就是我們正在嘗試做的事情。為客戶提供更好的整體體驗，但不一定透過大幅降價。也許隨著價值的增加，我們會非常努力地推動價值。

And Keegan, this is Jason. I haven't seen any dramatic shifts in the average stay.

基岡，這是傑森。我沒有看到平均停留時間有任何顯著變化。

Really helpful. And then last one for me. I guess this is another big picture question. But obviously, you guys have a lot of excess liquidity on your balance sheet in the form of cash. I guess I'm just curious how we should think about the utilization of that, especially if you take a look at the forward rate curve coming down, the interest income won't be as favorable. Just kind of curious where your heads are at on cash utilization.

真的很有幫助。然後是我的最後一張。我想這是另一個大問題。但顯然，你們的資產負債表上有大量現金形式的過剩流動性。我想我只是好奇我們應該如何考慮它的利用，特別是如果你看看遠期利率曲線下降，利息收入不會那麼有利。只是有點好奇你對現金利用率的看法。

Well, this is Jason. We've worked it down, give or take, close to $1 billion here from like, say, a year ago, January until now. So we're all about getting that reinvested back into self-storage. I would say that right now, we have somewhere close to or north of $1.6 billion in assets, that would include cost of acquisition and construction put into them so far that are, either have opened or not fully opened or have additional phases remaining. So I wouldn't call them fully realized yet.

嗯，這是傑森。從一年前、一月到現在，我們已經算下來，無論給予或索取，已經接近 10 億美元。因此，我們致力於將其重新投資到自助倉儲中。我想說的是，現在我們擁有接近或超過 16 億美元的資產，其中包括迄今為止投入的購買和建設成本，這些資產要么已經開業，要么沒有完全開業，要么還有其他階段剩餘。所以我不會說它們已經完全實現了。

So there's quite a bit going on there. We've kind of been sitting out on the real estate financing side. So we do have the ability to raise quite a bit of cash at some point if we need to. But as you can see, we're not doing that right now.

所以那裡發生了很多事情。我們一直在房地產融資方面袖手旁觀。因此，如果需要的話，我們確實有能力在某個時候籌集大量現金。但正如您所看到的，我們現在還沒有這樣做。

Great. That's it for me.

偉大的。對我來說就是這樣。

Our next question comes from the line of Jamie Wilen from Wilen Management.

我們的下一個問題來自 Wilen Management 的 Jamie Wilen。

Joe, you've always said that the fleet utilization for the trucks is one of the most important metrics you look at, with transactions being let's say, relatively flat. I mean, I realize you have to upgrade the fleet to better and better units all the time. But why are we increasing the size of our fleet while transactions are flat if we're trying to raise that fleet utilization percentage?

喬，您總是說卡車的車隊利用率是您關注的最重要的指標之一，可以說，交易相對穩定。我的意思是，我意識到你必須一直將艦隊升級為越來越好的單位。但是，如果我們想提高機隊利用率，為什麼要在交易量持平的情況下增加機隊規模呢？

It's really because our deletions have quite -- so in other words, this is all the what goes on the top and what goes out the bottom. And we have some at the bottom, still needs to come out. Some just grounding, you believe it's better to rent a different truck, pending sale, of course, that doesn't put a big smile on Jason's face because we're just -- but until (inaudible), that's kind of what happens. Now at the same time, we've down fleeted our pickup fleet maybe 2,300, 2,500. Jason, do you know where we are exactly?

這確實是因為我們的刪除相當——所以換句話說，這就是頂部和底部的所有內容。我們還有一些處於底部，仍然需要出來。有些只是接地，你認為最好租一輛不同的卡車，等待出售，當然，這不會讓傑森臉上露出燦爛的笑容，因為我們只是- 但直到（聽不清），這就是發生的事情。同時，我們減少了大約 2,300 至 2,500 輛皮卡車隊。傑森，你知道我們到底在哪裡嗎？

The end of our fleet, mostly pick up some -- down close to 4,000 units.

我們的機隊末端大部分都接收了一些——下降了近 4,000 台。

Yes. If you do vans pickups, we're down almost 4,000 units. And I think that's -- we can most readily respond to. It's more liquid [reset]. Most of those trucks go to the auction. And through dealers and such. And so that's a much bigger market.

是的。如果您生產貨車皮卡，我們將減少近 4,000 輛。我認為我們最容易對此做出回應。它更具流動性[重置]。這些卡車大部分都去拍賣。並透過經銷商等。所以這是一個更大的市場。

The -- our van trucks -- typically we read it ourselves. So it's not on -- some auction where you can clear 50 trucks a day. They kind of go out dribs and drabs. And since we stopped selling during the pandemic, we kind of turn off the faucet with buyers and buyers (inaudible) other sellers or whatever buyers do. So in the last 12 to 15 months, we tried to get that coming on, but it's coming on slower than we expected. So I don't I think when we calculate utilization, you correct me, Jason, I believe we calculate all the products.

我們的貨車——通常是我們自己讀的。所以這不是——一些你每天可以清理 50 輛卡車的拍賣。他們有點一點點出去。由於我們在疫情期間停止銷售，我們有點關掉了買家和買家（聽不清楚）其他賣家或買家所做的任何事情。因此，在過去 12 到 15 個月中，我們試圖實現這一目標，但進展速度比我們預期的要慢。所以我不認為當我們計算利用率時，你糾正我，傑森，我相信我們計算了所有產品。

If it's actually in the, those aren't included.

如果它確實在其中，則不包括在內。

Right.

正確的。

But if it's -- but if you haven't actually classified them down.

但如果是——但如果你還沒有真正對它們進行分類。

Then water is down. So I think we're -- you're right, we have too many trucks, but I think it's because they're not sold yet because we have bought too many. And -- we still buy a license plate, but a bunch of this -- in more or less pending sale, and that's where -- it shouldn't be in the rental.

然後水就下來了。所以我認為我們——你是對的，我們有太多卡車，但我認為這是因為它們還沒有賣掉，因為我們買了太多。而且 - 我們仍然購買車牌，但其中一堆 - 或多或少待售，這就是 - 它不應該出現在租賃中。

Right. Your fleet maintenance expenditures have declined a bit. Are you seeing any difference in the quality of the vehicles that you own that would give you any inclination that fleet maintenance and repair will not be a rising figure moving forward?

正確的。您的車隊維護支出有所下降。您是否發現您擁有的車輛品質有任何差異，這會讓您認為車隊維修和維修的費用不會不斷上升？

We're not that far along. You saw our repair expense been something like $200 million a year. And that was because of -- new vehicles. And basically, just like you with a family, if you like the mom and the dad, then it goes to the kid, it has a lot of variable costs associated with it, but not much fixed cost. And that's basically what's happened to a bunch of our trucks. We've depreciated, now want to drive it another 1,000 miles, you're going to have to pay for some maintenance every 100 miles. So Yes, we've seen some improvement. You can debate it, let's say, we booked 3,000 extra trucks, let's just I'm not sure about the number, but something like that. Okay. Well, that's 3,000 probably against 20,000 in particular because it matters by size. So it's not just the total number. Now we have to balance for every individual sized truck.

我們還沒那麼遠。您看到我們每年的維修費用約為 2 億美元。那是因為——新車。基本上，就像你在一個家庭中一樣，如果你喜歡媽媽和爸爸，那麼它就會屬於孩子，它有很多與之相關的可變成本，但沒有太多固定成本。這基本上就是我們的一些卡車所發生的情況。我們已經折舊了，現在想再開1000英里，你就需要每100英里支付一些維護費用。所以，是的，我們已經看到了一些改進。你可以爭論一下，比方說，我們額外預訂了 3,000 輛卡車，只是我不確定這個數字，但類似的東西。好的。嗯，這可能是 3,000 與 20,000 的差距，因為這取決於規模。所以這不僅僅是總數。現在我們必須平衡每輛單獨尺寸的卡車。

Ordinarily, if you had your druthers, you buy the same amount of -- his truck every year, and you have maintained a constant fleet. But because of supply considerations, this just doesn't happen. And so we have -- fleets where we have a whole bunch of high milage trucks and a whole bunch of low mileage trucks and no trucks in the middle. And that's kind of -- it goes through us like a snake smelling a rat. It just kind of goes through that to kind of work its way through. It doesn't just go through smoothly. So we're seeing some of that. It will balance out. And I'm not sure. I'm not going to predict next quarter a reduction in repair. But that should come as we bring in new trucks and then you'll see depreciation go up and they don't exactly correlative. The trends correlate exactly. The numbers don't.

通常，如果你有你的鼓手，你每年都會購買等量的——他的卡車，並且你會保持一個穩定的車隊。但出於供應上的考慮，這種情況並沒有發生。所以我們的車隊裡有一大堆高里程卡車和一大堆低里程卡車，中間沒有卡車。這有點像——它像蛇聞到老鼠的氣味一樣穿過我們。它只是經歷了這個過程，才得以完成。它並不是只是順利地完成。所以我們看到了其中的一些。它會平衡。我不確定。我不會預測下個季度的維修量會減少。但這應該隨著我們引進新卡車而出現，然後你會看到折舊上升，而且它們並不完全相關。這些趨勢完全相關。數字沒有。

And you're also seeing us paying for vehicles (inaudible) that Ford claimed $11 billion of earnings and $7 billion of it was on fleet sales. While I cannot tell you how poorly we've been treated by Ford and General Manager on fleet sales. They've come through with 40% price increases. Price increase -- and on through with the rest of this. So they're making good product. I got no complaints about the product. But they have made a decision internally in both those companies finance, their losses on electric vehicle, customers like us, who we actually -- this isn't like at home, I just tell a kid to drive the car another year. But here, it's a business. When I need more trucks, I need more trucks, I'm going to have to buy them and they're leveraging that against us with everything they can. This is just in a really hard -- that's -- and when I saw it analyzed their earnings this morning and we were not hitting it. I mean that's what you've done to us. And this is all under the banner of electrification, with electrification solution for us, but we're financing it. And that's what they're doing with their customers. And of course, that's causing us to seek alternative suppliers. And that's just what that does.

您還看到我們為車輛付費（聽不清楚），福特聲稱獲得了 110 億美元的收入，其中 70 億美元來自車隊銷售。雖然我無法告訴你福特和總經理在車隊銷售方面對我們的待遇有多差。他們的價格上漲了 40%。價格上漲——以及其餘的事情。所以他們正在製造好的產品。我對該產品沒有任何投訴。但他們在這兩家公司的內部財務方面做出了決定，他們在電動車上的損失，像我們這樣的客戶，我們實際上是誰——這不像在家裡，我只是告訴一個孩子再開一年。但在這裡，這是一樁生意。當我需要更多卡車時，我需要更多卡車，我將不得不購買它們，而他們正在盡其所能地利用這一點來對付我們。這真的很困難——當我今天早上看到它分析了他們的收益時，我們並沒有達到目標。我的意思是，這就是你對我們所做的事。這一切都是在電氣化的旗幟下進行的，為我們提供了電氣化解決方案，但我們正在為其提供資金。這就是他們對客戶所做的事情。當然，這促使我們尋找替代供應商。這就是它的作用。

And 2 little pieces of commentary. You increased the quarterly dividend by 25%. I'm glad you're seeing to share everything with shareholders. And we look forward to some overall increases along the way. And then also, I love that you are according to self-storage analysts that people understand that we have an incredibly large and growing self-storage business and that we've never talked to the analyst there before.

還有2個小評論。您將季度股息增加了 25%。我很高興您能與股東分享一切。我們期待著整體上的成長。另外，我喜歡你根據自助倉儲分析師的說法，人們知道我們擁有一個非常龐大且不斷增長的自助倉儲業務，而且我們以前從未與那裡的分析師交談過。

And I was wondering within the industry, if anyone else maintains the same organic growth that U-Haul has. I mean this is the most difficult thing to do when you start at 0%, but it also creates the most significant upside. Is our organic growth relative to everybody else at a higher level at this point?

我想知道在行業內是否還有其他人能夠保持與 U-Haul 相同的有機成長。我的意思是，當你從 0% 開始時，這是最困難的事情，但它也創造了最顯著的好處。目前我們的有機成長相對於其他所有人來說是否處於較高水準？

Without -- I'm not going to say that I believe it was last year, but I don't -- we're trying to grow everywhere where it makes sense, and we're not constrained by capital. Our constrained are as our ability to execute, okay? You can just pour money into development, and you're not going to be as happy as you can -- cost can run out of -- don't have some in-house expertise. So we are trying to expand and we're not capital constrained, but we're not expanding everywhere because we just aren't able to execute in that many places on a given day.

如果沒有——我不會說我相信那是去年的事，但我不這麼認為——我們正在努力在任何有意義的地方實現成長，而且我們不受資本的限制。我們的限制就是我們的執行能力，好嗎？你可以只是把錢投入到開發中，但如果沒有一些內部專業知識，你就不會那麼高興——成本可能會耗盡。因此，我們正在努力擴張，我們不受資本限制，但我們不會到處擴張，因為我們無法在某一天在那麼多地方執行任務。

So I don't have a number that I'm trying to -- I'm benchmarking against somebody like Extra Space and saying how I'm not doing that.

所以我沒有一個我想嘗試的數字——我正在與像 Extra Space 這樣的人進行基準測試，並說我為什麼不這樣做。

We're all in the marketplace. We're all doing stuff. We all have slightly different strategies. And sometimes I learn something by watching them and maybe sometimes they learn something by watching me. I'm not quite sure of that. But of course, I try to keep my eye on them. So I understand what they're doing to get themselves in a better situation.

我們都在市場上。我們都在做事。我們的策略都略有不同。有時我透過觀察他們學到一些東西，也許有時他們會透過觀察我學到一些東西。我不太確定這一點。但當然，我會盡力關注他們。所以我理解他們正在做什麼來使自己處於更好的境地。

As you look forward, are you looking to add 1 million square feet per quarter, is that going to be a relatively constant number?

展望未來，您是否希望每季增加 100 萬平方英尺，這會是一個相對穩定的數字嗎？

I'd like to see it that personally, yes. Again, we have to fill the room we built more than we filled this last quarter, okay? So okay. Got that. We've done that before. It's not a thing. The question is, are those rooms -- and so I'm looking at rooms rented over the prior year by store. If I can manage that, okay, well, then this thing kind of all works itself out.

我個人希望看到它，是的。再說一次，我們必須填滿我們建造的房間，而不是上個季度填滿的房間，好嗎？那麼好吧。了解。我們以前就這麼做過。這不是一件事。問題是，這些房間是嗎？所以我正在按商店查看前一年出租的房間。如果我能做到這一點，好吧，那麼這件事就一切順利了。

And then, of course, we're providing rate because your -- all these projects -- can't get the rate (inaudible) the math is just going to go poorly. So we're watching all that. And I think we should be able to continuously build at that rate. I believe we should now. Our model indicates we should be able to build up that rate. something really changes in the macro environment, it will get us. But yes, that's the rate I see us being able to continue doing.

然後，當然，我們提供費率是因為您的所有這些項目都無法獲得費率（聽不清楚），數學只會進展得很糟糕。所以我們正在關注這一切。我認為我們應該能夠以這個速度持續建造。我相信我們現在應該這樣做。我們的模型顯示我們應該能夠提高這一速度。宏觀環境確實會發生變化，它會對我們產生影響。但是，是的，這就是我認為我們能夠繼續做的速度。

Okay. And lastly, on U-Box, you've continued to grow that business. Has the as the bottom line continue to keep pace with the top line growth? And how are the margins in that business for you?

好的。最後，在 U-Box 上，您繼續發展該業務。淨利潤是否繼續與營收成長保持同步？您該業務的利潤率如何？

Jamie, this is Jason. I would say that U-Box is maybe a little outperforming in that we had some revenue declines last year. It's now bounced back. And for the really over the last 6 months, we've had transaction increases this last quarter, we had revenue increase. So we don't do segment reporting here, but as proxies that I have for kind of an EBITDA number for that is that it's been down, but maybe in the 5% to 8% range. So in that sense, it's done a little bit better than the rest of the organization.

傑米，這是傑森。我想說 U-Box 的表現可能有點跑贏，因為我們去年的收入有所下降。現在已經反彈了。在過去的 6 個月裡，我們上個季度的交易量有所增加，收入也有所增加。因此，我們在這裡不做分部報告，但作為我的 EBITDA 數字的代表，它已經下降，但可能在 5% 到 8% 的範圍內。所以從這個意義上來說，它比組織的其他部分做得更好。

Next question comes from the line of Craig Inman from Artisan Partners.

下一個問題來自 Artisan Partners 的 Craig Inman。

Just real quick, technically, Jason, that $70 million you're talking about, I didn't catch that. Is that extra cost this quarter? Or there's some kind of year-over-year comparison? I just want to give some color on that.

傑森，從技術上講，你所說的 7000 萬美元真的很快，我沒聽清楚。這是本季的額外費用嗎？或有某種同比比較？我只是想對此進行一些說明。

So a little under $5 million of that was a credit last year that didn't recur this year. So it wasn't -- it reduced expenses last year. It didn't really increase in this year. But if you're comparing last year to this year, it looks like an increase. And then the remainder of that was an additional expense that we booked this quarter that should not come around again.

因此，其中略低於 500 萬美元是去年的信貸，今年沒有再出現。所以事實並非如此——它去年減少了開支。今年並沒有真正增加。但如果你將去年與今年進行比較，你會發現有所增加。然後剩下的部分是我們本季預訂的額外費用，不應再次出現。

Okay. Got you. Okay. Because that was what I was going to just ask about, I mean, I know the priority is to get the fleet rotated, building out the self-storage and get that done. And so I was curious about than the cost base. You just -- we've seen a lot of businesses through this period where they had a lot of revenue from kind of the COVID changes and then you're lapping that and you have some excess cost in the business in certain places. Are you all not in that position. I mean, I know you are always very mindful of costs, but just curious about how the cost base stacks up versus what you would expect kind of given how you're looking at the revenue trajectory over the last 4 years and normalizing now?

好的。明白你了。好的。因為這就是我要問的問題，我的意思是，我知道首要任務是讓車隊輪換，建立自存儲並完成這項工作。所以我對成本基礎感到好奇。我們看到，在這段時期，許多企業都從新冠疫情的變化中獲得了大量收入，但在某些地方，企業卻出現了一些超額成本。你們不都處於那個位置嗎？我的意思是，我知道您總是非常關注成本，但只是好奇考慮到您如何看待過去 4 年的收入軌跡以及現在的正常化，成本基礎與您的預期相比如何？

I think you're going to see personnel be a touch area for 3 or 4 years. I think that there's a whole bunch of initiatives coming on at state and possibly at the federal level that's going to massively inflate wages and maybe that's a public policy, I don't know. But the question is, of course, can we earn that back through some value add with the customer or somehow get the customer to participate in that. And that's all kind of to be determined.

我認為你會看到人員在三、四年內成為一個接觸領域。我認為州政府甚至聯邦層級正在採取一系列舉措，這些舉措將大幅提高薪資，也許這是一項公共政策，我不知道。但問題當然是，我們能否透過為客戶提供一些增值服務或以某種方式讓客戶參與其中來賺回這一點。這一切都有待確定。

But if you follow the states, the states are -- there's been a lot of press about California's bumping fast food wages. By fast food, I don't know why they're bumping up. It's obviously political, but that will ricochet through my operation also in California. So we're labor is very fungible. And so if I can't stay competitive, they'll leave me and start making hamburgers, okay? So just the truth.

但如果你關注各州，你會發現各州——有很多關於加州快餐工資上漲的媒體報道。透過快餐，我不知道他們為什麼會上漲。這顯然是政治性的，但這也會透過我在加州的行動而受到影響。所以我們的勞動力是非常可替代的。所以如果我不能保持競爭力，他們就會離開我並開始製作漢堡，好嗎？所以這只是事實。

I think we've been through similar things, but there's quite a swarm of this coming at us right now. And I would expect it to keep this trend to go for 3 or 4 years. I don't have a crystal ball, obviously, but there's so many of these initiatives down to cities, New York is replete with minimum wages for salaried people. I mean, first a couple of times I heard that what do you mean minimal wage for salaried people. Well, I don't know. Can you quote it, Jason, I believe it's hovering around $80,000 right now in New York, okay? you can't -- I don't take that as survivable, but it's -- the minimum wage used to be about $34,000 for salaried people. So it was irrelevant.

我認為我們也經歷過類似的事情，但現在有很多這樣的事情正向我們襲來。我預計這種趨勢將持續三、四年。顯然，我沒有水晶球，但有很多這樣的舉措深入城市，紐約到處都是工薪階級的最低工資。我的意思是，首先我有幾次聽到勞工階級的最低工資是什麼意思。嗯，我不知道。 Jason，你能引用一下嗎？我相信現在紐約的價格徘徊在 8 萬美元左右，好嗎？你不能——我不認為這是可以生存的，但是——過去工薪階層的最低工資約為 34,000 美元。所以這是無關緊要的。

And now they're actually franking this and it's going to affect places because -- because it does. There's different cost delivering. Maybe that makes sense on San Francisco is not going to make quite as much sense in Alabama, but it will carry through. So there's a lot of this that's just going on that's pure inflationary driven by legislation, and we're going to deal with it. We have initiatives all the time, which what I call productivity-enhancing initiatives, which is an attempt to get process to accomplish a task instead of a human. And we have made huge gains on that, but not enough to totally outweigh increased personnel costs. So we're still chasing it in my segment.

現在他們實際上坦白了這一點，這將影響到一些地方，因為——因為它確實如此。交付成本不同。也許這在舊金山有意義，但在阿拉巴馬州卻沒有那麼有意義，但它會持續下去。因此，有很多事情正在發生，純粹是由立法驅動的通貨膨脹，我們將處理它。我們一直都有舉措，我稱之為提高生產力的舉措，這是一種嘗試讓流程取代人類來完成任務。我們在這方面取得了巨大的收益，但還不足以完全抵銷增加的人員成本。所以我們仍在我的部分中追逐它。

We're in the midst of a big revamp will probably take 3 years on our whole point-of-sale orientation, the net effect will be to customers do more self-service basically. We get a lot of self-service we've quoted to you before. I think a new press release recently, we've done more than 5 million, we'll be called 24/7 truck rent where the customer is self-dispatched and self return. Where, before it would have been somebody on our payroll or all of our dealers because it affects them equally. I would have had to accomplish that. The customer accomplishes that. That's a net savings for everyone, so long as the customer is good to go on it, everybody says (expletive).

我們正在對整個銷售點定位進行重大改造，可能需要 3 年時間，最終的最終效果將是為客戶提供更多的自助服務。我們獲得了許多之前向您報價的自助服務。我想最近的新新聞稿，我們已經做了超過500萬輛，我們將被稱為24/7卡車租賃，客戶可以自行調度和自行返回。在此之前，它會是我們薪資單上的某個人或我們所有的經銷商，因為它對他們的影響是平等的。我必須做到這一點。客戶完成了這一點。每個人都說（髒話），只要客戶樂意繼續使用，這對每個人來說都是一筆淨節省。

We're focused on this. I keep thinking that we're -- we've gotten everything we can and then I find something else we're doing. It's kind of ignorant if you put it under -- a company's -- we can quit doing this or we can change how we do this and stabilize the personnel input without increasing a technology and put a greater amount than we reduce the personnel. So that's going on all the time. But we've been chasing it. We haven't been looking at it.

我們專注於此。我一直在想，我們已經得到了我們所能得到的一切，然後我發現我們正在做其他事情。如果你把它放在公司的下面，那就有點無知了，我們可以停止這樣做，或者我們可以改變我們的做法，穩定人員投入，而不增加技術，投入的金額大於我們減少人員的金額。所以這種情況一直在發生。但我們一直在追尋它。我們還沒有看過它。

Okay. So -- but the cost base, where it is, Joe, you're not thinking this is way out of line and we need to take action yet. Those are just the ongoing pressures.

好的。所以，但是成本基礎在哪裡，喬，你不認為這太不合規矩了，我們還需要採取行動。這些只是持續的壓力。

Yes. So you're talking to what we want to decimate the ranks. There's no reason to decimate the range. You will lose business if you decimate the ranks. Can I -- we run our own call center. Can we tune that up? Oh how we've tuned it up a bunch over the last 12 months? In the ratio of people to calls, to reservations. We've tuned it up a bunch, and we're going -- we are continuing to do that, and I expect to see double-digit increases in our productivity in that area alone this year.

是的。所以你說的是我們想要減少隊伍的事情。沒有理由縮小範圍。如果你削弱排名，你就會失去生意。我可以──我們營運自己的呼叫中心嗎？我們可以調整一下嗎？哦，過去 12 個月我們是如何對其進行大量調整的？就人與電話、預訂的比例而言。我們已經對其進行了很多調整，我們將繼續這樣做，我預計今年僅在該領域我們的生產力就會實現兩位數的成長。

But at the end of the day, it's really a vehicle. You really do have to clean when it comes back, you're really -- now we've got customers parking vehicles and a lot of them are damn happy to do that, okay? We tell them exactly where to put it electronically, and they put it to. So we had 0 of that business 5 years ago. Today, we have a considerable amount of that business.

但歸根結底，它確實是一輛車。當它回來時，你真的必須清潔，你真的 - 現在我們有客戶停車，他們中的很多人都非常樂意這樣做，好嗎？我們以電子方式告訴他們確切的放置位置，然後他們就將其放置到哪裡。所以 5 年前我們的這項業務是 0。如今，我們擁有大量此類業務。

Every time I get a customer to do that, they experienced no waiting in line and our personnel experienced less physical work. So we're very, very focused on that. But again, on balance chasing and not leading. And I would wish I could report we're ahead of it. It hasn't happened, but we're hard on it. And I would say compared to our peer group, we're at or ahead, I think, both in the self-storage and the self-move industry on this. We do a tremendous amount of customer self-move ins and outs and self-storage. Now we don't call that contactless or unmanned, but it's a version of that. Every time you get the customer who to do something, if the customer considers it in their best interest. Well, we get all benefit. And so we are in the do-it-yourself businesses, both our self-storage and our self-moves, the do-it-yourself. So most of our customers are willing to balance out. They do a little bit of effort and we reciprocate. Some [men] with them, they call that a fair trade.

每次我讓客戶這樣做時，他們都不需要排隊等候，我們的人員也減少了體力勞動。所以我們非常非常關注這一點。但同樣，總的來說，是追趕而不是領先。我希望我能報告我們已經領先了。這還沒有發生，但我們正在努力。我想說，與我們的同行相比，我認為我們在自助倉儲和自助移動行業這方面處於領先地位。我們為客戶提供了大量的自助進出和自助倉儲服務。現在我們不稱之為非接觸式或無人駕駛，但它是非接觸式或無人駕駛的一個版本。每次你讓客戶做某件事時，如果客戶認為這符合他們的最大利益的話。好吧，我們得到了所有的好處。因此，我們從事的是「自己動手做」業務，包括我們的自我儲存和自我移動，即「自己動手做」。所以我們大多數客戶都願意平衡。他們付出一點點努力，我們就會回報。有些[男人]和他們在一起，他們稱之為公平交易。

Yes. That makes sense. And then just -- I know I've asked this before. So household formation. Home existing home sales obviously all weak. But what you're saying the data continues to indicate is your all transactions are more tied to the consumer and just economic general economic activity, consumer confidence for the housing market being a big driver here.

是的。這就說得通了。然後——我知道我以前問過這個問題。所以家庭的形成。國內現房銷售明顯疲軟。但你所說的數據繼續表明，你的所有交易都與消費者和整體經濟活動更加相關，消費者對房地產市場的信心是這裡的一大推動力。

Yes, this is Jason. I was excited to see the last couple of reports on consumer confidence, that should, based upon what we've seen historically that, that should be a positive indicator for us. And it's not a great correlation, but it's the closest correlation we found. So I think that can hurt. And as far as in-market goes, if that opens up, it can't hurt us or it can really help us. on those fronts, I think we're looking at a couple of potential tailwinds here.

是的，這是傑森。我很高興看到最近幾份關於消費者信心的報告，根據我們歷史上所看到的情況，這對我們來說應該是一個正面的指標。這並不是一個很好的相關性，但它是我們發現的最接近的相關性。所以我認為這可能會造成傷害。就市場而言，如果開放，它不會傷害我們，或者確實可以幫助我們。在這些方面，我認為我們正在尋找一些潛在的有利因素。

Yes. But it's not the -- you can't put your finger on so yes, it's clear that housing starts moving up and down just as a big driver to the one-way moves. That's not how it works.

是的。但事實並非如此——你無法直接指出，所以是的，很明顯，住房開始上下移動，就像單向移動的一大推動因素一樣。事情不是這樣的。

We have so much noise right now coming out of COVID and the changing dynamics at work from home. It's hard to isolate any one of these variables right now. There's so many things happening.

現在，新冠疫情和在家工作的動態變化給我們帶來了太多噪音。現在很難隔離這些變數中的任何一個。發生了很多事情。

Yes. Okay. All right. No, that's all for me. I appreciate it.

是的。好的。好的。不，這就是我的全部。我很感激。

And we have our next question coming from the line of Stephen [Pharell] from Oppenheimer.

我們的下一個問題來自奧本海默的史蒂芬[法雷爾]。

Good morning. You continue to see weakness in the one-way transactions. Can you comment a little on the level of transactions compared to 2019?

早安.您繼續看到單向交易的疲軟。您能否評論一下與 2019 年相比的交易水準？

This is Jason. Compared to 2019, I'm not sure if we're quite back down to that level, but we're -- we've been working our way back to that. I would say, I mentioned December, we actually had a slight improvement in those. So our -- my hope is that we're hitting the trough on the transactions here. The in-town transactions are still ahead. And I would want to verify the statement before I make it. So I'll just say we're headed back towards that number. I can't verify for sure if we're back to it yet.

這是傑森。與 2019 年相比，我不確定我們是否已經回到了那個水平，但我們一直在努力回到那個水平。我想說的是，我提到了 12 月，我們實際上在這些方面有了一些改進。因此，我希望我們的交易能夠觸及低谷。市內交易仍在進行中。我想在發表聲明之前先核實一下。所以我只想說我們正在回到這個數字。我無法確定我們是否回到了原來的狀態。

Okay. And you mentioned the truck pending sale, but still in the fleet. Is there a big carrying cost just to have those in the fleet while they're waiting sale?

好的。您提到了卡車待售，但仍在車隊中。在等待出售期間將其留在車隊中是否會產生很大的運輸成本？

No, I think you could just take cost of capital cost to interest, something like that, just throw it at it. No, there's not a big cost. The worst thing is the battery goes dead yet. Put it back on a battery charger, but no, they don't.

不，我認為你可以將資本成本轉化為利息，類似的東西，就可以了。不，成本並不高。最糟糕的是電池還沒電了。將其放回電池充電器上，但不，他們不會。

And they're not going down in value. If anything, they might be inching up in value, but I don't have enough frequency to where I'd be willing to predict that. But I could see them because new truck prices are just astronomical. And so typically, that kind of rough way flows through to used truck prices. So there's no absolute certainty. It doesn't cost us more to ensure that we're self-insured essentially. So unless we have an insurance event, if the trucks parked, it doesn't have an insurance event. You're basically looking at depreciation or -- and I think the depreciation is not a real cost. I think the value of them is flat or increasing, then you have whatever capital is tied up and whatever Jason wants to put on that for a cost.

而且它們的價值不會下降。如果有的話，它們的價值可能會小幅上漲，但我沒有足夠的頻率來預測這一點。但我能看到它們，因為新卡車的價格簡直就是天文數字。因此，這種粗略的方式通常會影響二手卡車的價格。所以沒有絕對的確定性。我們不需要花更多的錢來確保我們本質上是自我保險的。因此，除非我們有保險事件，否則如果卡車停了下來，就沒有保險事件。你基本上是在考慮折舊——我認為折舊不是真正的成本。我認為它們的價值是持平或增加的，然後你就擁有了任何被佔用的資本以及傑森想要投入的任何成本。

Okay. That's good. And with the number of vehicles in the fleet growing, and you talked a little bit about this earlier, but is there an opportunity to sort of switch over one-way vehicles that are older to the in-town and local while the one-way transactions are down? Or do you still need their availability?

好的。那挺好的。隨著車隊中車輛數量的增長，您之前也談到過這一點，但是是否有機會將較舊的單向車輛轉換為城內和本地車輛，而單向車輛交易量下降？或者您仍然需要他們的可用性嗎？

We're doing exactly that.

我們正是這麼做的。

And for the older vehicles, returns are more a function of lower utilization because they're undergoing repair and maintenance or higher costs?

對於較舊的車輛，回報更多是由於利用率較低，因為它們正在進行維修和保養，或者成本較高？

You're asking which vehicle is more profitable, a new one or an old one, I guess, is that question is?

我猜你問的是新車還是舊車哪一種比較有利可圖，這個問題是嗎？

Well, no, more specifically for the older vehicles. Are there returns more impacted by the downtime while they're being repaired or the higher cost of the repair.

嗯，不，更具體地說是針對舊車輛。維修期間的停機時間或更高的維修成本對退貨的影響是否更大？

Any individual truck that will dry. But as we model them out, our expectation and experience has shown that the increase in the -- increase in the maintenance costs, the decrease in the utilization, which takes into account the days out of the fleet for repair is largely offset by the significant decrease in the depreciation expense that we allocate towards them.

任何可以乾燥的卡車。但當我們對它們進行建模時，我們的期望和經驗表明，維護成本的增加、利用率的下降（考慮到車隊需要維修的天數）在很大程度上被顯著的維修成本所抵消。我們分配給他們的折舊費用減少。

So we depreciate these trucks down to 20% by the end of year 7, or 30%. And then after that, we straight-line them down to 15% over like the next 8 years. So there's a low cost of depreciation there. And as a rich cohort that largely ends up offsetting the increased cost and lower utilization.

因此，到第 7 年年底，我們將這些卡車的折舊率降至 20%，即 30%。之後，我們將在接下來的 8 年裡將其直線下降至 15%。所以那裡的折舊成本很低。作為一個富裕的群體，很大程度上最終抵消了成本的增加和利用率的降低。

And to put a button on the question, I just checked, Stephen, and on trailing 12-month one-way transaction through December, we're still ahead of where we were in December 2020. So it hasn't pulled back as much as I have made it sound. We're still ways ahead.

為了解決這個問題，我剛剛查了一下，史蒂芬，在截至 12 月的追蹤 12 個月單向交易中，我們仍然領先於 2020 年 12 月的水平。所以它並沒有回調那麼多正如我所說的那樣。我們仍然遙遙領先。

And just one question on self-storage. What percentage of new supply for the non-same-stores, is new supply versus expansion and struggling stores there?

還有一個關於自助倉儲的問題。非同一家商店的新供應量佔新供應量與擴張和陷入困境的商店的百分比是多少？

That's a good question. I don't -- I haven't broken them out that way, but that's a really good question. I could age that portfolio and see ones that have been in there. If they've been in there more than 4 years and haven't hit -- haven't hit the stabilized pool, then that would fall into that category of a lagging performer. I did not do that breakout this quarter.

這是個好問題。我不——我沒有這樣分解它們，但這是一個非常好的問題。我可以對這個投資組合進行老化並查看其中的內容。如果他們已經在那裡待了 4 年多了，但還沒有達到穩定水平，那麼就會屬於表現落後的類別。本季我沒有進行突破。

There are no further questions at this time. I'd now like to turn the call back over to management for final closing comments.

目前沒有其他問題。我現在想將電話轉回給管理層以獲得最終的總結意見。

Well, thanks, everyone, for the support. We look forward to speaking with you after we file our 10-K in May. Thank you.

嗯，謝謝大家的支持。我們期待在 5 月提交 10-K 後與您交談。謝謝。

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a lovely day.

謝謝你，先生。女士們、先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束。我們感謝您的參與，並請您斷開線路。祝你愉快。