Copart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRT) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

But by and large, similar overriding picture there, overall picture there, which is to say total loss frequency growth, market share growth and good marginal economics there as well. As for Germany and Spain, I think that’s probably what you have in mind, Germany and Spain and by extension, the rest of Western Europe. Those are the net settlement markets to which we have offered, as you know, a handful of different service propositions, including initially buying cars more aggressively than migrating more to a consignment model. We continue to build our businesses in both countries. We continue to earn the trust of our insurance company sellers, continue to innovate and experiment with them. So there’s nothing radically new to report there.

Bret Jordan : Okay. And then I guess housekeeping, the non-insurance business, Blue Car is plus 35 and Dealer is plus 13, could you size those two businesses relative to each other within non-insurance?

Jeff Liaw: I don’t think we have. They are both meaningful to us in terms of the P&L though. Both Blue Car and the Dealer segments are both meaningful volume, meaningful contribution. You’ll hear the carve out when we describe the wholesalers and charities. That’s business also that we endeavor to serve. We call these the lower value vehicles. Those together, Copart Direct as well, would constitute, would be characterized as a non-insurance space. But Dealers and Blue Car are the large ones among them.

Bret Jordan : Right. But relative to each other, is Dealer larger and that’s why it grows at a lower rate or are they similarly sized to the unit standpoint?

Jeff Liaw: Dealer is larger, more mature, meaning we’ve been pursuing that business for longer. Though, as I think you’ve heard us say in the past, as the insurance business evolves, as more cars look like perfectly intact, drivable vehicles, the buyer base for our vehicles is relevant for more and more of the Dealer cars as well. So it’s not a static game with every week or month or year that goes by more Dealer cars are addressable than in the period prior.

Bret Jordan : Okay. I love that you converted the treasury position to cash just on the cash flow statement. Is there anything there?

Leah Stearns: No, that’s just really a reflection of the movement in the yield curve. So the longer than 90-day maturities did mature, and we’ve held them in shorter than 90-day treasury securities since then.

Bret Jordan : Okay, great. Thank you.

Jeff Liaw: Thanks, Bret.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question is coming from John Healy from Northcoast Research. Your line is now live.

Leah Stearns: John?

Operator: John, perhaps your phone is on mute.

John Healy : Sorry about that guys. Just wanted to ask a little bit about the whole car opportunity. I think you guys talked about the finance business growing multiple digits for you. I assume that’s kind of analogous to repo. When you look at the repo business, have you made good strides there? I mean, is that the right way to read it? And when you look at how repo cars kind of moved through the process, I’ve always thought they went through repo agents, and then they go to impound lots and things like that. Is there any structural difference with how you are going to market that maybe present in the savings to these finance companies, maybe in terms of storage than maybe what the traditional model held, maybe through other mechanisms of the marketing?

Jeff Liaw: John, I think you’re right that the vehicles from financial institutions are in large part repossessions. There are other use cases. And repossessions, of course, in some cases are very straightforward and come straight to us from the financial institution. In other cases, the cars can be trapped at impound facilities. We do think we bring some unique capabilities there in terms of the ability to navigate the vehicle retrieval process. It’s both – it’s a combination of technology as well as human expertise. I think we offer both in that regard. Then of course again, the auction platform itself generates strong returns. So in the aggregate that the ability to get the car faster, the ability in some cases to liberate cars that otherwise would be trapped altogether, that may be abandoned, for example, and then to generate good returns on all of the above is what’s enabled our growth there.