Amerco, Inc. UHAL
Q1 2013 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Ian Gilson, Zacks Investments.

Ian Gilson - Zacks Investments: The usual questions, and the quarter numbers on room count square feet, room occupied, occupancy rate, square feet occupied?

Jason A. Berg - Principal Accounting Officer of AMERCO: Sure at June 30th, our owned and managed room count was 428,000, our square feet available was 38,174,000, average rooms occupied during the quarter was 341,000, average square feet occupied during the quarter was 30,888,000, so an occupancy rate based upon rooms was 80%, which is about a 2% increase compared to last year for the total owned and managed portfolio.

Ian Gilson - Zacks Investments: Truck count, at the end of the quarter?

Jason A. Berg - Principal Accounting Officer of AMERCO: We were up about 400,000 units, which is – takes us about 108,000.

Ian Gilson - Zacks Investments: Why do I have, let me see – I had a 101,000 with the truck count at the first quarter of last year. Am I wrong on that number?

Jason A. Berg - Principal Accounting Officer of AMERCO: That seems a little low. I don't sure know something about 104,000.

Rocky D. Wardrip - Assistant Treasurer of AMERCO: Ian, this Rocky. I think that may have been the March 2011 number that you have.

Ian Gilson - Zacks Investments: Okay. Now, I had 98,000 for that.

Jason A. Berg - Principal Accounting Officer of AMERCO: Where we are today is about 108,000.

Operator: Jamie Wilen, Wilen Management.

James Wilen - Wilen Management: Nice quarter fellows. A couple of different question. On the U-Box program, how much do you expect to spend over the next couple of years and what do you see happening into this business if you can project out how much it can bring in and how much you're going to spend to achieve what type of revenues the U-Box program can do, not now, but down the pike?

Jason A. Berg - Principal Accounting Officer of AMERCO: I would say that a large piece of the CapEx related to the purchase of the boxes and purchase of the, I would say, the delivery equipment which would be the trucks and the forklifts, the vast majority of that has already taken place. Where we're spending money today is primarily real estate related and we do these U-Box facilities in conjunction with our Moving and Storage and our (indiscernible) centers. So, what we end up – it's kind of a mixed CapEx cost, Jamie. It's hard to allocate specifically the U-Box. Over the last three years we've been just about doubling the revenue on a trailing 12-month basis over the last few years. That pace probably isn't going to continue as we start to get into larger and larger numbers. We're not quite at the point yet where it represents an amount large enough for us to break out, but we've had now widespread across the country now for at least a year in over 1,000 locations. We're starting to see some real traction on it in growth, but we're not yet ready to say that it's accretive to earnings, but I think that we're looking towards that point here in the next year or two.

James Wilen - Wilen Management: On the self-storage side, pricing within the self-storage, I mean when does it reach a point where prices can actually be raised or does it have to be much greater occupancy rates?

Jason A. Berg - Principal Accounting Officer of AMERCO: Well, as we typically say it's such a micro market and in different areas we're certainly raising prices. On an overall macro basis our pricing is up a little bit year-over-year. So to get the occupancy gains before you can start increasing the prices. We have several hundred facilities there, over 90% occupancy so we're seeing some price movement on those facilities, some of the newer ones that we have were still in the ramp up period and there maybe some concessions to start with until we can get those up. It's hard for me to give you one answer that fits the entire country.