CarMax (NYSE:KMX) reported fourth-quarter financial results on Tuesday. The transcript from the company's fourth-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Access the full call at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/459575927
Summary
COMPANY NAME reported a 1% decline in total sales to $5.9 billion for the fourth quarter, with a combined total of approximately 304,000 vehicles sold across retail and wholesale channels, marking a 1% increase in volume.
The company focused on improving affordability and streamlined its cost structure, achieving a 5% reduction in SG&A expenses, excluding restructuring costs.
COMPANY NAME's adjusted earnings per diluted share were $0.34, down from $0.64 a year ago, impacted by restructuring costs and a non-cash goodwill impairment.
Newly appointed CEO Keith Barr outlined strategic priorities, including enhancing digital capabilities, optimizing inventory, and maintaining competitive pricing to drive growth.
CarMax Auto Finance originated nearly $1.9 billion in loans, achieving a sales penetration of 42.8%. The company plans to expand more into Tier 2 lending.
The company plans to open four new stores in fiscal year 2027 and expects capital expenditures of approximately $400 million, down from previous years.
Management emphasized the importance of pricing competitiveness and cost efficiency in driving sales and profitability.
The company paused share buybacks with $1.1 billion authorization remaining, focusing on improving business fundamentals and maintaining leverage targets.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 CarMax Earnings Release Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the Speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, David Lowenstein, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
David Lowenstein (Vice President, Investor Relations)
Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for joining our fiscal 2026 fourth quarter earnings conference call. I'm here today with Tom Folliard, Interim Executive Chair of the Board, Keith Barr, President and CEO Enrique Mayer Mora, Executive Vice President and CFO and John Daniels, Executive Vice President, CarMax Auto Finance. Let me remind you our statements today that are not statements of historical fact, including but not limited to statements regarding the company's future business plans, prospects and financial performance, are forward looking statements we make pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform act of 1995. These statements are based on our current knowledge, expectations and assumptions and are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. In providing projections and other forward looking statements, we disclaim any intent or obligation to update them. For additional information on important factors and risks that could affect these expectations, please see our Form 8K filed with the SEC this morning, our annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025 and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q previously filed with the SEC. Please note, in addition to our earnings release, we have also prepared a quarterly investor presentation and both documents are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Should you have any follow up questions after the call, please feel free to contact our Investor Relations Department at 804-747-0422 extension 7865. Lastly, let me thank you in advance for asking only one question and getting back in the queue for more follow ups. Tom thank you. David Good morning everyone and thanks for joining us today. I'm going to provide some brief commentary on our performance during the quarter. I'll also introduce our new President and Chief Executive Officer Keith Barr before turning the call over to him to say a few words. After that, Enrique and John will speak to our fourth quarter results in more detail as well as highlight a few key expectations for fiscal year 27 before we open the line for your questions. During the fourth quarter we made solid progress on the priorities outlined last call to strengthen the business, we improved sales trends by lowering our prices, investing in acquisition, marketing and and deploying an initial set of digital enhancements designed to drive conversion. We also continued streamlining our cost structure and lowering the cost to bring cars to market, helping us offer more affordable vehicles. Concurrently, we made meaningful progress on our SG&A reduction goals, CAF full spectrum ambitions and extended protection plan redesign. Before I get to Keith, I'd like to thank David McCrae for stepping into the role of interim president and CEO over the past several months as we search for the right leader to guide CarMax through its next phase of growth. David's leadership was critical in strengthening the business in the near term and solidifying the foundation for growth ahead. David will continue to be a tremendous asset to the company, serving as an independent Director of the Board. Well, the Board and I are thrilled to welcome Keith to CarMax. In searching for a CEO, we were looking for several attributes. First and foremost, a People first leader who will fit well with CarMax's award winning culture. An established, proven leader with experience leading a complex business. Someone with a strong customer focus and a track record of driving growth and strengthening brands. Experience maximizing the benefits of an integrated omnichannel model and finally, experience leading digital transformation. Keith embodies each of these characteristics, making him the right choice to lead CarMax through a critical juncture and drive the company's next chapter of growth. I'll now turn the call over to Keith to introduce himself and say a few words.
Keith Barr (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Keith thanks Tom and good morning everyone. I want to thank the Board for their trust in me. I am honored to join CarMax and lead this iconic organization alongside our talented associates. For more than 30 years, CarMax has helped shape the way people buy and sell used cars. And in doing so, it's earned something rare, the trust of its customers. A customer and associate centric approach is central to how I lead and I recognize right away that it is central to CarMax as well. This is one of the many things that attracted me to this team. CarMax has built something truly exceptional. A beloved brand. The combination of an unmatched physical footprint and strong digital infrastructure and an award winning people first culture. I am confident that we can build on this strong foundation and better serve our customers and unlock the significant opportunity ahead of us. Before joining CarMax, I spent my career in hospitality, holding numerous leadership roles in commercial operations and technology and ultimately serving for six years as CEO of IHG Hotels & Resorts. I led a successful transformation that created value for shareholders through empowering associates and pioneering a better experience for customers that has become the industry standard. On the surface, hotels and used cars may seem different, but at their core, both businesses succeed by delivering the right products at the right price in the right way for the customer. My time in hospitality was defined by placing the customer at the center of every decision. The auto market is evolving quickly and I believe a fresh outside perspective can be a real advantage, especially when it's grounded in respect for the complexity of the industry, a deep understanding of the competitive landscape and a clear focus on changing customer expectations. I believe there's a tremendous opportunity ahead to better meet the needs of today's consumer. CarMax's scale, including the fact that we reach 85% of the US population, is a competitive advantage in this market. Paired with our brand and culture, we are well positioned for success. Our recent performance has not reflected our potential and closing that gap is exactly what we are focusing on. I have been spending my first few weeks deeply familiarizing myself with every aspect of the business. This has included meeting many talented associates across the organization, both in our corporate offices and in the field, studying our customer and associate experience in both the buying and selling journeys, assessing our omnichannel capabilities, and understanding our approach to reconditioning, inventory, pricing, marketing and cats. In addition to the actions that Tom and David initiated during the fourth quarter, we're working hard to identify where we can improve and when we have more detail, we will communicate our plans with you. What I can already say with absolute certainty is that we will put the customer at the heart of every decision we make to drive better performance through that lens. This is what we will prioritize. First, make CarMax the obvious and easy choice that starts with consistently delivering three things that matter most to customers. A competitive price they trust is fair access to a broad selection of high quality vehicles and an end to end experience that meets the needs of today's consumer. Second, use technology to drive more differentiated experiences and efficiencies. We use software, data and AI in practical ways that make it even easier for customers to buy and sell cars and easier for our associates to serve them. That means reducing friction across the journey, personalizing the experience, improving how we match inventory and pricing to meet customer demand, and ensuring a great experience both in our stores and online. Third, act with more urgency and intention while ensuring there is alignment across the organization. We will change what is not working, double down on what is, and keep evaluating opportunities and risks as we move. We'll be bold, hold ourselves accountable and move with the speed as we build a durable long term growth engine. These three priorities are where we will begin and I expect our work to evolve as I continue to listen, learn, engage with our teams and investors. We have a meaningful opportunity ahead of us as we strengthen the business and improve our execution to drive growth and returns. I look forward to sharing more about our strategy and long term objectives in due time and I'm confident in what we can accomplish now. I'd like to turn the call over to Enrique to discuss our fourth quarter financial performance in more detail.
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Enrique thanks Keith and good morning everyone. During the fourth quarter we improved our sales trends and made progress toward our SG&A reduction goal which we now expect to be greater than the Fiscal Year 2027 exit rate targets we had previously set. Our EPS during the quarter was impacted by restructuring costs as well as by a non cash goodwill impairment while our margins decreased from the prior year quarter as we continue our focus on targeted price reductions and driving sales during the quarter we delivered total sales of $5.9 billion, down 1% compared to last year. Across our retail and wholesale channels, we sold approximately 304,000 vehicles combined, up 1% versus the fourth quarter last year in our retail business, total unit sales declined 0.8% and used unit comps were down 1.9%. This marked a strong positive change in trend relative to the second and third quarters which saw used unit comps of negative 6.3 and negative 9% respectively. Sales performance in our fourth quarter was supported by the actions that Tom noted. Average selling price was $26,000 $19 a year over year, decrease of $114 per unit. Wholesale unit sales are up 3% versus the fourth quarter. Last year. Average wholesale selling price declined by $268 per unit to $7,776. We bought approximately 270,000 vehicles during the quarter, up slightly from last year. The actions that we implemented also supported a strong positive change in trend as compared to the third quarter which was down 12% year over year. We purchased approximately 229,000 vehicles from consumers with approximately half of those buys coming through our online instant appraisal experience. With the support of our Edmund sales teams, we sourced the remaining approximately 41,000 vehicles through dealers which is down 9% from last year Fourth quarter net loss per diluted share was $0.85 versus $0.58 in earnings in the fourth quarter of last year. Adjusted earnings per diluted share, a non GAAP measure, was 34 cents in the quarter compared with 64 cents a year ago. Our EPS this quarter was impacted by a few items. This includes a non cash goodwill impairment of $0.99 driven by a combination of a decline in our market capitalization, which coincided with a prescriptive impairment measurement period and pressured financial performance and restructuring charges of $0.20 related to corporate workforce reductions and the early abandonment of the underutilized space associated with our Edmonds office. Altogether, These items reduced EPS by $1.19 this quarter. Total gross profit was $605 million, down 9% from last year's. Fourth quarter. Used retail margin of $383 million decreased by 10% driven primarily by lower profit per used unit of $2,115, which was down $207 per unit from last year's record high. Fourth quarter wholesale vehicle margin of $115 million decreased by 7% from a year ago with lower wholesale gross profit per unit of $940, a decline of $105 per unit partially offset by higher volumes. Other gross profit was $107 million, down 11% from a year ago. This was driven primarily by service in line with the outlook we gave in the third quarter. Call service was pressured by seasonal sales and the annualization of cost coverage levers taken last year. For the full year, service returned to profitability despite sales headwinds. Carmax Auto Finance income of $144 million was down 10% year over year. John will provide detail on CAF in a few moments. On the SG and A front expenses for the fourth quarter were $611 million when excluding the previously noted restructuring costs, SG&A was $577 million, down 5% from the prior year. SG&A dollars for the fourth quarter versus last year were mainly impacted by three factors. First, total compensation and benefits increased by $31 million driven by lower corporate bonus and stock based compensation as well as lower CEC payroll following the actions taken last quarter. These savings were partially offset by $12 million in restructuring charges tied to our SG&A cost reduction efforts. Second, occupancy costs increased by $27 million, including a $21 million charge related to the exit of our Edmonds office lease. That action will support lower SG&A moving forward. The balance of the increase was primarily timing related. Third, advertising expense increased by $6 million reflecting higher acquisition marketing spend. Turning to capital allocation during the fourth quarter we repurchased 1.3 million shares for a total expenditure of $50 million. As of the end of the quarter, we had $1.31 billion in repurchase authorization remaining. As we look ahead into Fiscal Year 2027, I'll highlight a few key areas. We expect to take a more dynamic approach to margin management as we run the business As a guidepost for Fiscal Year 2027, we currently expect used margins for the full year to decline at a rate broadly in line with our fourth quarter year over year trend, although actual results may vary as we continue to optimize performance. We expect the first quarter to reflect the largest year over year decline at closer to $300 per unit as we lap record margins. This outlook reflects our pricing actions and our ongoing efforts to reduce logistics and reconditioning cogs in support of more competitive pricing and stronger sales. We have completed our EPP product redesign and testing and have begun our national rollout which we expect will drive approximately $35 per unit in margins in Fiscal Year 2027. We will ramp throughout the year driven by the rollout plan. Regarding SG&A, we expect Fiscal Year 2027 exit rate reductions of $200 million, an increase over the previous guidance of $150 million. However, the year over year savings within Fiscal Year 2027 are expected to be offset primarily as we annualize over the materially reduced corporate bonus and share based compensation in Fiscal Year 2026, which offsets approximately half of the Fiscal Year 2027 in year savings. Inflationary Pressures and New Location Growth with our focus on lowering vehicle pricing through lower GPUs and COGS efficiencies, we will be transitioning our SG&A efficiency metric to a per total unit ratio which will consist of retail plus wholesale units. We expect SG&A to lever in Fiscal Year 2027 when excluding the restructuring charges incurred in Fiscal Year 2026. Regarding capital expenditures, we anticipate approximately $400 million of spend in Fiscal Year 2027 down materially from the past two years. The largest portion of our CAPEX investment continues to be related to the land and build out of facilities for long term growth capacity in off site reconditioning and auctions. In Fiscal Year 2027 we plan to open four new stores, two new off site reconditioning and auction locations and two new off site auction locations. Regarding capital structure, our priority remains funding the business and maintaining financial flexibility. We continue to take a disciplined approach to our capital structure including managing our net leverage to preserve efficient access to the capital markets for both CAF and carmax. Overall. With leverage slightly above our targeted range and as we focus on improving the business during this transitional period, we have paused our share buybacks. Our $1.1 billion authorization remains in place and we remain committed to returning capital to shareholders over time. At this time I will now turn the call over to John to provide More detail on CarMax Auto Finance and our continuing focus on full credit spectrum
John Daniels (Executive Vice President, CarMax Auto Finance)
expansion John Thanks Enrique and good morning everyone. During the fourth quarter, CarMax Auto Finance originated almost $1.9 billion, resulting in sales penetration of 42.8% net of three day payoffs versus 42.3% last year. The weighted average contract rate charged to new customers was in line with last year at 11.1%. Third party tier 2 and tier 3 penetration in the quarter combined for 25.6% of sales which was also in line with last year. The year over year increase in CarMax Auto Finance Penetration in the fourth quarter reflects our continued focus on expanding in Tier 2, supported by our flexible funding strategy and newest underwriting models. We expect our penetration growth targeting the top half of tier 2 will accelerate in FY27. Cap income for the quarter was $144 million, down $16 million from the same period last year. The loan loss provision was $74 million as compared to $68 million last year. Net interest margin on the portfolio was up slightly both sequentially and year over year at 6.3%. Consistent with the third quarter. Credit losses in the fourth quarter were in line with our expectations. CarMax Auto Finance's $74 million loan loss provision largely reflects expected charge offs on newly originated loans, including those tied to our credit spectrum expansion primarily into the Top half of Tier 2 total reserves ended the quarter $453 million, or 2.78% of auto loans held for investment. We also designated a $100 million pool of non prime loans as held for sale during the quarter, which does not require a loss reserve as signaled previously. We anticipate leveraging future off balance sheet funding transactions strategically as it supports our full spectrum growth strategy by balancing income and future provision risk. While CarMax Auto Finance income was down year over year in the quarter, this is largely reflective of a reduced held for investment receivable base impacted by the $900m 25b transaction executed in Q3, coupled with lower origination dollars over the last few years. CarMax Auto Finance realized approximately $5 million in servicing fees during both the third and fourth quarter. The third quarter also included a $27 million gain on sale as a result of the 25B transaction. As we grow our volume in Tier 2, we will continue refining our funding strategy and earnings model throughout the year. We believe a diversified funding approach gives us flexibility to optimize returns beyond traditional third party lender fees while maintaining appropriate risk discipline. More broadly, we see CarMax Auto Finance penetration growth as a contributor to the larger strategic goal of retaining a higher percentage of finance income. As always, we will Carefully consider the current state of the economy and consumer as we shape our strategy. I also want to provide an update on our redesigned extended service plan, maxcare, which focuses on mechanical coverage, and our new maxcare plus offering, which adds cosmetic protection. The redesign of these products is aimed at increasing penetration by improving affordability amid higher vehicle prices and has shown encouraging results across multiple markets. To date, as Enrique mentioned, we have completed our product enhancement testing and expect to achieve nationwide rollout by Q2 of FY27.
Keith Barr (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Now I would like to turn the call back over to Keith. Keith? Thank you, John. Before we open the line for questions, let me leave you with a few final thoughts. I want to thank Tom, David and all our CarMax associates for the foundation they have built. We made progress in the fourth quarter to improve affordability and streamline our cost structure. The time I've spent with associates in our offices and in the field has only reinforced my confidence in the opportunity ahead. We have a strong foundation, a powerful brand, and our focus is clear. Make CarMax the obvious choice for customers. Use technology to create more differentiated experiences and efficiencies and operate with greater urgency and intention. If we do that well, we will build a stronger, more efficient business with the customer at the center of every decision you make. Before I close, I want to recognize a point of pride for CarMax. We were once again named by Fortune as one of the 100 best companies to work for, marking 22 consecutive years on that list. Even in my first few weeks here, I have seen the culture behind that recognition firsthand. The trust, care and support associates show for one another every day are real strengths of this company. I'm honored to be part of this team. I look forward to updating you on our progress in the quarters ahead to sharing more about our strategy and long term objectives in due time. Thank you for your continued trust and confidence in CarMax. With that, we'll open the line for questions.
OPERATOR
Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, press star one on your keypad. To leave the queue at any time, press star two. As a reminder, we do ask that you limit yourself to one question. Once again, that is star one. To ask a question, your first question comes from the line of Craig Kinison with Baird. Your line is open. You may now ask your question.
Craig Kinison
Hey, good morning, Keith. Congratulations on the new role. I guess I'd start with what are your general observations after the first few weeks in the role? And then more specifically as you draw upon your experiences in the hotel industry? What are your thoughts on how to streamline the click through experience at CarMax. It feels like that's an area where you lag the best in class experience.
Keith Barr (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Craig. And yeah, I'm thrilled to be here and it's a pleasure to meet you. It's been great to get to know the team in the first few weeks. And what really stood out to me so far has been the caliber of our associates, both in the corporate office and in the field and the culture that's really, really palpable. I mean, there's an amazing culture here in the company and right now we're focusing on sharper execution on the fundamentals of the business about pricing, about selection, availability and experience. And so it's an amazing team. I think you're right on the hotel experience. One of my rallying cries in my old role was how do we reduce friction in the customer experience? If it takes us six clicks to do something, how can we make it three? What are the things that really matter most to customers? And really understanding that end to end customer journey and both online and in store and how we can streamline those processes, that's going to be one of my main focuses in the omnichannel experience. It's just streamlining the experience and really making it easier for our customers.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.
Brian Nagel
Good morning, Keith. Welcome. Look forward to working with you. Thank you. So my, my question is looking at this quarter, you know something, one of the big efforts here has been the, you know, price, I guess, price investment, so to say, in the used car business. So maybe you can discuss further, you know, what you saw in terms of elasticity and demand as you, as you adjusted prices, you know, how much of the. While used car unit comps were still down, they did improve rather significantly from the prior couple quarters. I mean, how much of that could you attribute to these price investments? And I know you gave us the guidance for at least some guidance for the first quarter, but I mean, how should we think about these price investments going forward?
Keith Barr (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, Brian, thanks for the question. You know, the impact that we had on the quarter was really there are several things that we did right. So we took our prices down. You can see that in the gross profit per unit (GPU) we increased our acquisition marketing spend as well. And we also made improvements to our online selling capabilities just through a website experience. I would tell you, out of those three things, pricing certainly we believe had the biggest impact, although we think all of those levers impacted our trend positively. And I'D tell you the results that we saw this quarter were pretty much in line with what we had expected given the actions that we took. And so we are really pleased with the change in direction we are able to coming out of the third quarter. We made it very clear our objective right now is to get the sales flywheel going and we're pulling these levers, and that's exactly what we saw. And we have those levers in place here moving forward as well.
Brian Nagel
So could I follow up quickly, David, on that topic? I mean, just, is there a way to quantify, you know, again, looking at the improvement, so to say that we saw used car unicoms here in fiscal Q4 versus 3 and 2, is there a way to quantify, I mean, how much of that was a direct result of these efforts you took?
Keith Barr (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, it's not really, you know, we haven't really talked externally about, you know, the price elasticity. We have a very deep understanding of price elasticity of. It's not something we've necessarily communicated externally exactly what it is. But again, what I tell you is that change in trend and that change, a positive change in direction. Those three items drove it. Lower prices, increased marketing, better selling capabilities online. But of those items, we do believe that our lower pricing had the biggest impact on the quarter.
Tom Folliard (Interim Executive Chair of the Board)
I appreciate it. Thank you. Hey, Brian, it's Tom. How are you? Hey, Tom, how are you? Good. I think it just proves price matters in this business. And we had let our, as we said at the beginning of last quarter, we kind of had let our prices drift up where we weren't as competitive as we'd like to be. And so, as Enrique mentioned, we took several, several actions immediately at the beginning of the fourth quarter. And as you noted, we saw a significant change, but clearly the biggest one was price. And now, as you've heard the team talk about cost, if we could get sales moving in the right direction and we can address some of the cost issues behind it, whether it's COGS or sga, we're going to have a fantastic business, but price really matters to the consumer.
Brian Nagel
That's very helpful. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Rajat Gupta with JP Morgan. Your line is now open.
Rajat Gupta
Great. Thanks for taking the question and look forward to working with you. Keith, I had an initial question, you know, just to follow up on Enrique's comments around SGA. How much, how much of the 200 million do you expect to hit this year's PNL? And could you double click a little bit more on, you know, Some of the commentary around, you know, accruals and stock based comp and how we should think about the magnitude there and maybe on any other guide rails around SG&A, you know, with respect to add expense per unit that would be helpful.
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, no, absolutely. Thanks John. So a couple things I think one way to think about it is the exit rate dollars we have coming out of FY26 in between, you know, the Customer Experience Center (CEC) actions we took last quarter, the home office actions we took this quarter that we talked about on the call as well as the Edmonds lease. All those things combined mean FY26. We're exiting the EU with about $100 million in savings. And as we said, you know we have a line of sight to another 100 million exit rate FY27. So some of those will be recognized within FY27. But really you're looking at a full realization in FY28 for a full annualization. What I would say though, and as I said in my prepared remarks in FY27 the in year savings we do expect to be offset as we annualize over the materially reduced corporate bonus and share based compensation. And that's about half of the actual expectations we have for savings in FY27. Now in normal course of business we don't expect those items to actually be around right. To have the same magnitude of impact. So that's really where you look at FY28 and you say okay, that'd be a full annualization of the savings. So that's how to kind of think of FY27 and the exit rate savings. Like look, we are laser focused and just to be absolutely clear, we are laser focused on running as efficiently as we can. I think us taking up our target from 150 to 200 million is a sign of that intent. And so you know we're certainly plowing forward and excited about those savings. But again the full impact will really be in FY28. Did you have a second part of your question.
Rajat Gupta
And have like just quick follow up for Keith? Sure, sure. Yeah. So just curious like I'll give had a chance to look at the portfolio a little bit. Would you consider taking a look at just you know, your store count as well and you know maybe think about pruning the number of locations you need, the density you need. I'm curious like how that would fit into your. How you're thinking about rationalizing and just creating more efficiency.
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, you know it's Enrique again as we go through Our strategic planning process here with Keith, Keith's new leadership. It's certainly something that we're going to be assessing. Look, we're going to go through a strategic plan outlook. We're going to come back and as Keith mentioned in his prepared remarks, we're going to come back at the appropriate time and communicate what those longer term objectives are, what the goals are and the key underpinnings of that strategy. So at the current moment, I think that, you know, a lot is on the table and that's something that we'll be assessing as part of the strategy.
Rajat Gupta
Understood. Great. Thanks for all the color.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Sharon Zakbia with William Blair. Your line is now open.
Sharon Zakbia
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I guess as you think about kind of improving affordability and clearly, you know, taking this GPU hit currently, are you also kind of considering maybe relaxing some of CarMax's standards? And I don't mean on the mechanical side, but on the cosmetic blemishes side, is there an opportunity to sell a few cars with dings or modest scratches where it might be more affordable to the consumer and could be clearly disclosed given that most of the research is done online.
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah. Sharon, thank you for the question. You know, certainly if you look over the past year, right, we have taken, you know, what we internally call, but I think everyone kind of externally knows as well, like ValueMax cars or older cars. We've taken the mix of our ValueMax cars up pretty considerably this year, which is really a sign towards, like we recognize, as Tom mentioned, pricing is key, affordability is key. And so that's, you know, one way of thinking of us meeting the customer where they want to be met on price is just increasing our mix of ValueMax. I think at the same time taking a harder look at, you know, how exactly can we even better do that is something as part of our strategy we're going to consider because clearly over the past year sales have not been where we want them to be. And so we need to consider all potential levers when it comes to going to the market. I think the one thing that we will not change though is, is absolutely the overall relative quality standards that we have and that we're known for. CarMax is known for a quality car and that will continue. But, you know, there's probably items around the edges that we can take a harder look at and make sure that we meet today's customers demands today. Right.
Sharon Zakbia
And Rita, can I follow up? I know Keith's been there for like A minute. But is there any kind of timeframe when we should expect kind of the strategic plan and some maybe more concrete benchmarks on SG and a per car and things like that?
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, you're right. Keith has been here a minute. So, you know, we have our planning sessions that are. That are underway here and that'll take. We'll start doing those over the next quarter here. I think in June you'll probably start to see some headlines. Maybe. I don't expect by June there'll be a full strategic path forward, but in June you'll start to get a sense of where we're going and. And then certainly after that, shortly after that, I would expect that we'd have a strong point of view on where we're going and the key metrics that go along with that and our outlook for the future, which we're really excited about.
OPERATOR
Okay, thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Ciccarelli with Truist. Your line is now open.
Scott Ciccarelli
Good morning, everyone. So, two strategic questions, if I may. First, on sales, if. If price reductions and a $300 GPU drop were to accelerate comps to the positive range, would you expect it to push it even further because it's working, or is there a floor on GPU levels that you're kind of thinking about? And then secondly, on the SGA side, it sounds like you have an expectation to improve the customer experience, especially with online transactions. But can you help us reconcile? Like, you're also expecting to cut OPEX and Capex pretty significantly and presumably some of those things cost money.
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, maybe just to start with SG&A, you know, so we have increased our target, right, from 150 to 150 million to 200 million. And you know, we'll continue to assess this at the right number. I think the key point here is that it's critical that we balance our cost production goals with our ambitions to grow the business. Right. And to your point, there's a little bit of tension between the two and I fully expect as part of our strategic planning delivery, that's going to be a topic. Right. We want to make sure we're running as efficiently as possible, but we also want to make sure that we're actually funding the business appropriately. And that may mean reallocating certain resources, it may mean reducing certain resources and in certain areas, perhaps increasing resources. Right. But that's going to be a key point of tension as we build out our strategy kind of moving forward. And then when it comes to price, I think the other lever to consider. Right. That we're always focused on but I think will take on heightened importance is cogs and reducing our cogs and logistics costs. Because when you do that, you actually then have multiple choices ahead of you. You can either just take it straight and give it to the customer, you can take it to margin to help offset some of that pressure, or you can do a combination of the two. And that's really something that we're laser focused on kind of moving forward. And that certainly will be a key tenet of our strategy moving forward as well.
Keith Barr (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Hey Scott, I'm just going to build on what Enrique said in my past experience. Becoming a more efficient business and lowering SG&A doesn't come at the expense of a great customer experience. You can actually improve quality, leverage technology and become a more efficient business at the same time. That's what we're going to be very focused on. Spending time with the team in the stores. There's a number of opportunities for us to again make it easier for our associates to serve our customers and give a better experience for customers both in store online more efficiently. So have done this before and looking forward to working with the team to do it again.
Scott Ciccarelli
Okay, thanks guys.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Daniela Hagian with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Daniela Hagian
Hi Keith, Congratulations on the role. Looking forward to seeing what you and the team will accomplish here. So I appreciate the overview on goals and understand we'll have to wait till June for the full strategic update. But I guess in the first, you know, 90 to 100 days here, what are the specific changes or low hanging fruit that you prioritize to simplify that digital experience and improve conversion and what are I guess, areas or metrics that we can track against those goals?
Keith Barr (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Well, thanks, thanks for the question again. Been here four weeks, which has been an amazing experience at spending time at indoors, in the office and with the teams and so I'm really enjoying learning about the car industry and understanding our strengths and I guess I'll start there because I think the company has made great long term investments in its digital platform and the geographic footprint. And the thing that we're focusing on is how do you connect that digital innovation with physical retail to create something that's really powerful that we can leverage to drive growth. The team right now is incredibly focused on the customer experience, particularly in digital and understanding how we can more efficiently move customers through the funnel, reduce friction and to one of the earlier questions like if it's taking us 10 clicks to do something, how can we do it in seven or five, really understanding what are the features and benefits that matter most. And so really making sure that we're driving customer acquisition, but then also more effectively moving customers through the experience both online and in the stores. In regards to specific metrics, I think, you know, we're going to have to come back to you once we have a clearer view on the long term strategy because the metrics that are the most important, this business has to be aligned to those outcomes. So I don't. Rick, if you want to add anything else.
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
No, I think that's absolutely correct. And again, in June, maybe some signals in terms of where we're going. June is really not that far away, but I think thereafter is when we'll come back with kind of a fuller point of view on our strategy, the metrics to hold us accountable by that we'll hold ourselves accountable to. And again, we're really, really excited about where we are and our path forward here.
Daniela Hagian
Great, thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from David Bellinger with Mizuho. Your line is now open.
David Bellinger
Great, thank you. Keith, congrats on the new seat. Two areas where we were looking for a bit more detail. First one on conversion. I know you just talked about this a second ago, but how do you assess the level and quality of traffic that's coming into your site and your app and just how you benchmark against others in the sector on conversion? And then second piece on vehicle inventories, looking at your app, you've got 55,000 cars in there right now. That's been as high as 60 or 70,000. So as you implement some of these new tools, even some AI tools, is there an opportunity to operate the business with simply less inventory while still giving that core customer the breadth and depth that they need?
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Thank you. Yeah, I think on the inventory piece, I think, look, it certainly is a key aspect that we need to consider. We need to balance what is the right amount of inventory kind of by market, how quickly can we get it to customers. And I expect that'll be a key component of our strategic deliberations as well, making sure we have the right amount of inventory. Is it less, is it more? You know, we'll end up seeing what that looks like. And in regards to conversion, I think as well, that's going to be a key point of view. Like this past quarter, I would tell you, conversion was relatively flat. Our selling opportunities were actually relatively flat as well. Our web traffic was up like 14% this past quarter. And for the first time in five quarters we saw selling opportunities actually relatively flat as opposed to being down year over year. So positive movement there. And again, conversion was relatively flat. But I think the items that Keith has pointed out in terms of getting the customer through our website to buy a car in an easier way, in a faster way, undoubtedly is going to help our conversion rate when folks land on the website. And so, so pretty immediately, he's been here a hot minute, but already identifying, I think, the key areas of opportunity for us moving forward. And look, our goal is to drive selling opportunities and also drive conversion as well.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeff Lick with Stevens Inc. Your line is now open.
Jeff Lick
Good morning, Ed. My welcome petite question. Tom, this is probably your last call when you get the benefit of your wisdom. You know, I was wondering if maybe you could just give a little. Any granularity or color just as you drop prices. Obviously, you know, you didn't drop every price. $207 some you dropped some. You might even have increased any color on where you do see more elasticity, you know, in terms of cohorts, age of car, you know, where you're getting more traction versus where you're getting less or where it's not worth it to, you know, try to play the price game.
Tom Folliard (Interim Executive Chair of the Board)
You know, I think Enrique, Enrique talked earlier about kind of optimizing that first. Hey, Jeff, how you doing? He talked earlier about optimizing the price. Price and cost differences. As I mentioned, clearly, when we lowered price, it changed our change the trajectory of our sales. And as you just rightly pointed out, when we say our margins are down 200 bucks, they're not down 200 bucks on every car. You see, all of our cars practically end in 998. That means we're more likely to drop a car, a thousand, like 20% of the cars, $1,000 to achieve the $200 price drop. And we were very analytical about, very analytical about that and how we approach it and do it in a way that we think will maximize the. The change in sales. The backdrop of that is we have to run a profitable business. And as Enrique mentioned, some of the things on cost, we felt like lower the prices, get sales in the move, moving in the right direction, and then pay for it by taking cost out of the business. And I think that'll be a theme for this team going forward as well, which is figuring out how to grow the company. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to grow this business with our current footprint and do it in a profitable way. And that's a combination of pricing, margins, caf all the ancillary products that we sell. But look, I think it was great to come out of the quarter with a change in sales trajectory and we believe that price was a big factor there.
Jeff Lick
And then just a quick follow up and maybe Keith, you could chime in on your thoughts. I mean, Tom, if I think back, call it 10, 15 years ago, you know, when it, when the world was really all brick and mortar, I think the thought the strategy was, you know, you're trying to have a used car lot that was a little bit, you know, more customer friendly than your typical used car lot would lend itself to selling, you know, newer cars. And it seems like there's less competition, you know, relatively speaking in the, you know, your value max. I wonder, you know, is, you know, culturally, would you, are you more willing now to explore that 7, 8 year old, 9 year old sale and you know, kind of mix the person who's coming in looking for that three year old Jetta versus the person that's coming in looking for the eight year old, you know, Ford Explorer.
Tom Folliard (Interim Executive Chair of the Board)
Again, you know, we're a demand driven business and Enrique mentioned earlier about internally we call it valuemax. It's really just an older car with higher miles but we want to keep it at the same quality standard. I believe Enrique, our inventory was around 50% value max. You know, that was 15, 20% 10 or 15 years ago.
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
So yeah, and again this year we have absolutely increased our sale inventory and sales of our older cars to drive, to meet the customer, where they want to be met on affordability, to help support sales. But you know, at the same time, Jeff, clearly overall, if you take a look at the entire year, we're not where we want to be, right. And so I think it's, we need to continue to assess, so we need to continue to assess what is the right level of inventory, what is the right age of inventory and the price points. And that will be part of our deliberation, certainly.
Tom Folliard (Interim Executive Chair of the Board)
Yeah. And Jeff, it's a double edged sword. You buy older cars with higher miles, they, they cost more to recondition and they take longer to recondition. So you know, it's not, Keith said it earlier, it's the right car in the right place at the, at the right price. And so it's, it's, it's a combination of those variables.
Jeff Lick
Awesome. Well, thanks for taking my question and keep looking forward to working with you.
OPERATOR
Thank you.
Michael Montani
Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Montani with Evercore isi. Your line is now open. Yes. Hi. Thanks. Good morning and welcome to Keith. Looking forward to working with you as well.
John Daniels (Executive Vice President, CarMax Auto Finance)
Thanks. Michael, wanted to ask if I could, John, if you could unpack a bit more some of the trends that we're seeing on the credit side with respect to roll rates and delinquencies, you know, both in terms of on a like for like basis of credit quality and applicants as well as given some of the mixed changes that have occurred, maybe towards more operative here too. Sure, yeah. Appreciate the questions Michael. With regard to roll rates and delinquencies, you know, I think across the kind of the auto lending industry, you know, lenders would say customers maybe absent exception of maybe the highest credit quality, the 800 plus FICO, you know, they certainly are feeling the stress of affordability, inflation, etc. So you know, those customers from mid tier one all the way down to deep subprime, you know, are feeling distress. You know, delinquencies are higher, roll rates are higher and for us as a lender our job is to support them, help to service them and then you know, set the reserve accordingly in preparation for that. And I think we've done that over the last at the end of Q3, we've hit our losses right on the mark in Q3 and Q4. So we feel good about where we sit. But there is a stressed customer out there and we are thoughtful on that. That being said, again, it's a highly profitable business. We provide a fantastic car and a fantastic experience. So that's why we are willing to go into the tier two space and we are growing that space. You know, you've got loans of value of 3, $3,000, 30 $500 on top of the Tier 1 business. So we look forward to growing that. So we have shifted our, you know, our focus. Obviously we will always take all the tier one volume but we're growing in tier two. We signal that we're 43% penetration this quarter. We anticipate that accelerating over the course of FY27. We've made market changes to, to grow that across the last year including Q4. And so we will look forward to booking those that tier 2 volume. We were approximately less than 10% of tier 2 a year ago. We were closer to 20% in this quarter of tier 2 and actually exiting the quarter we're actually a little higher than 20%. So we look forward to taking on that volume, servicing that customer, reserving accordingly the in that and obviously generating more income for CarMax.
Michael Montani
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from John Babcock with Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
John Babcock
All right, thanks for taking my questions. I just have two quick ones here. I guess just first of all, on capital spending, you talked about how that's going to be down over the last couple of years. Are you able to provide any color in terms of where you're reducing spending, whether that's on the maintenance side or the growth side?
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, it's actually a little bit of both. And so number one, on the growth side, you know, we're taking new stores down from 6 to 4 as I talked about in my prepared remarks. So that's one of the drivers. At the same time, from a off site reconditioning and auction standpoint, you know, we have spent the past several years buying the actual revolution real estate when it comes to those sites. And so what you see this year is a little less on real estate spend as well. And then overall, just for our stores as well, just a little bit more heightened focus, just a little bit there, a little more heightened focus on prioritization of resources there. So you kind of see it across the board, really.
John Babcock
Okay, that's very helpful. And then also just given everything that's going on in the Middle east right now, I was wondering, you know, I know you've talked about lowering pricing and you know, marketing spend and everything else you're doing to really try to drive more traffic, drive more consumer interest in CarMax. Just kind of curious though, I mean, how has, how have the Middle east tensions impacted what you're seeing? And do you think that's going to have, have a notable impact on your overall year over year growth trends or do you think that you can grow through, you know, despite that?
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
That's a great question. What I tell you is what it, what it points you to really is more the industry, right, for the month of March. And in the month of March, the industry actually supported by a pretty strong tax season was pretty healthy. We're not going to talk about our intra-quarter performance, but I tell you the industry itself is actually pretty healthy coming out of March or into March. And I tell you, moving forward, yeah, I do think it's something that we need to watch between inflationary pressures, between what has now been on record the lowest consumer sentiment on record here. So it's something we're watching, right. But at the same time we are focused on what we can control and what we can control, especially given now that we have a much more dynamic approach to margin management, is we can react to what's happening in the market pretty quickly. And so we're excited to have that approach a little bit more dynamic as I mentioned, and we'll control what we can control.
Keith Barr (President and Chief Executive Officer)
All right, very helpful. Thank you. John. Just to add one more thing there which I've been really impressed about. Is this how the team has been talking about what's happening in the market and so thinking about on the supply side as well, talking about, okay, do we have more bring more EVs into inventory? Do we bring in more gas efficient vehicles as well too? So constantly thinking about what does the customer want and how we make sure we can deliver that to them to drive sales.
John Babcock
All right, sounds good. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Pierce with Needham. Your line is now open.
Chris Pierce
Hey, good morning. If we just fast forward a year from now and we were looking at the 28, would we. I just want to sort of understand, is it lower prices, lower SGA per unit and structurally lower retail GPU or are there levers you can pull on the retail GPU side of the world as well? And I'm just sort of asking because you've got a customer being aggressive on. Not a customer, a competitor being aggressive on financing rates to customers. Like what would happen if that, that competitor got aggressive on pricing as well. I'm just sort of curious how you can kind of, could you pull this lever again and drive growth again or is this like a one time lever and retail GPU needs to sort of move higher over time?
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, I don't think it's a one time lever. Look, I think a year from now, yeah, you know, we're laser focused on affordability for customers. That does move the needle. And so we need to now go back and figure out how to deliver on that. And as I mentioned earlier, certainly a focus on cogs logistics costs is going to take a heightened focus in our strategic planning process because again, that is a lever that you can either give to the customer, you can either take the margin or you can do a combination of those two things. That is a very powerful lever and it's one where we think we have opportunity and one that we're laser focused on. But what I think is non negotiable is having being more price competitive. And we've actually seen that we do track our relative price competitiveness pretty much on a weekly basis here. And what we have seen is that price competitiveness has gotten better and pretty much in line with what we expected for the quarter. And so we've been pleased with that movement and you saw the results.
John Daniels (Executive Vice President, CarMax Auto Finance)
And Chris, I'll just add to that, as Enrique mentioned about, you know, you talk about the retail side and the retail margin we've signaled and you know, I've shown in what we're doing in the caf side of it, there is clear opportunity in the finance margin and we're going to go after that. We're excited about the EPP product and the added margin there. So, you know, we look at holistically, we're going to look at it dynamically, and I think we can really support in those two buckets as well.
Chris Pierce
Okay. And then just, Enrique, if you could sort of help me kind of if I think about logistics as part of etlgpu, what kind of like lever are we talking about? Is that a couple hundred dollars or like just kind of bucket it a little bit? So if you do decide to take that back and pass someone on, like, what, what. How much of a lever is that on retail gpu? To the extent you can say, yeah,
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
no, I mean, our overall spend on logistics is, is north of that. Right. So, but in terms of like, where the actual dollars will come from, logistics is an opportunity, we know, to the actual labor that goes into reconditioning and all the costs associated with that parts. Everything is an area of opportunity. But we believe there's plenty of opportunity there to further increase and improve our price competitiveness.
Chris Pierce
Okay, thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our last question comes from John Healy with North Coast Research. Your line is now open.
John Healy
Great. Thanks for taking that question, Keith. Why don't we get a big picture question? I know we've talked a lot about the retail approach, but your view on the financing business, are you fans of it? Are you liking the approach to kind of maybe reach down a little bit deeper in that category? And then secondly, just as you look at the capital structure of the business, I always felt CarMax is unique in that it doesn't floor a lot of its inventory or much of it all. Is that something that you would consider to do to maybe take advantage of maybe raising some capital to maybe recapitalize or buy in a lot of stock? Or how would you think about maybe even the need to have caf and maybe try to be creative with that asset, as maybe some other entities have recently done? So we'd just love to get your thoughts if that is something that's also on the table for you guys.
Keith Barr (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks. Thanks, John. And a pretty wide range of questions. I'll take the first part, then I'll let Enrique talk about kind of capital Structure. I was with the cap team last week and it was absolutely fantastic to spend time with John and his team to see just the caliber of talent we have there and how we're thinking about the business. And as we build our strategy moving forward, which we'll come back and talk more about in June, it's really understanding all the levers we can pull to make this a growth business and drive return for shareholders. And so caf is going to play a key piece in that. That's going to be in the lending environment. It's also going to be in the other products that we can sell. And then how does that pair into our overall selling strategy for the business and getting the right price, right cars, improving logistics too. And so caf is going to be a critical lever for profit growth for this company moving forward.
Enrique Mayer Mora (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
And we're going to really kind of see how that fits into the broader strategy overall. But I'll let Enrique talk about capital structure. Yeah, a couple things, you know, and certainly capital structure, supporting cap funding and all that is very dynamic and it's a very exciting area for us. I think number one on the floor plan, the revolver that we have is the most efficient use of capital when it comes to funding the caf business. And so I would not expect that to change. What I would tell you though, is from an overall cap funding opportunity, we are looking at, as we've talked about before, alternative funding vehicles. Right. So last year we. We executed our first residual sale, which allowed us to have a gain on sale in the third quarter. So that's something that we intend on continuing to. To lever. We were really pleased with the execution of that deal and the reception that we had in the marketplace of that deal. But alternatively, we're also looking at different levers too, such as a whole loan, sales. Is that an opportunity? Right. And there's multiple ways to access capital to support caf and, and we're exploring them all. We have a strong portfolio of banks and capital providers that we've been dealing with for years and years that are supportive of us. We also have some new potential partners as well out there that we're exploring those options with as well. So I would expect as the year unfolds here, you'll see us kind of exploring new ways to fund the caf business.
Keith Barr (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you. Great, thank you. I think Alberta is the last question. So thank you for joining the Call today for your questions and for your support and I look forward to getting to know all of you better in the quarters to come and we will talk again next quarter.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the fourth quarter fiscal year 2026. CarMax Earnings Release Conference call. You may now disconnect.
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