Casey’s General Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:CASY) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Ben Bienvenu: So, I’m going to ask, you provided helpful color on quarter-to-date trends. My understanding or recollection is that August was probably a reasonably difficult comparison, just given last year, that was a period where we saw a precipitous drop in fuel prices off of a very high base following the onset of the Ukraine war. So, I’m wondering what does that mean for the compare in the period? And I know it’s just the first quarter and the year, and you typically don’t revisit guidance until you get a little bit further into the year. But how much does kind of what you’re seeing quarter-to-date play into the decision not to address full year guidance?

Darren Rebelez: Yeah, Ben, this is Darren. I would say that, that’s got nothing to do with our decision to not update guidance at this point. It’s just been our standard practice to wait until the midpoint of the year where we have a bit more visibility into what’s going on. So I would just emphasize, you should read nothing into the fact that we didn’t update guidance other than the fact that we’re one quarter into it, and we have another quarter before we typically do that. We did make the adjustment on the stores, because we already have under contract more stores than we had plan to open for the year. So that one, just mathematically, we felt obligated to adjust. But everything else, we’re just going to wait till second quarter and with respect to how August played out, it was just, like Steve mentioned in his remarks, we were just slightly below the midpoint of our guidance on fuel and inside the store. And so I think that’s what you should read into that.

Ben Bienvenu: Okay. Fair enough. Great. My second question is on M&A. You noted the balance sheet is still in a great position. The performance of the underlying business continues to improve. I know you’ve already had a pretty brisk pace with M&A to start the year. But presumably, your appetite is still there. And are there options out there in the market that are intriguing to you?

Darren Rebelez: Yeah. I would say yes to both. I mean, we definitely have the flexibility on the balance sheet to do more deals, and we have the appetite for that. We’re really only limited by what’s available out there. And I think the macro environment is setting up really favorably for us. Like we’ve mentioned, costs have still been higher to operate, especially for those who don’t have scale. The tobacco mix is starting to have an impact on folks, we believe. And so, we’ve seen a pretty good uptick in the opportunities that are out there for us to pursue. And we have — our dedicated M&A team has been busy looking at all of those that makes sense for us, and we’ll just have to see how that process plays out, but we’re definitely in the market for that.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please for our next question. Our next question will come from Bonnie Herzog of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Bonnie Herzog: All right. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to ask about your inside sales, which were quite healthy. So, maybe just hoping for a little bit more color on some of the key categories where you saw maybe the most growth? And then, also on your private label performance, maybe you could share with us just sort of where you’re at with that business that you’ve rolled out and maybe how it trended throughout the quarter, especially in the context of the consumer? Thanks.