Global Partners LP (NYSE:GLP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Gregg Brody : Got it. And you mentioned this a bit, Wholesale normalized. GDSO though, you’re still running at margins that are above history. You’ve said the breakevens have improved. What do you think the right number is today for a normalized margin? I know you chuckled because it keeps improving.

Gregory Hanson : I can give my 2 cents, and I’ll let Mark or Eric chip in, too. I think we do believe that we have seen operating costs for all operators in the gas station business increase, not just in salary, but also on equipment and credit card fees, all of that has to be offset and pass-through on the fuel margin, we believe. And so we’ve seen a definite shift since COVID on the fuel margin side. We were seeing it before that, too. Historically, margins have been creeping up as expenses increase. And I think it impacts the smaller operators more than guys like us who have scale, we have different levers we can pull on expenses as opposed to some of the smaller guys who is the only lever they can pull is fuel margin. And I think you’ve heard a lot of other companies mention that. But to your point, yes, we see breakeven increase. And I think we’ve got to offset the cost.

Gregg Brody : I appreciate that color. Maybe I’ll just add one more, I can. So this acquisition from December is a little larger than some of the other ones you’ve done. Is your plan to just fund it on the revolver and pay it down over time? Or do you think you’ll — you might term that out in the bond market at some point?

Gregory Hanson : Yes. Our expectation is we’re going to fund it under the revolver. We only have $99 million currently funded under that revolver. And you may have seen our recent 8-K that came out in January, we did an amendment to upsize the revolving capacity from $450 million to $600 million. So we currently have about $500 million of the revolver availability under the revolver. And so we’ll fund it under that, the $273 million acquisition price. We’ll fund it as a revolver. And then as we’ve historically looked in the past, we have utilized the bond market to term out some of our longer-term borrowings. And yes, there’s potential there, we’d look to the bond market again at some point as needed.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of with Stifel.

Unidentified Analyst: This is Greg. Congrats on the great end to a strong year. Just wanted to know if you could give any color around kind of diesel margins or fuel margins that you’ve seen this year so far, given volatility and that it’s going to be probably a pretty heavy year as far as refinery turnarounds go. But just really any color you could provide would be really helpful.

Mark Romaine : Greg, it’s Mark. I couldn’t hear the entire question, but I think I got the gist around margins and refinery turnarounds. And I assume you’re talking about the market in general. The curve as we sit here today has flattened out a lot. And so a lot of the volatility and the cost of owning inventory that we saw in 2023 is a little bit different today. So I think we’re — our expectations and who knows what’s going to happen forward. Our expectations, as we sit here today, our margins should — and we have seen this, margins should return back towards something more normal as the curve has flattened, as volatility has quieted down and as the cost of carrying inventory has decreased. We’ve seen a corresponding downshift in margins towards more of a historical norm, although still at elevated levels.