MNRO - NASDAQ

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Monro Inc.’s Earnings Conference Call for the First Quarter of Fiscal 2023. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] And as a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from the company. I would now like to introduce Felix Veksler, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Monro. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this morning’s call. Before we get started, please note that as part of this call, we will be referencing a presentation that is available on the Investors section of our website at corporate.monro.com/investors/investorresources. If I could draw your attention to the Safe Harbor statement on Slide 2, I’d like to remind participants that our presentation includes some forward-looking statements about Monro’s future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those suggested by our comments today. The most significant factors that could affect future results are outlined in Monro’s filings with the SEC and in our earnings release. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Additionally, on today’s call management’s statements include a discussion of certain non-GAAP financial measures which are intended to supplement and not be substitutes for comparable GAAP measures. Reconciliations of such supplemental information to the comparable GAAP measures will be included as part of today’s presentation and in our earnings release. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to Monro’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Broderick.

Thanks, Brian. We’re optimistic about our outlook for the remainder of fiscal 2023 and beyond. Although, we still have important work to do. We strongly believe that we remain well positioned to execute our growth strategy and deliver long-term value creation for our shareholders. Before we move to questions, two topics I wanted to briefly address. First, our governance structure. We have been consistent in our disclosures regarding the company’s dual class capital structure and the fact that the company does not have the right nor power to unilaterally recapitalize its equity capital structure. Second, I want to be clear that the board is more than aware of its fiduciary duties is well advised and will continue to act in the best interests of all shareholders and in compliance with securities laws. With that, I will now turn it over to the operator for questions on the quarter.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Our first question for today comes from Daniel Imbro from Stephens Inc. Daniel, your line is now open.

Yes. Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking our question.

Good morning.

Mike, I wanted to start actually on the tire category. You saw a nice acceleration on a one and two-year stack, and I think in the prepared remarks, you mentioned that unit market share increased. Could you break down that comp increase and talk about maybe how much of that was ticket versus price inflation. And on share, how are your strongest markets doing unit share increasing in all your markets or I’m just curious kind of how that – how ubiquitous that unit market share growth has been across the country.

Yes. Thanks, Daniel. Let me – on the market share and I’ll speak specifically around tires, but I also would like to introduce parts at the same time, because there might be other follow-up questions on market share. So I separate market share. We have good data, industry data, all about tires. So I have a good power doing with tires. We don’t have that same view with parts and service categories. But to be go and trying to answer all your questions around tire category, we saw growth across the market, across the country, but we really saw a nice, I would say, significant change in the south, southeast and also the northeast. They really had a nice first quarter. So now looking at overall market share, the industry units wise were significantly down in the first quarter. We were down also, we were able to optimize with price. It was – we don’t want to get into the specifics, but it was all driven through price. So when I look at the 5% comp, although, I’m happy with the 5% comp, I was expecting much better numbers. It seemed like we were moving through the month of May in a good way. And then all of a sudden things slowed down and I feel like the customer was definitely affected starting in the early parts of June. I do believe that’s deferred maintenance in very much way. I mean, we started seeing customers trade down from four tires to two tires to one tire. I do believe that just like on services, all that’s going to be deferred. And I look forward to those customers coming back, because those services still need to be provided.

Got it. That’s really helpful. And then on the kind of initiative and staffing, you mentioned you’re towards the tail end of staffing, but then Mike, you talked a little bit about employee training. You guys are working on kind of in-store training, curious where we’re at in that initiative. And then what are the margin implications we should think about as you guys roll that out and how’s the team responding. How are the teammates responding to being asked to do more or kind of change their day to day operations in the stores? Thank you so much.

Yes. That’s a really question, because it’s a big portion of what I – what we’re trying to do, here is really be a best in class service retailer. And it’s all about having trained associates be able to take care of our customers the first time properly. So just like any retailer, that’s a challenge to make people do different things and actually expand something out of their comfort level. It’s been part of our agenda for a long time. I would say, it’s really coming to life recently, everybody on one consistent way of how we greet a customer, how we answer the phone, how we service a vehicle. I’ve talked about in the past a courtesy inspection, how do we perform a courtesy inspection on every vehicle? I mean, and I don’t think we’re there, I mean, we have a lot more work to do there. We really do. I would say, that’s a significant opportunity for us. We’re investing in technology to help augment that. We’re really start focusing on people who are not following the Monro web. The good news is, I always say that the majority of our teams see where we’re going, they’re actually benefiting from the training. They’re actually doing additional services like check engine light. Monro has not been a destination in the past, but it’s coming to life in a better way. And anything that we touch with regards to service categories has a significant positive improvement in our gross profit. And it flows right through the bottom line. So that is our focus, having a nice balanced approach, really focusing on new categories and it all comes to life with our training initiatives.

Great. Well, best of luck.

Thanks for question, Daniel.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Nagel from Oppenheimer. Brian, your line is now open.

Hi, good morning.

Good morning, Brian.

So I have a few questions on top line, I’ll kind of maybe merge them together but – if I can. So first, this always going – Mike, going back to the prepared comments and talking about the initiatives. I just want to make sure I kind of understand correctly. So what I think I hear you saying is that the under – the historically underperforming stores where you put these labor initiatives in, I mean, there you’ve seen a nice response and sales performing well, but the lag which are now the better performing – they’re historically better performing stores. So I just want to make sure I understand that dynamic correctly. And then my question on that would be then is that, so as you look at that, are there initiatives you can put in place in what in these stores have had historically even better performing to drive a better performance there?

Yes. You got it, Brian. So all our stores actually saw deceleration. We were coming off a strong growth in May. And I was really optimistic about where the customer, where the company was going. So we saw a lot of these come to life led by our small stores, and it’s all about the small stores, really changing year-over-year declines. And we talked about staffing and we talked about training, really emphasizing that these stores are good stores, they just have – they need more attention. So we put more attention and they responded and our customer responded immediately. Now coming into June, I would say, it’s just the challenge that we’re working with the consumer base, when we looked at vehicle miles traveled, I think the consumer and we – in my prepared remarks, I do reflect back on, I mean, the consumer definitely started changing their buying behaviors from May to June and then in July. I do believe all that’s going to come back, the good news about the automotive aftermarket. You still going to have to service your vehicle. So that’s all going to be deferred and we’re very much prepared and focused on getting ready for that. We’re putting in marketing initiative together. We’re focusing on training. We’re focusing on properly staffing our stores. And we wanted to take advantage of when that customer comes back in all of our stores.

Got it. Okay. And then my follow-up, so what’s regard to inflation and clearly that’s a topic that we’re discussing across consumer at this point, because you look at, this maybe the impacts you’re starting to see more or the intensifying impacts you’re seeing on your business. You think it’s – or it’s more the consumer reacting to broadly based inflation or is it inflation specifically within your category, your pricing, then I guess the question would be there, are there actually you could take to help offset that?

Yes. And I absolutely believe it’s broad based because in our pricing actions, we’ve actually gone the opposite direction. We’re actually offering and I’ve talked about this in the past offering good, better, best, introducing value where we didn’t have before. So I actually am trying to meet the – where they are, 40% of the customer base that we have could be really affected increase in gas. They’re a very similar customer to most of the retailers that are going quickly right now. So we are very focused on driving value and making sure that we have a value offering for all of our categories, tires, brakes be, oil would be the three that I could easily talk about. But what we are looking at really is I would say, especially with the syndicated data – they have on tires things changed around the tire category. And I think that is very much in parallel to service categories.

Okay. Then one final question. I’ll keep it quick. I appreciate all the colors. Look, I know we’re watching this in painful real time frankly, but with regard to gas prices, gas prices have started to moderate off recent peaks are – as that’s happening. Are you seeing any type of so to say improvement or has it been its steady?

Got it. Thanks, guys. Appreciate all the color.

Brian, thank you.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Brett Jordan of Jefferies. Brett, your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys.

Good morning. You commented about tire share gain in that comp. Could you talk about, I guess, within the broader comp other categories, how you see yourselves versus from a market share standpoint?

Yes. That’s the only just like I responded, I’m happy that we took comp. I’m not happy with our overall number. So even though, we definitely had higher expectations. I don’t really have any strong comp, anything to look at market share on the other service categories, Brett. So I can only say that we’re not happy with our results. And we’re very much focused on mid-single digits. So anything less than mid-single digits, I’m not happy. And I look at that for basically across all my major categories, including batteries, including brakes, including oil change. I mean that’s what we’re focused on. And last but not least, it needs to be a balanced approach. I want more ticket like ticket, but I also want to balance approach with customers and I really do – we have an opportunity at Monro to get a consistent growth in customer and ticket at the same time. And I look sharing that with you in the future.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Thanks, Brett.

Thank you. We have no further questions for today. So I’ll hand back to the management team for any further remarks.

Thank you for joining us today. This continues to be an exciting time to be part of Monro. We have a strong foundation to build upon to create long-term value for all our stakeholders. I look forward to keeping you updated on our progress. Have a great day.