Murphy USA Inc. (MUSA) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you for standing by. My name is Carly and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Murphy USA 4th Quarter 2025 Earnings Q&A Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Christian Peipel. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks, Carly. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for participating in our first Q&A-only session covering fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. I would remind everybody to refer to the forward-looking statements commentary we included in our prepared remarks yesterday, which I hope you all took the opportunity to listen to or read. With me this morning are Mindy West, President and Chief Executive Officer, Donnie Smith, Chief Accounting Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer, and Ash Alds, Director of Investor Relations and FP&A. Before I give the call back to Carly, I do want to remind everybody, in keeping with our prior protocol, please limit your activity to one question and one follow-up question initially, and then please go ahead and get back in the queue if you wish to ask additional questions, time permitting. Carly, you can go ahead and open us up for questions.

At this time, I would like to remind everyone to ask a question, press star, send the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Bobby Griffin with Raymond James.

Good morning, buddy. Thanks for taking my questions. And to the team, thanks for some of the additional information following the release. I like the new format, getting that out there. um after after the press release i guess i guess my first question is more on the competitive comments that you you put in the prepared remarks just curious if you can kind of conceptualize where the competitive kind of pressure is verse you know six eight months ago is it getting worse or getting better and then i guess more importantly after you see that initial competitive response of a new entrance how long does it take the store that's impacted to kind of come back to what you'd say, are, you know, company-wide trends or company-wide averages?

Right. That's a great question, Bobby. Are same-store gallons in particular impacted by those factors of competitive intrusion? And really, the pressures vary market by market. So, for instance, in 2025, some of our stores had average per store month volumes that were actually higher. We saw that in nine states that we operate in. Margins were higher in 10 states. But those markets are in different stages of competitive intrusion and pricing behaviors when we look at texas have both higher margins higher volumes colorado and florida though has lower volumes and lower margins but those states over time are going to look more like texas as they mature and stabilize and those new competitor entrance their share and then ultimately raise prices because they have to make a return on their sites too so our new stores also take share from others and they're outperforming the network but same store remains under pressure so we have to invest an extra penny or so in order to maintain volume so typically when a new entrant enters the market they do exactly what we do they price very low at the outset while they try to gain their share from the other competitors that are already entrenched in the market and that could take three months it could take six months it could take a year and then it depends on how many stores that particular market entrant wants to build and that in what density do they want to build in that market as to how long it's going to last but ultimately everything goes back to normal and margins rise and we are able to increase our margins as well so in a way we actually like competition because while it creates disruption when it's happening as that market matures and

stabilizes and the winners have acquired their share of customers then the higher margins um ultimately follow and we're disciplined one where we build and continuously upgrade so we're going to be there for the long term and we're going to be a winner also okay that's helpful and i guess secondly for me and i'll turn it back over um the comment there about the the step up or the acceleration in in the maintenance capital spending i found interesting um and and more so just like the fact about it limiting disruption so is there any can you put any more details around how big of a drag those call it disruptions have been or is more this step up just kind of getting ahead of what could have been a drag and just kind of trying to see if you know we've been you know

there's been an ebitda impact that actually will start to go away after you do this maintenance capital step up sure um what i would say is it's more the latter it's more of a getting ahead of things before it happens. We have been entirely within a break-six mode for our history. That means that maintenance comes in lumps. It's difficult to predict, and as our fleet ages, we found the need to go ahead and proactively invest in equipment that is end-of-life or near end-of-life, because that does two things. It results in maintenance expense that we can predict, It also enhances uptime with that equipment, so enhances the customer experience and therefore their loyalty to us. So the kinds of things that we're talking about doing is a step up in proactively replacing some dispensers, HVAC units, safes, things like that, which are going to cost us a little bit in capital from the beginning, but will improve it in uptime and store performance over time. And we think the projected savings from just doing that is roughly, you know, six to eight million, somewhere in that range of maintenance costs, maintenance expense that we would avoid by doing that. And then, of course, the impact on our customer goes even beyond that by being able to serve them in a more consistent fashion.

Thank you. That's helpful. Best of luck here in the first quarter.

Thanks, Bobby.

Your next question comes from Bonnie Hersov with Goldman Sachs.

Hi, how are you? I actually had a question on your long-term guidance, I guess, through 28. And I guess I'm just thinking about it, you know, this for modeling purpose guide this year of $1 billion, it does imply stronger EBITDA growth in, I guess, 27 and 28 to ultimately reach that long-term guidance of EBITDA target of the $1.2 billion. So, I was just hoping maybe you could talk about the drivers of maybe faster expected growth in the out years and, you know, where you see maybe the most upside or maybe the most downside. You know, just trying to think through the potential for you to kind of meet that, you know, long-term EBITDA guidance.

Great question, Bonnie. And what you're seeing in our EBITDA guidance is really a function of several factors for 2026. So the guidance is capturing the timing and scale impacts of our new STORE program. So as we get to a level where we can sustain 50-plus NTIs a year and those classes mature, then that EBITDA contribution becomes more visible because we would expect that 50 stores can contribute 35 to 40 million dollars of EBITDA once they complete their three-year ramp. However, for this year, when an entire class of 50 from last year opens at once, it does create a temporary drag that outweighs the strong two- and three-year contributions that we are getting from our earlier smaller classes. So it isn't that the stores aren't performing. It's about scaling up our program to deliver the 50-plus stores going forward. So that's one of the factors is us just being able to build 50-plus stores a year and then ramping as expected. The other factor is in a more normalized, more volatile fuel environment, our EBITDA growth will become even more sustainable because, as you know, and we've talked about at length, the current fuel environment does impact our same store performance, that the new stores right now are not able to offset this early into their ramp, and that's going to be a headwind this year. Now, when you look at the path to the $1.2 billion, it really depends on three levers, only two of which we can control. We talked about one, the normalized fuel environment. That's one, unfortunately, we cannot control. Sustaining the 50-plus NTIs annually, we can, and we are in a great position to do that and accelerate our growth there. Also, executing on our initiatives. So making our business better is also a material driver of that future growth. So when the environment changes, I think investors are going to be very surprised about the earnings power of this business. But if I was going to handicap, you know, how can we achieve 1.2? What am I, you know, what are the pluses and minuses? I believe in the pipeline that we have. I believe it's a quality pipeline that will deliver the 35 to 40 million dollars at ramp and a 50 plus store ramp per year. I believe in our ability to achieve our initiatives. But again, the 1.2 does depend on a little bit more volatility. And I think as we saw in the fourth quarter, when we can just get brief spurts of that, our business is functioning well and we are attributing the value to the company that we would expect in periods like that.

But we do need a little more help from from the macro environment in order to get to the 1.2 yeah that's super helpful and honestly it makes a lot of sense and yes volatility is your friend um as you kind of suggest and maybe a quick follow-up then on that because you know also just in the context of that the fuel margin i know again it's for modeling purposes but you did suggest a 30 and a half you know cpg um and so you know if i'm crying i think that's you know maybe you know four years of flat to down fuel margin so just trying to think through that for you you know how you're kind of thinking about fuel margins and again and then also just the the break-even costs like how

they've been trending recently so for fuel margins our outlook for the year really reflects what we believe is the highest probability and most likely environment so it's we think it's going to still be characterized by relatively low volatility as we go through the year we think we're going to see relatively stable and still low fuel prices which impacts our business model because it makes our customers on margin a bit less price sensitive so we believe it is a base case similar to last year And of course, we're comping several years ago when we experienced the other extreme of things which we benefited from tremendously where we saw really high volatility, higher prices which made our offer even more compelling. So we're going to focus on the things we can control and improve our business and the earnings power including levers that in the future could be more fuel immune. but for right now for the fuel margin we think that that 30-ish cents all in is right where we need to be and it's still reflective of that structural component because to be able to own earn margins at this level despite the fact that we're putting a penny or two on the street and despite the fact that we have low volatility is really speaking to that structural element that that is still there and supporting the stock, the margin. So, when you talk about the break-even, what I can say is the cost to serve is really not going down, and that break-even component is still alive and well and playing out industry-wide. So, the fact that margins are flat this prior year, given the low volatility and really nothing that was there to macroly support margins being that high shows you that those marginal retailers are still requiring those higher margins to break even, much less continue to invest in their business, which they're not able to do, and we are able to do that.

Actually makes sense. So, I appreciate that, and I'll pass it on. Thank you. Thanks, Bonnie.

Your next question comes from Irene Nettel with RBC Capital Markets.

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. Before I get to my question, I just wanted to clarify something you just said, Nidhi, which is you're still planning on putting one to two cents a gallon on the street this year, and even with that, you're still looking at sort of one to three percent same-store volume pressure. Is that correct?

We still think that we will continue to see volume pressure in this lower price environment, and we will still need to protect our position, especially against competitive insurance in certain markets by putting um some cents on the street in order to do that and maintain our competitive position so yeah yeah understood thank you and then just uh just moving into the onto the backcourt uh can you talk about how you see the nicotine environment unfolding this year uh we you know we had some bright spots last year how do you think it plays out in 2026 and and moving ahead i think that we are still the ideal retailer for manufacturers as they help our customers progress down the risk spectrum from cigarettes to other products we will continue to be very promotion driven throughout the year and i think that we have delivered strongly on promotions i think you saw that earlier in the year when when we have a promotion our sales force can get behind that and really sell it. We are having our national leadership conference over these several weeks. I just got home from St. Louis where we toured the Midwest. We had all our store managers from the Midwest in one location. A couple of weeks ago, we were in Houston for the Southwest. And I can tell you, all of those store managers are so excited and they are very promotion driven. They are very contest-driven, and I think that that culture really underpins our ability to be the most effective use of our manufacturer's promotional dollars. And meanwhile, we still continue to take share in cigarettes, and we will continue to do But the other categories, the other nicotine categories are growing strongly, and we don't expect that to slow down any. Now we do realize that we're going to be comping a very special one-off promotion. So we are not anticipating in our guidance being able to duplicate that, but we have put in our numbers accelerated promotional funding from what we had last year.

That's very helpful.

Your next question is from Ed Kelly with Wells Fargo.

Hi. I wanted to ask you about per-store expense growth. You had a very strong year in 25, below the initial guidance that you had mentioned. And the 26 outlook assumes that you'll still be running below that sort of 5% level that I think at one point you maybe thought was more normal in terms of run rate. I'm just hoping that you could talk about the drivers of that for 26. And then just taking a step back, what's the right or the correct run rate over time for per store expense growth over the next few years?

Great questions. Let me take that. we have the team has done a great job of managing their expenses so hats off to them delivering op exit only at 3.3 percent last year was really good and obviously our guidance is still forecasting that we're going to be below that five percent number i'll talk about some of the drivers this year that we expect to maintain going into this year we've done a lot of work with our store excellence campaign and our self maintenance in particular and just changing what you know being able to change our card reader batteries ourselves versus calling in a technician allowed us to save almost two million dollars on maintenance expense last year our team has also done a great job of cutting overhead almost in half and that's attributed to our store managers just doing a great job with staffing and with scheduling and motivating their teams and running their stores more efficiently. And then done a great job on loss prevention as well. We've moved some of the higher shrink items closer to the register. We also really dialed in on our cash loss and our merchandise inventory management. That alone allowed us to cut shrink by over $4 million. And that's inclusive of price increases, growth. We were still managed to save over $4 million. So So we expect the impacts of those things to continue and even amplify. And then things like I talked about with proactively going ahead and replacing some of our equipment, those will earn some savings in our maintenance line over time. And then I think your last question was, what should you expect going forward? I would expect something around, you know, 4 percent, you know, going forward. And bear in mind, we are building a lot of new to industry stores. Those stores are bigger. than some of our existing networks. So those are going to come with higher costs and especially in the beginning as we are going to make sure that those stores are fully staffed to make a really good first impression to our customer. And then, of course, the fuel on the merch will ramp over time. So a lot of the driver of our OpEx is actually the new to industry growth building the bigger stores. But we are going to hold the line on making sure that we are operating as efficiently as possible.

Your next question comes from Jacob Aiken Phillips with Mellius Research.

Hi. Good morning. I just wanted to double-click on the larger format stores and some of the cost pressures. I think last year there was a dynamic where a lot of stores opened towards the end of the year or beginning of the year, and the winter storm in February exacerbated some of those cost pressures. We had this January storm, and I guess February is still pending.

But how should we think about like the 1q dynamics there and then the evolution of that or cadence throughout the year what i would tell you is uh we will experience some higher maintenance costs from this first quarter winter storms but we also uh got were the beneficiary of some higher margins too heading into those storms so we think that on balance all that is going to offset and was fully baked into you know kind of the billion dollar-ish that we we already talked about so um you are correct that But when we build a bunch of stores, these larger stores all at one time, those come with full OpEx really from day one, while our fuel takes a bit of time to ramp and merchandise takes a full three years to ramp. And then, of course, the fuel does ramp faster, but we are also pricing very aggressively in order to take that share as well.

So that definitely has an impact on our overall OpEx, and I would say that half of it or so is just attributable to those larger stores. got it and then just on the small tuck-in acquisitions like you just did four and then could potentially do some this year it's newer dynamic and i'm just curious what exactly do you look for and i i know it's early but like what do you envision the like economics improvement of the stores when like you get the murphy's merchandising into the stores we really liked that colorado acquisition in particular because we got to pick and choose which ones we wanted versus taking a whole portfolio where you get the good and the bad

and you just have to make the best of the bad in this case we got to kind of cherry pick and it was a market in which one we wanted to add density this was a very quick and easy way to do it it was also an economic way to do it and we were able to get those stores open in what 30 days or so, less than 30 days, we were able to put our signage up, get our assortment how we wanted it, get those stores back open. So we were able to hopefully retain most of the customer base that was already going there and then leverage our Murphy Drive Rewards loyalty app and our density of stores in that market to drive more traffic into that store. So we liked it from the standpoint we got to cherry pick it it was a market in which we wanted to add density it also allowed us to do that very quickly without having to go through we like organic growth but it takes a long time to go through that let's pick the site let's permit the site let's construct the store let's get all our opening permits that just takes a long time so having the ability to bolster that with some of these maybe smaller 1z 2z 5z type acquisitions uh we are certainly in the market looking at some of those right now thanks many congrats on the new rule thank you very much your next

question comes from puran sharma with stevens inc hey uh good morning and thanks for the question i um just wanted to hey minnie good morning um just wanted to maybe start off with Understanding the contribution from the NTIs in year three, I think you mentioned $35 to $40 million in yesterday's prepared comments and today as well. And I think you mentioned, or in the prepared comments, you maybe expected, was it two years worth of these 50 class builds contributing 30 to 35 to 40 million? so higher level should we be thinking that you're going to get about 70 to 80 million in contribution dollars from these stores and then that would rise to around 100 to 120 million by 2028 or just just wanted to to get a the right way to frame up that contribution

it's more of a stair step and and granted we're always going to be for the foreseeable future we're going to be building a new class of 50 which are going to be a drag on that as they then incur full cost but have to go to ramp so we what we said was we expect each new build class of 50 stores to generate between 35 and 40 million of eva dot at maturity after their three-year ramp so as we enter 2027 we will have the 32 new stores from our 2024 build class the 51 stores from our 2025 build class and the 45 to 55 from this year's helping to grow even on 2027. so cumulatively this will begin to move the needle even if the fuel environment does not normalize and we expect and continue to potentially increase our ability to add more than 50 stores in the network as we look even beyond 2027. So that's why we say looking back, 2026 will be viewed as an inflection point in our ability to deliver sustained EBITDA. But the 120 is a bit extreme because you're going to still have that 50 new stores coming on, which in that first year, especially, are a decrement to EBITDA.

Okay, that's very helpful. Appreciate the color there. And I wanted to maybe understand kind of the higher than expected PSNW and RIN's contribution for the quarter. Wanted to understand more specifically what the dynamics at play were during 4Q. And as we look and think about PSNW margins in 1Q, I know you're expecting 2.5 cents for the year. for the year, but just with the run-up in RIN prices, should we expect PSNW margins to stay a little bit above that 2 to 2.5 cent per gallon range you'd previously mentioned?

Sure. When you compare the fourth quarter versus prior year in PSNW, this year's were really supported by stronger arbitrage stronger line space values but less than prior year because we did have some downward movements in the price so that's what's explaining that but just there was a lot little more volatility in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter for example and so you saw the benefit of that in the psnw line as we look forward into the first quarter obviously these winter storms are having an impact on the network it's also having an impact on price too early to say where we're going to end up on psnw for the quarter at this point because the swings can be pretty dramatic but safe to say for the full year we think that we're still going to be within that band unless we can see some more prolonged volatility sustain itself but that's That's where we would expect PSNW to land for the full year, too early to say really for the first quarter. And then with regard to the rents, as we always say, the price of the rent is baked into the price of the gas we pay. So while there may be some temporary dislocations, if rents run up very quickly or run down very quickly over the sweep of time, it all balances out.

Okay. Appreciate the callers.

Thanks, Porum.

Your next question comes from Corey Tarlow with Jeffries.

Great. Can you talk a little bit about what happened on the tobacco side from a margin perspective in the quarter, and then also maybe what to expect ahead there?

Sure. And that's a great question. What you were seeing there is something we talked about frequently last year. So, for the fourth quarter, it's really the timing of promotional dollars impacting that cigarette category in particular and the volumes so importantly though all the volumes were down we did grow share of market in the cigarette category for both the four week and 13 week periods ending uh january 4th so our volumes did remain strong compared to the market but keep in mind these categories are highly promotional so you won't necessarily ever see straight line growth even on a year-to-year basis but as we've demonstrated over longer periods of time we do have we have significantly grown those contribution dollars in the overall nicotine category and we are definitely seeing strength in pouches and other products and i will tell you too the business has already normalized in january and we expect to continue to show consistent margin performance when viewed over time but it can be lumpy quarter to quarter okay great and then i have two quick follow-ups um i know we're lapping severe weather from last year can you provide any context around the storm impacts this year and then also any impacts from changes in snap as well thanks so much well i would just reiterate what we said for january you know it's shaping up to be be a good month um we are lapping winter storms from last year but we're not finished with the winter storms from this year because now we have one impacting the Carolinas and other parts of our network. While we were pleased with January's results, that was one of the reasons, quite frankly, that we were not willing to increase EBITDA guidance materially because we don't know what's going to happen for the rest of the year. We know that we're going to have some impacts on the back end of these winter storms as well. So turning to SNAP, though, that is a great question. And we do have some exposure there, but it is relatively small. It's actually less than 2% of our sales. But we did have those SNAP changes take effect January 1 in five of the states in which we operate. As you I'm sure know, they primarily affect candy, PacBev, and specifically particularly energy drinks. I'll share with you some data points, but I want to caveat these are very preliminary, but our early reads suggest kind of a modest headwind in candy and energy drinks. We're going to continue to monitor the data, obviously, as this phases end, and we do expect some impact in the very discretionary categories, which is included in our guidance, by the way. We put in our guidance a headwind of, I think, it's roughly less than $5 million overall for SNAP. Our top EBT item, you might not guess it. It's actually Red Bull. And so while some customers may pull back, we believe that most are going to continue to buy those products even if they are not eligible for the SNAP benefits. So there is some category noise there, but the overall impact to the business is modest.

As I said, it's it's five million dollars or less great thanks so much and best of luck thank you your final question comes from brad thomas with key bank capital markets good morning thanks for sitting me in here um mindy i'll just add my congratulations as well on your first call as a ceo and i know that last quarter the main message you're welcome um i know last quarter the main message was around much of the leadership transition, keeping the core strategies of Murphy in place, but just wondering if I could ask directly if there's specific areas that you think the priorities will change a little bit now that you've taken over.

That is a great question. Thank you, actually, for asking that. What I said in no certain terms, you know some things are going to stay the same our everyday low price strategy our continuous improvement mindset capital allocation will remain unchanged so when i think about it it's really more of our culture that is evolving so we're pushing for things like quicker collaboration more nimble decision making we organize the company to create more clear roles and accountability we've already made some leadership changes to help us work better together, remove some inefficient reporting structures, and increase accountability. I can tell you people are excited because their work and ideas can have more impact, and then that excitement ends up being infectious, and we have an incredibly strong platform to improve this business and are 100% dedicated to growing shareholder values. So, our five strategic pillars in which we've grown the company since spend are still intact. It's really just a culture shift, which I think is necessary to make sure that we are agile and adaptable and really unafraid to challenge ourselves and stretch further and try new things. So you may see us be, and I hope you will see us be a bit more innovative going forward than we are in the past. And as we have these macro conditions pressuring our stores, we have accelerated competition. I think that's a smart thing to do. We need to be able to fight back in our business model, reducing our reliance on fuel and tobacco where we can, but still preserving the strength in both of those. We need to figure out how to attract and retain new customers, how to grow trips and spend, and how to make our store team's life easier and our stores more productive. And then what are those niches of opportunities of value that we can exploit? So we're going to be looking to innovation to support our core business and also drive for more business. And we're really already looking at it around three main pillars, which are our portfolio, our customer, and advanced technology. And we're going to attack all of those types of opportunities and absolutely believe that we have untapped potential in this business to improve not just our existing stores and serving our existing customers, but the ability to stretch for more with different stores and different customers. So I'm excited about the future. I know the team is too, and stay tuned to see what we will deliver on this topic.

That's really helpful, Mindy. If I could squeeze in one last follow-up just on the QuickCheck brand, I don't think I heard any commentary about how it performed in the quarter. Could you just address that and how you're thinking about its impact on EBITDA in 2026? Thanks.

Yes, great question. It is continuing to exhibit stronger sales. Margins continue to be pressured. Traffic continues to be pressured. What we're doing really there is really simple. We are refocusing on the fundamentals of the business. We are focusing on the core, which are mainly coffee, breakfast, and sandwich as our traffic drivers. We are simplifying the menu, rationalizing the assortment based on performance not legacy not what we've always done so we're choosing where we win and really not trying to be everything for everybody we're also focused on improving margin we need to balance the innovation with cost and margin control because while growth is important we have to earn money I can't take growth to the bank we have to take margin to the bank so being disciplined around that and then building a better operating model that simplifies operation reduces complexity enhances that customer experience because we're our speed to service is better so overall at quick check really just a recognition that execution and ability to scale are as important as idea generation because ideas which can't be implemented well or executed consistently are actually a bad idea so So I would add, too, that we have new leadership at QuickCheck and that new structure, and that will help speed up execution and also, I think, spark some innovation. So I really like where the team is headed, and I believe they're focused on the right So really appreciate you asking about that part of our business.

That's helpful. Thank you, Mindy.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Murphy's presenter panel for any closing remarks.

Thank you for your time and your participation on the call. All great questions. You know, as we look to upcoming calls, I want you to know that we are committed to strengthening in our core business while pursuing incremental sources of value that endure across the fuel cycle. And we are building from a very solid foundation, and I have solid conviction in this leadership team's capacity to unlock Murphy USA's next level of potential. So thank you again, and I look forward to the next quarter's call.

This concludes today's call.

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