(Radio Iowa) – The Casey’s convenience store chain in Ankeny reports strong earning numbers for the fiscal year. Company C-E-O Darren Rebelez talked about it during a conference call for investors Tuesday. “We had an outstanding fiscal ’26 that achieved the highest ever diluted earnings per share, finishing at 19 dollars and 16 cents, and net income of 714 million dollars. Both representing a 31 percent increase over the prior year,” he says.
“Total inside sales grew ten-point-two percent (10.2%) during the year, while inside same-store sales were up four-point-two percent or seven percent on a two-year stack basis. Total prepared food and dispensed beverage sales grew ten-point-two percent (10.2%) and same-store sales were up five-point-two percent or eight-point-eight percent on a two-year stack basis,” Rebelez says. He says their gross profit on gas was up 21 percent at nearly 43 cents per gallon over the course of the year.
The fuel margin in the fourth quarter alone was nearly 47 cents a gallon, which he says was helped by volatile prices. “As a retailer, we don’t like to change those prices as frequently as maybe the dynamics on the ground or the wholesale cost was changing. And so, when you hold those prices somewhat flat and then it drops for a little bit, you make some — your margin widens out for a moment in time and then spikes back up and it gets compressed,” he says. Rebelez says the war with Iran has a little different impact on gas prices compared to other international events.
“So I think it was just a little bit more volatile on the way up relative to the experience we had in the past, and that enabled us to capture a bit more margin than we might have otherwise done,” he says. Rebelez says store traffic has held up despite economic issues. “I think consumers are hanging in there. They’re probably being a little more discerning about where they shop and how they spend their money, but we’re seeing growth across all of the income cohorts,” Rebelez says. He says they have seen some change in the way customers are buying gas.
“But it’s very minor. And it’s all the things that we always talk about,” he says. If fuel prices get high we start to see premium sales dip a little bit. We see sales of ethanol blended fuel go up because it’s a little cheaper. We see gallons per transaction drop a little bit. We see fuel transactions themselves go up because people are coming more frequently. So all of those dynamics are happening right now, but in low single digit percentages.”
Rebelez says one new thing they’ve seen with the gas price increases is the gallons redeemed through their rewards program were up 23 percent in the fourth quarter.
