FAIRFIELD, Calif. -

While deflecting questions about the depth it might eventually venture into the whole-car space, Copart highlighted how many segments of its 2011 fiscal year performance climbed by double digits.

Before going into specific numbers, chief executive officer Jay Adair told investment analysts on a conference call Wednesday that “it seems like the year has been extremely fast. A lot has taken place. It’s been a year of great achievement and a lot of change that’s taken place within the company.”

As the company braces to shift its corporate headquarters from California to Texas, Copart will be moving with a strong head of steam financially.

For the three months that ended July 31, Copart indicated its revenue, operating income and net income were $215.4 million, $63.5 million and $40.5 million, respectively. Compared to the closing quarter of the 2010 fiscal year, the figures represent increases in revenue of $25.0 million or 13.1 percent; in operating income of $6.2 million or 10.9 percent; and in net income of $4.3 million or 11.8 percent.

The company said fully diluted earnings per share for quarter were 59 cents compared to 43 cents in the same quarter a year ago, marking a jump of 37.2 percent.

Looking at the whole fiscal year, Adair and Copart had more glowing increases to highlight.

The company revealed revenue, operating income and net income were $872.2 million, $265.3 million and $166.4 million, respectively. Contrasting to last year, these sums represented increases in revenue of $99.4 million or 12.9 percent; in operating income of $26.2 million or 11.0 percent; and in net income of $14.7 million or 9.7 percent.

For the year, the company’s fully diluted earnings per share were $2.17 compared to $1.78 a year earlier, computing into a 21.9-percent climb.

Expansion of Copart Direct & Whole-Car Interests

Analysts prompted Adair to discuss whether Copart is going to push deeper into the whole-car segment because of its success of Copart Direct, the company’s business segment that caters to retail purchases.

“It’s one of these things where it is growing at a very high rate but it’s a relatively small book of business,” Adair noted. “While it generates a large amount of revenue, the fact is you’re buying the cars as opposed to handling them as an agent.

“When we get into what we’re doing as initiatives, we’ve got some great people on the team who are working on that. I don’t like to get into specifics because obviously we think some of the things we do are unique to Copart,” he continued.

“But we are heavily focused on this. It’s a nice market. It has great upside for us. It has great opportunity,” said Adair, who also added non-insurance business was up 21 percent in the fourth quarter and 22 percent for the year.

So if Copart continued to see strong whole-car success, would it create a new brand identity for that business?

“Yes, Copart is synonymous with that damaged vehicle. But we’ve got thousands of customers out there that send non-damaged vehicles to us because people are aware we sell non-damaged product. We just continue to improve in that segment,” Adair told analysts in response to that question.

The Copart boss wants to avoid the recent turmoil Netflix has sustained when it created a new brand for its DVD business to differentiate from its videos that stream online.

“For right now, we don’t see a reason to change the name. That may shift in the future,” Adair stated. “I guess I use the Netflix example. We’re not thinking Netflix and Qwikster right now. We’re just thinking Copart.”

Update on Relocation

Back in February, Copart first announced it plans to relocate its corporate headquarters and establish three divisional processing centers.

The company’s headquarters will shift from Fairfield, Calif., to Dallas. And the company indicated the Fairfield site will become a divisional processing center along with facilities in Grand Prairie, Texas, and Hartford, Conn.

“We’re really excited about that, but we’re in a transition. And when you’re in a transition and doing so much it’s much more than moving headquarters. It’s also new systems we’re integrating within the company,” Adair explained, adding that the technology system transition probably won’t finish until 2013.

“The Dallas move is on track. The plans are the same,” Adair continued. “We’re still are looking at process centers where we’ll be placing a lot of the functions from payments to receiving. The HQ will be all of the folks associated with integration and growth.”

When asked why the system change-over will take a little longer, Adair stated, “The system we’ve got was integrated into the company over a decade ago. So it’s time to take advantage of the new technologies that are out there in our enterprise system.

“It’s not a huge delay by any stretch,” he emphasized. “We want to do it right. This is all about the future. It’s not about something we have to have today. Just like we did in the late ’90s, making these changes will allow us to catapult over the next decade with all the new technologies that are out there.”

Company Stock Buy-Back

In other Copart news that came out during the fourth quarter, the company repurchased 2,990,949 shares of its common stock at a weighted average price of $45.17 per share under its share repurchase program.

As of July 31, Copart said it had 8,546,963 shares available for repurchase under its share repurchase program.

“We just love this company,” Adair declared. “We think we’ve got a wonderful future. Because we believe that, as the old saying goes, ‘we put our money where our mouth is.’”

Trends in Salvage Industry

Investment analysts asked Adair to speak about where salvage volume is heading, referencing trends on the whole-car side noted by the National Auto Auction Association and other industry watchers.

“It’s very hard to sit here and poke at severity of frequency because the economy is horrible,” Adair acknowledged. “When you’ve got an economy that like it is right now with employment like it is, people start dropping policies and go with liability only. And they also choose to raise deductibles.

“I would tell you based on all of the numbers I’ve looked at as the economy turns around, we’re going to see a lot more volume coming through this industry,” Adair continued. “Right now, it’s definitely being impacted, while not enormously, it is being impacted by the fact that there are less people out there who are insured or have lower deductibles.

“I notice when I travel the country, there’s just a lot less traffic on the freeways,” he went on to say. “You just don’t see the kind of congestion you saw right around the summer of ’08 and prior to that. I’m convinced from my perspective that as people start going back to work they’ll start driving more and have more insurance coverage. It will help the industry as a whole.”

Copart Responds to Hurricane Season

Adair also shared the aftermath of Tropical Storm Lee and Hurricane Irene is keeping Copart busy. The storms left a significant impact on vehicles from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast in the past six weeks.

“That’s a big reason the inventories are up to the extent that they are right now,” Adair insisted. “There’s a lot of activity going on right now throughout the country. The team is working really hard to address that. We’re picking up cars in a number of different states. It’s definitely been a busy year.”