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Copart

NASDAQ: CPRT · USD

Copart (CPRT) Economic Moat Analysis—

Avantages concurrentiels, preuves datées et risques d’érosion.

Analyse à actualiser

Narrow avantage concurrentiel

Copart has a narrow moat supported by its established facility footprint, zoning barriers and demonstrated international auction participation. Historical auction improvements support a network advantage, but comparative cost leadership, strong seller switching costs and exceptional durability are unproven. Pricing power is mixed: auctions and transaction fees enable monetization, while vehicle mix, actual seller departures and uncertain cost pass-through limit evidence of discretionary pricing strength.

Intangible assets

An established footprint of 286 facilities, including facilities in every U.S. state, is difficult to replicate because suitable sites require challenging and expensive zoning and development. The advantage rests on established operating locations and regulatory barriers, rather than demonstrated market exclusivity.

Durabilité
Physical locations and persistent siting requirements support durability. Continued facility openings demonstrate that expansion remains possible, so these barriers support a narrow advantage rather than an impregnable position.
Concurrents
Comparaison non établie
Risques d’érosion
Siting restrictions also constrain Copart's expansion. Hurricanes have already exposed capacity limitations, and the passages do not establish competitors' relative coverage or available capacity.
Ce qui invaliderait la thèse
The thesis would weaken materially if competing capacity became readily available in key markets, zoning ceased to constrain entry, or recurring capacity shortages caused sustained seller losses despite continued investment.
Preuves (5) · Contre-preuves (2)

Network effects

Copart connects vehicle supply with geographically dispersed buyers. International buyers purchased 38.2% of U.S. vehicle units in fiscal 2026, demonstrating meaningful cross-border auction participation. Historical increases in selling prices and operating efficiency following online implementation support the economic value of marketplace reach, although management's causal explanation is not independently established.

Durabilité
International participation persisted across the supplied fiscal 2024–2026 disclosures. Established buyer reach and seller supply support a current network advantage, but the passages do not demonstrate exclusive participation, superior auction liquidity versus rivals or an irreversible feedback loop.
Concurrents
Comparaison non établie
Risques d’érosion
Actual seller terminations show that supply can leave. International replication remains uncertain, and technology changes could weaken differentiation. Higher auction proceeds also benefit sellers and do not automatically establish Copart's ability to raise its fees.
Ce qui invaliderait la thèse
The thesis would weaken if sustained declines in buyer participation and seller supply reduced auction competitiveness, or comparable vehicle cohorts consistently achieved equivalent or better seller net proceeds through alternative channels without Copart's reach.
Preuves (6) · Contre-preuves (3)

Évolution depuis la dernière analyse

  • Retain the previous narrow verdict; facility barriers and auction reach remain evidenced, while strong switching costs and relative cost leadership remain unproven.
  • Give explicit weight to actual seller agreement terminations, which constrain customer dependency and retention assessments.
  • Remove the previous statement about weaker U.S. revenue because the supplied passages do not establish that broader claim.
  • Incorporate disclosed executive option conditions, ownership policies and governance practices rather than treating management evidence as wholly missing.
  • Treat the approximately $1.9 billion ACV agreement as a conditional capital commitment, without crediting completed integration, synergies or moat expansion.

Limites de l’analyse

  • Assessment uses only the supplied issuer passages. Management explanations of network benefits and competitive positioning are distinguished from reported operating outcomes.
  • No supplied passage establishes a named company's competitive position against Copart. ACV is identified as an acquisition target, not established as a competitor; competitor arrays are therefore empty.
  • Comparative market shares, facility density, unit costs, seller net proceeds and auction liquidity are absent. Neither industry-wide efficient scale nor relative cost leadership is established.
  • Seller cohort retention, renewal rates, termination terms and fee-change histories are absent. Repeat demand is assessed indirectly from sustained marketplace activity, with actual departures weighed against it.
  • Observed vehicle pricing and revenue-per-car changes are affected by mix and business model. They do not isolate Copart's fee pricing power or realized cost pass-through.
  • Actual executive award conditions and ownership policies are supplied, but detailed beneficial ownership amounts and comprehensive dilution data are missing. No founder ownership assumptions are used.
  • The DOJ investigation was disclosed in the filing dated September 26, 2025; the supplied 2026 passages do not establish its subsequent resolution or outcome. An investigation does not establish misconduct.
  • Source dates are filing dates, retaining dateKind 'filed', rather than retrieval dates. Historical operating periods and conditional subsequent events are assessed separately.
  • Rounded revenue and operating income figures permit only a coarse margin-resilience assessment. They do not establish a moat on their own.

Indicateurs financiers à confronter à la thèse

Ratios calculés à partir des publications annuelles. Une valeur manquante reste indisponible. Les graphiques détaillés sont accessibles dans les autres onglets.

Indicateurs financiers à confronter à la thèse
PériodeGross marginOperating marginROICFCF margin
2022—39.3%36.5%24.0%
2023—38.4%—21.9%
2024—37.1%—22.7%
2025—36.5%—26.5%
2026—35.4%—27.2%

Pouvoir de fixation des prix—

Données vérifiées insuffisantes pour attribuer un score.

Management—

Données vérifiées insuffisantes pour attribuer un score.

Sources et méthode

Analyse à actualiser · Mis à jour 18/10/2026 · Version 8

Interprétation IA fondée sur des extraits vérifiés. Les déclarations de l’entreprise et les limites de couverture restent explicites.

Méthode quality-scores-2 : six catégories de même poids. Le score global exige une couverture complète. Les données manquantes ne valent pas zéro. Les évaluations qualitatives sont des interprétations sourcées, pas des probabilités. 1/6 · 24/10/2026

Moat—

Awaiting a sourced assessment under the current scoring policy and financial basis.

Pouvoir de fixation des prix—

Awaiting a sourced assessment under the current scoring policy and financial basis.

Prévisibilité100

Five consecutive annual periods. Equal weights: nondeclining revenue frequency; revenue-growth volatility (5–40pp); positive FCF frequency; FCF-margin volatility (3–20pp). Stability indicator, not a growth forecast.

Nondeclining revenue years (%)
100.00
Revenue growth volatility (pp)
4.13
Positive FCF years (%)
100.00
FCF margin volatility (pp)
2.06

Solidité financière—

Missing required inputs: debtFcfGrade, netDebtEbitGrade. Equal-weight grades: debt/FCF (1–8x), net debt/earnings before interest and tax (0–5x), interest service (1–12x), current ratio (0.75–2x). Earnings use reported operating income, or reported pretax profit plus reported interest expense when operating income is unavailable. Interest service uses earnings/interest expense; if unavailable, it uses reported operating cash flow/cash interest paid, without relabeling cash paid as accrued expense. Nonpositive cash flow/earnings score 0 for their service component; reported zero interest with a positive numerator scores 100. Net cash scores 100 for net leverage. Missing disclosures remain unavailable. General nonfinancial-company rubric, not a credit rating; exceptional and nonoperating gains are not normalized out. IFRS finance-cost and cash-flow classifications retain their reported scope.

interestCoverageGrade
100.00
currentRatioGrade
100.00
Current ratio (x)
7.91
cashInterestPaid
1.87
cashInterestCoverage
859.86

Allocation du capital—

Missing required inputs: operatingReturn. Three-year equal-weight indicators: pretax return on average invested capital (0–25%; equity + debt − cash, each year and its prior year), share-count growth (0–5%, lower better), share-based cost/revenue (2–20%, lower better), consolidated FCF/net income (0–1x). Return uses reported operating income or, if unavailable, EBIT calculated from reported pretax profit plus reported interest expense; exceptional/nonoperating gains are not normalized out. Share-based cost uses the reported cash-flow add-back or, if absent, separately reported recognized compensation expense; the latter never becomes an FCF adjustment. Nonpositive net income scores 0 for cash conversion; absent income/FCF stays unavailable. Nonpositive invested capital has no defined return and remains unavailable. Does not establish acquisition quality or buyback timing.

3-year average dilution (%)
-0.13
3-year average SBC / revenue (%)
0.83
cashConversionGrade
78.63

Qualité du management—

Awaiting a sourced assessment under the current scoring policy and financial basis.

Preuves

We have 286 total operating facilities globally.

Properties: total operating facilities · Dépôt 29/09/2026

In the U.S., we own or lease facilities in every state.

Properties: U.S. geographic coverage · Dépôt 29/09/2026

In addition to the regulation of sales and acquisitions of vehicles, we are also subject to various local zoning requirements with regard to the location of our storage facilities, which generally make it more challenging and expensive to identify, acquire and develop new facilities.

Business regulation: zoning barriers to facility development · Dépôt 29/09/2026

Although the timing and magnitude of growth through expansion and acquisitions are not predictable, the opening of new greenfield facilities is contingent upon our ability to locate property that (i) is in an area in which we have a need for more capacity; (ii) has adequate size given the capacity needs; (iii) has the appropriate shape and topography for our operations; (iv) is reasonably close to a major road or highway; and (v) most importantly, has the appropriate zoning for our business.

Liquidity and expansion: greenfield property requirements · Dépôt 29/09/2026

In fiscal 2026, we opened two new operational facilities in Brazil, and seven new operational facilities in the U.S.

Business development: fiscal 2026 facility openings · Dépôt 29/09/2026

For example, Hurricanes Helene and Milton had, in certain quarters, an adverse effect on our operating results, in part because of facility capacity constraints in the impacted areas of the U.S.

Capacity risk: realized hurricane-related operating effects · Dépôt 29/09/2026

We may not be able to reach agreements to purchase independent storage facilities in markets where we have limited excess capacity, zoning restrictions or difficulties obtaining and maintaining use permits, which may limit our ability to sustain and expand our capacity through acquisitions of new land.

Capacity risk: acquisition and permit constraints · Dépôt 30/09/2024

For fiscal 2026, sales of U.S. vehicles, on a unit basis, to International members was 38.2% which represents 45.8% of overall gross transaction per vehicle.

Business: fiscal 2026 international buyer participation · Dépôt 29/09/2026

and 38.8% were sold to International members, based on the IP address utilized during the auction process.

Business: fiscal 2025 international buyer participation · Dépôt 26/09/2025

and 38.0% were sold to International members, based on the IP address utilized during the auction process.

Business: fiscal 2024 international buyer participation · Dépôt 30/09/2024

We believe our virtual auction platform increases the pool of available buyers for each sale, which brings added competition and an increase in the amount that buyers are willing to pay for vehicles.

Business: management explanation of auction participation and pricing · Dépôt 29/09/2026

salvage facilities between fiscal 2004 and fiscal 2008 and experienced increases in revenues and average selling prices, as well as improved operating efficiencies in those markets.

International expansion risk: historical online implementation results · Dépôt 29/09/2026

We process vehicles from hundreds of different vehicle sellers.

Business: breadth of vehicle sellers · Dépôt 29/09/2026

Vehicle sellers have terminated agreements with us in the past in particular markets, which has affected revenues in those markets.

Seller concentration risk: actual agreement terminations and revenue effects · Dépôt 29/05/2026

Implementation of our online auction model in new markets may not result in the same synergies and benefits that we achieved when we implemented the model in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

International expansion risk: uncertain replication of online benefits · Dépôt 29/09/2026

Competitors or new market entrants may develop or deploy them more quickly or effectively than we do, eroding our competitive position, and if our investments do not perform as expected or we cannot integrate them in a timely, cost-effective, secure, or responsible manner, we may not realize the efficiencies, revenue, or other benefits we anticipate.

Technology risk: potential competitive erosion from artificial intelligence · Dépôt 29/09/2026

These auction and auction-related services may include a combination of the following: vehicle purchasing fees: vehicle listing fees; vehicle selling fees that can be based on a predetermined percentage of the vehicle sales price, tiered vehicle sales price fees, or at a fixed fee based on the sale of each vehicle regardless of the selling price of the vehicle; transportation fees for the cost of transporting the vehicle to our facility; title processing and preparation fees; vehicle storage fees; bidding fees; and vehicle loading fees.

Business: transaction fee structures · Dépôt 29/09/2026

The agreements are customized to each vehicle seller’s needs and often provide for the disposition of different types of vehicles by differing methods.

Business: customized seller agreements · Dépôt 29/09/2026

The increase in the U.S. was primarily driven by an increase in revenue per car, which we believe was due to a change in mix of vehicles sold, offset by a decrease in volume.

Vehicle sales discussion: U.S. revenue per car, mix and volume · Dépôt 03/03/2026

The decrease in International, after excluding the negative fluctuations of currency exchange rates of $4.1 million, was primarily due to a lower average purchase price due to a change in the mix of vehicles sold, combined with a decrease in volume related to sellers switching to a consignment model.

Vehicle sales discussion: international purchase prices and consignment mix · Dépôt 26/09/2025

We may not be able to pass these costs on to our sellers or buyers.

Transportation risk: uncertain cost pass-through · Dépôt 29/05/2026

For fiscal 2026, our revenues were $4.7 billion, and our operating income was $1.7 billion.

Business overview: fiscal 2026 revenue and operating income · Dépôt 29/09/2026

For fiscal 2025, our revenues were $4.6 billion, and our operating income was $1.7 billion.

Business overview: fiscal 2025 revenue and operating income · Dépôt 26/09/2025

For fiscal 2024, our revenues were $4.2 billion and our operating income was $1.6 billion.

Business overview: fiscal 2024 revenue and operating income · Dépôt 30/09/2024

For fiscal year 2026, we repurchased 43,433,164 shares of our common stock at a weighted average price of $37.63 per share totaling $1.6 billion.

Share repurchases: fiscal 2026 completed purchases · Dépôt 29/09/2026

Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash decreased primarily as result of the repurchase of common stock as part of our stock repurchase program and investment in held to maturity securities offset by decrease in capital expenditures.

Liquidity: cash movements from repurchases, securities investment and capital expenditures · Dépôt 29/09/2026

As of July 31, 2026, we had no material non-cancelable commitments for future capital expenditures.

Capital expenditures: non-cancelable commitments at July 31, 2026 · Dépôt 29/09/2026

On September 10, 2026, the Company entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire ACV for $10.50 per share, net to the seller in cash, without interest, subject to any required withholding of taxes, representing an implied equity value of approximately $1.9 billion.

Subsequent events: definitive ACV acquisition agreement · Dépôt 29/09/2026

The consummation of such transaction is subject to the tender of a majority of the outstanding shares of ACV common stock, the expiration or termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, and other customary conditions.

Subsequent events: acquisition closing conditions · Dépôt 29/09/2026

These options will become exercisable over five years, subject to continued service by the executive.

Stock compensation: executive option service requirements · Dépôt 29/05/2026

Separate and apart from the time-based vesting schedule, the options are also subject to a market condition requiring the trading price of the Company's common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market to be greater than or equal to 125% of the exercise price of the options, determined both (i) at the time of any exercise, and (ii) based on the closing price on each of the twenty consecutive trading days preceding the date of any exercise.

Stock compensation: executive option market condition · Dépôt 29/05/2026

✔ We maintain equity ownership policies that prohibit our executive officers and directors from selling shares unless they meet the minimum equity ownership requirement

Executive compensation: equity ownership and sale restrictions · Dépôt 24/10/2025

For Mr. Liaw and Ms. Stearns, their fiscal 2025 annual bonuses were measured 60% based on achievement of the operating income performance metric and 40% based on achievement of their respective personal performance goals.

Executive compensation: fiscal 2025 bonus performance weights · Dépôt 24/10/2025

In fiscal 2025, we achieved operating income of $1.7 billion, which resulted in a 99% payout under the operating income metric.

Executive compensation: realized fiscal 2025 operating income bonus payout · Dépôt 24/10/2025

✔ Lead independent director serves as the formal liaison between the Board and the chief executive officer, reviews and approves the proposed Board agendas, and leads the executive session portion of our regular Board meetings at which only independent directors are present

Corporate governance: lead independent director responsibilities · Dépôt 24/10/2025

As a result of this review, our Board determined that a majority of our directors are “independent directors” as defined under applicable Nasdaq rules.

Corporate governance: September 2025 board independence determination · Dépôt 24/10/2025

These anti-takeover provisions and other provisions under Delaware law could discourage, delay or prevent a transaction involving a change in control of our company, even if doing so would benefit our stockholders.

Governance risk: anti-takeover provisions · Dépôt 29/09/2026

The U.S. Department of Justice, Consumer Protection Branch (DOJ) is conducting an ongoing investigation into potential violations by the Company of certain money laundering laws related to its practices and procedures for preventing and detecting money-laundering activity by its auction platform members.

Commitments and contingencies: DOJ investigation disclosed in 2025 · Dépôt 26/09/2025

During fiscal year 2024, the Company recorded a $7.0 million increase in valuation allowances primarily due to additional operating losses and interest disallowance carryforward generated in foreign jurisdictions unlikely to be realized.

Income taxes: fiscal 2024 valuation allowance from foreign operating losses · Dépôt 30/09/2024

Historique des publications

Historique des publications
VersionMis à jourAvantage concurrentiel
824/10/2026narrow
723/10/2026narrow
622/10/2026narrow
518/10/2026narrow
418/10/2026narrow
318/10/2026narrow
218/10/2026narrow
118/10/2026Indisponible

Sources

Méthode et limites de l’analyse · Comprendre ce concept