Company analysis for the Berk on Value audience. Not investment advice.
Tl;dr
- Copart’s board named Executive Chairman Jay Adair as CEO effective July 31, 2026, replacing Jeff Liaw, who becomes Special Advisor.
- It is the first time in Copart’s 32-year history as a public company that management has held a call between scheduled earnings releases, according to the July 6, 2026 investor call.
- Copart disclosed that U.S. insurance ASPs hit an all-time high, up 4.1% year over year, on the same call, a detail that cuts against the “losing share” narrative.
- Total loss frequency, the share of damaged vehicles insurers write off rather than repair, has climbed to roughly 23.6%, up from 8% when Adair joined the company in 1989, according to Adair’s own account on the call.
- The balance sheet backs up the confidence: $4.2 billion in cash and no meaningful debt, after Copart already spent $1.6 billion on buybacks.
- Copart stock has still fallen roughly 23% year-to-date through early July 2026, the gap this analysis focuses on.
About this analysis
David Berkowitz is the founder of VAP Wealth Advisors and the voice behind Berk on Value. He has 40 years of experience as a hedge fund trader, stock analyst, portfolio manager, and corporate finance consultant. This analysis applies his research process to a primary-source event: Copart’s July 6, 2026 investor call. It is written for VAP’s Berk on Value audience of pre-retirees and sophisticated investors and is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute personalized investment advice.
A founder comes back after 32 years of silence between earnings
Copart has never called an off-cycle investor meeting in its 32 years as a public company. That changed on July 6, 2026, when the company put incoming CEO Jay Adair on a call with analysts before the next scheduled earnings release.
Adair is not new to the seat. He joined Copart in 1989 at age 19, built the company’s first online bidding platform starting in 1998, and by 2003 had moved 100% of Copart’s auction volume online. He served as CEO from 2010 to 2024, then stepped back to Executive Chairman when Jeff Liaw took over. On the July 6 call, Adair described the return as a mutual decision with Liaw, said it is not an interim arrangement, and said he plans to run the company for the next ten-plus years.
Liaw will remain with the company as Special Advisor to Adair through July 31, 2027, supporting the transition, according to the company’s SEC 8-K filing.
Reuters’ coverage of the announcement and the company’s own press release confirm the effective date and terms. Neither disputes Adair’s framing on the call that the move was planned, not forced.
The “losing share” narrative and the numbers that complicate it
A narrative has circulated that Copart is losing ground to a competitor because a rival’s unit counts are rising while Copart’s insurance unit counts, in some periods, have not kept pace. On the July 6 call, Adair addressed it directly. He confirmed one account loss, a deal he said Copart, in some ways, chose not to pursue, but declined to name the account or the competitor. He said the rest of Copart’s client relationships are “stronger than ever.”
Two data points from the same call cut against a simple share-loss story. U.S. insurance average selling prices reached an all-time high last quarter, up 4.1% year over year, according to Copart’s own disclosure. A business losing pricing power to a competitor does not typically set ASP records at the same time.
Total loss frequency, the share of damaged vehicles insurers write off instead of repairing, is now near 23.6%, up nearly 5 points over the past four years. Adair said on the call that the figure stood at 8% when he joined the company in 1989. Every additional point of total loss frequency sends more volume into salvage auctions, which is Copart’s core market.
Copart also disclosed, on the same call, a global buyer network spanning more than 160 countries, with international buyers already accounting for over a third of auction volume and close to half of proceeds as of the Q3 fiscal 2026 earnings call. That liquidity is the mechanism Adair pointed to when he argued Copart can win back lost accounts over time: sellers keep coming back for the buyer pool, not the relationship alone.
The account loss Adair confirmed still stands. The “losing share” framing, taken alone, misses two of the metrics that most directly measure Copart’s core auction economics.
The balance sheet: $4.2 billion in cash, no debt
Adair used the July 6 call to lay out the balance sheet in blunt terms: nearly $4.2 billion in cash, no meaningful debt, after the company already deployed $1.6 billion into share buybacks in the recent period. He called the framing behind the current headwinds “cyclical, not structural”: the argument that 2022-2024 inflation pushed insurance carriers’ combined ratios out of balance, driving rate increases that pushed consumers toward higher deductibles and liability-only coverage, temporarily reducing the pool of insured, repairable vehicles.
That balance sheet strength is consistent with Copart’s recent SEC filings, which show the company posting profit growth and boosting both cash and buybacks in the quarters leading up to the CEO transition.
A company facing real structural decline typically responds by raising debt, cutting capital return, and preserving cash out of caution. Copart’s posture on this call, heavy buybacks alongside a debt-free balance sheet, points the other direction. Adair added a specific data point on capital allocation discipline: Copart spent roughly half a billion dollars a year on land acquisition over the last decade to secure catastrophe-event capacity, and said that pace is set to slow now that the network of locations and acreage is largely built out.
Three growth pillars
Adair told analysts he can keep three things in his head at once, and named exactly three growth pillars for Copart going forward. International insurance expansion is the first: Copart says its German operation is now profitable after years of adapting its model, and international revenue grew 14.1% year over year in Q3 fiscal 2026, with unit volume up 5.9%. Domestic whole-car is the second: the non-insurance side of the business, covering banks, finance companies, and dealers, where Copart is targeting a bigger share of the more than 15 million vehicles sold annually in the U.S. wholesale market. Technology services for customers is the third: monetizing three decades of auction infrastructure and data as a product other companies can use directly.
Copart’s international footprint spans eleven countries as of its most recent 10-K, including Germany, which the company entered as part of its 2012 international expansion. Its 2023 investment in Purple Wave, a heavy equipment auction platform, is being expanded through the same domestically focused sales-force model CFO Leah Stearns described on the call: pushing territory coverage from the central U.S. toward the coasts.
AI on a quarterly clock, M&A on a short leash
Adair told analysts Copart thinks about artificial intelligence “in quarters, not years.” He called it maybe the only time in his life he has thought about anything on that timeline. The company has a head of AI in place. The stated near-term use case is internal efficiency; Adair confirmed a second, undisclosed strategic use case exists but declined to detail it.
On mergers and acquisitions, Adair said Copart will both build and buy, but only within its own industry, and only where the return clears its own bar for return on investment. Asked directly whether he would take on debt for the right deal despite Copart’s historical aversion to leverage, Adair’s answer was unambiguous: yes.
The AI timeline and the M&A discipline together describe a company treating the next few quarters as its relevant planning horizon, while keeping the balance sheet flexible enough to act if the right acquisition surfaces.
Key metrics from the July 6, 2026 call
| Metric | Figure |
| U.S. insurance ASP growth | +4.1% YoY, all-time high |
| Total loss frequency | ~23.6%, up from 8% since 1989 (per Adair, on the call), +5 pts over 4 years |
| Cash on hand | ~$4.2 billion |
| Debt | None of significance |
| Recent buybacks | $1.6 billion |
| International revenue growth (Q3 FY26) | +14.1% YoY |
| International unit volume growth (Q3 FY26) | +5.9% YoY |
| Global buyer network | 160+ countries (per Adair, on the call) |
Where to go next
The companion piece on telling a cyclical dip from a structural decline before the market reprices it builds directly on this framework. Find it on the Berk on Value Blog.
Endnotes
1. Copart names Executive Chairman Jay Adair as CEO effective July 31, 2026: Reuters report confirming the CEO transition and Liaw’s departure date.
https://www.reuters.com/business/copart-reinstates-jay-adair-ceo-liaw-step-down-2026-06-29/
2. Copart Announces CEO Transition: Company press release confirming the transition terms and July 6, 2026 investor call.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260629970802/en/Copart-Announces-CEO-Transition
3. Adair joined Copart in 1989 at age 19: Forbes feature on Copart’s history and Jay Adair’s career, including the origin of online bidding.
4. SEC 8-K filing on the transition and severance terms: StockTitan summary of Copart’s 8-K disclosure on Liaw’s transition role and compensation.
https://www.stocktitan.net/sec-filings/CPRT/8-k-copart-inc-reports-material-event-272ed35bd0a0.html
5. Copart Q3 fiscal 2026 earnings call transcript: Motley Fool transcript confirming international buyer share of volume and proceeds.
https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/05/25/copart-cprt-q3-2026-earnings-transcript/
6. Copart Q3 fiscal 2026 results beat estimates on higher ASPs: Nasdaq/Zacks coverage of Copart’s Q3 fiscal 2026 earnings beat.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/copart-q3-earnings-beat-estimates-higher-asps-mix-shift
7. Copart posts profit growth, boosts cash and buybacks: StockTitan summary of Copart’s 10-Q filing showing balance sheet trends.
8. Copart 10-K: operations in eleven countries: TradingView summary of Copart’s most recent annual report, listing international markets.
https://www.tradingview.com/news/tradingview:5b538d2169313:0-copart-inc-sec-10-k-report/
9. Copart’s international expansion timeline, including Germany: Copart’s official company history page.
https://www.copart.com/content/us/en/about-copart/our-history
10. Copart Announces Investment in Heavy Equipment Auction Company Purple Wave: Company press release announcing the Purple Wave investment.
11. More than 15 million vehicles sold annually in the U.S. wholesale market: Fintool research summary on Copart’s whole-car market opportunity.
https://fintool.com/app/research/companies/CPRT/earnings/Q2%202025
12. CPRT stock down roughly 23% year-to-date through early July 2026: MarketBeat stock data and company overview for Copart.
https://www.marketbeat.com/stocks/NASDAQ/CPRT/
