Group 1 Automotive - Q2 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Group 1 Automotive's 2023 second quarter financial results conference call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the floor over to Mr. Pete DeLongchamps, Group 1's Senior Vice President of Manufacturer Relations, Financial Services, and Public Affairs. Please go ahead, Mr. DeLongchamps.

Pete DeLongchamps (SVP of Manufacturer Relations, Financial Services, and Public Affairs)

Thank you, Jamie. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's call. The earnings release we issued this morning and a related slide presentation that include reconciliations related to the adjusted results that we will refer to on this call for comparison purposes have been posted to Group 1's website. Before we begin, I'd like to make some brief remarks about forward-looking statements and the use of non-GAAP financial measures. Except for historical information mentioned during the conference call, statements made by management of Group 1 Automotive are forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve both known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause the company's actual results in future periods to differ materially from forecasted results.

Those risks include, but are not limited to, risks associated with pricing, volume, inventory supply due to increased customer demand and reduced manufacturer production levels due to some component shortages, conditions of markets and adverse developments in the global economy, and resulting impacts on demand for new and used vehicles and related services. Those and other risks are described in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, certain non-GAAP financial measures, as defined under SEC rules, may be discussed on this call. As required by applicable SEC rules, the company provides reconciliations of any such non-GAAP financial measures to the most recently comparable GAAP measures on this website. Participating with me on the call today, Daryl Kenningham, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Daniel McHenry, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'd now like to turn the call over to Daryl.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Thank you, Pete. Good morning, everyone. In the second quarter of 2023, Group 1 Automotive reported $166.1 million in adjusted net income and record total quarterly revenues of $4.6 billion, led by all-time highs in new vehicle, parts and service, and finance and insurance revenues. Our parts and service team continued to deliver record revenue levels for nine consecutive quarters. We also set an all-time record for quarterly total gross profits, supported by an all-time record parts and service gross of $304.1 million. We continued to deploy capital efficiently in the quarter to acquire the highly desirable Beck & Masten stores, further strengthening our strong Texas footprint with an outstanding brand. We also returned capital to our shareholders by repurchasing $31 million in shares during the quarter.

Our strong cash flow and leverage position, which Daniel McHenry will cover in a minute, will continue to allow for significant capital deployment flexibility in the remainder of 2023. Now turning to our second quarter results. Starting with our U.S. operations, we ended the quarter sequentially flat with 27 days supply of new vehicles and 31-day supply of used vehicles. Consistent with our comments on inventory last quarter, our domestic brands have improved slightly and import brands have remained very constrained. Approximately 28% of our U.S. business is Toyota and Lexus, which continues to be very tight at a combined five-day supply. Our new vehicle revenues increased an impressive 19% sequentially and 22% over the second quarter of last year.

While we saw a slight moderation in GPUs, new vehicle units sold reached the second highest level in company history, a 19% increase over the first quarter and 16% over the second quarter of last year. 33% of our new vehicle sales in the U.S. were pre-sales, down from 40% in the prior quarter. Used vehicles were challenged in the second quarter, with sourcing more difficult from the lack of new vehicle supply. We entered the quarter low on used vehicles. However, we picked up some ground as the quarter progressed, thanks in large part to trade-ins from record new vehicle sales. To source used inventory, we continue to focus on organic sourcing efforts, including acquisitions through AcceleRide, customer trades, and service drive acquisitions.

Finance and insurance business has remained strong, with same-store gross profit per unit at $2,379, a sequential quarter improvement. Despite this resiliency, looking forward, we expect pressure on finance penetration rates driven by existing interest rates and slightly tighter lender requirements for some buyers. Turning to aftersales. Our U.S. performance was outstanding. Aftersales revenues grew double digits, and same-store revenues were up over 8%, led by strong customer pay same-store growth of nearly 12%. Technician headcount grew 10% in the second quarter, and we continue to invest in new ways to reach our customers through one-to-one marketing technology and by using artificial intelligence. We continue to invest in aftersales and believe parts and service will be a strength through the rest of 2023.

Our second quarter U.S. adjusted SG&A as a percentage of gross profit was 61.7%, an increase of only 303 basis points from prior year, a decrease of 1.4% sequentially and down from over 70% in pre-pandemic 2019. We do see some pressure from reduced margins and inflationary costs. We expect that a material portion of our SG&A savings will be permanent. To AcceleRide, where our customers continue to vote yes. During the second quarter, we saw deeper engagement through AcceleRide. Over 80% of our customers engaged in some way in their transaction through AcceleRide, nearly half of our customers engaged AcceleRide on at least five steps of the car buying process. We experienced significant year-over-year increases in trade-ins, credit applications, F&I attachment, significantly more sales.

12,200 vehicles sold in the quarter, that was up 78% year-over-year. Turning to the U.K., vehicle demand remains resilient and new vehicle availability is still constrained, keeping vehicle GPUs strong. New and used GPUs outpaced the prior year quarter by 7% and 5.4%, respectively. We continue to see signs of production improvement by certain manufacturers, as demonstrated by the 10% increase in same-store new vehicle units sold. As of June 30, our new vehicle order bank was approximately 19,400 units, a 10% increase over the prior quarter. As a reminder, our U.K. business mix is predominantly luxury, and those customers are more resilient during times of economic uncertainty.

Our after-sales growth in the U.K. has been outstanding, with same-store revenues and gross profit on a local currency basis, increasing 19.8% and 17.2%, respectively. Similar to our efforts in the U.S., we've worked to grow technician headcount, experiencing an approximate 10% increase over the prior year. We have also invested in improvements to our U.K. customer contact center, streamlining operations and improving the customer experience. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Daniel McHenry, to provide a balance sheet and liquidity overview. Daniel?

Daniel McHenry (SVP and CFO)

Thank you, Daryl, good morning, everyone. As of June 30th, we had $23 million of cash in hand and another $268 million invested in our floor plan offset accounts, bringing total cash liquidity to $291 million. We also had $338 million available to borrow on our acquisition line, bringing total immediate available liquidity to $628 million. Through the first half of 2023, we generated $387 million of adjusted operating cash flow and $311 million of free cash flow after backing out $75 million of CapEx. This capital was deployed through a combination of acquisitions, share repurchases, and dividends. During the current quarter, we spent $31 million, repurchasing approximately 141,000 shares at an average price of $221.52.

The result of this repurchase activity is just over 1% reduction in share count over the current quarter. Our share count, as of today, is down to approximately $14.1 million. Our rent-adjusted leverage ratio, as defined by our U.S. syndicated credit facility, was 2.1x at the end of June. Our strong balance sheet will continue to allow for meaningful and balanced capital deployment. Our quarterly floor plan interest of $15.6 million, was an increase of $9.7 million from the prior year, entirely due to higher vehicle inventory holdings. We effectively manage our floor plan interest expense by holding excess cash on our floor plan offset accounts, reducing the balance exposed to interest, as well as through our portfolio of interest rate swaps, which saved us $4.7 million in interest expense versus the comparable prior year quarter.

Non-floor plan interest expense of $25.9 million increased $7.4 million from the prior year. Our mortgage rate swap portfolio saved us $1 million versus the comparable period. As of June 30th, approximately 63% of our $3.4 billion in floor plan and other debt was fixed. An annual EPS impact is only about $0.69 for every 100 basis point increase in the secured overnight funding rate, or SOFR, which is the benchmark rate referred to in our floor plan and mortgage debt instruments. For additional detail regarding our financial condition, please refer to the schedules of additional information attached to the news release, as well as the investor presentation posted on our website. I will now turn the call back over to Daryl.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Thank you, Daniel. Related to our corporate development efforts, we expect to find additional growth opportunities in 2023. Growing our U.S. and U.K. businesses remains a top capital allocation priority. However, our balance sheet, cash flow generation, and leverage position will continue to support a flexible and efficient capital allocation approach, which will likely include serious consideration of share repurchases in addition to pursuing external growth. This concludes our prepared remarks. I'll now turn the call over to the operator to begin the question and answer session. Jamie?

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin that question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask you please pick up the handset before pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. We also do ask that you please limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. Our first question today comes from Daniel Imbro from Stephens Inc. Please go ahead with your question.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Yep. Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking our question. I want to start actually on the used vehicle side of the house. You know, GPU is slightly better, but units obviously have been light kind of across the industry. Wanted you guys maybe expound on that, kind of what you're seeing on the ground. Is it more of a supply issue with a lack of late model used coming back? Is it a demand-driven issue because of financing rates? How do you think that kind of materializes in the back half of this year, given what you're seeing out in the market?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Hi, Daniel, it's Daryl. you know, I don't think what we're seeing is any different than what you've heard from the rest of the industry. We're kind of at the peak of the COVID off-lease return trough, so there's not a lot of inventory coming back into the market off lease. Also, you know, our fastest-selling and lowest day supply vehicles continue to be cheaper vehicles, and there's more pressure on those segments, you know, for affordability. They, as people tend to move down, our average selling price moved down almost a couple thousand bucks over year-over-year. So, you know, it's, it's, I think, more of a function of availability of inventory at the lower levels, and I expect that we'll see some of that.

We saw during the quarter, we saw it sequentially improve month-over-month-over-month. I expect we'll continue to see that improve a little bit as the year progresses.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Pete, I want to follow up on the, on the U.S. F&I per unit. It was up over $100 sequentially. Is that driven by higher product attachment? I would think loan size is down. Finance penetration is probably down year-over-year. Can you talk through what the drivers of kinda sequential growth are, and then maybe how sustainable this level could be on a per unit basis?

Pete DeLongchamps (SVP of Manufacturer Relations, Financial Services, and Public Affairs)

Sure, Daniel, thanks. You know, we feel good about the overall performance of F&I. Our product penetrations were either up or held steady year-over-year and sequentially improved. I think there's been a lot of focus on the finance pen, which we've seen an improvement in new. Used vehicles still, it's a headwind, clearly, and I think that's as a result of rates. You know, our rates are up about 250 basis points, year-over-year. We're focusing on the product and, you know, we've had, I think, really good partnerships with our major lenders, which has been helpful.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from John Murphy, from Bank of America. Please go ahead with your question.

John Murphy (Managing Director and Senior North American Automotive Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning, guys. I just wanted to touch on parts and service, where you continue to outperform at least our expectations, and it's a very, you know, I mean, it's happening, you know, quarter after quarter. I'm just curious, you know, how sustainable you think that is, if this is just an issue of getting more techs and, you know, you'll be able to continue to grow over time, and how you're getting all these techs. I mean, adding 10% in the quarter is pretty, you know, impressive. I know that the four-day, you know, flexible workweek is helping to some degree, but it seems like there's some other secret sauce that might you guys might be using here to get all those folks.

Can you just kind of expand on the parts and service strength and the potential going forward?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

John, this is Daryl. We invest heavy in parts and service. We find, you know, when we acquire dealerships, which we've done quite a bit of acquisition over the last couple of years, we almost always find underinvestment in parts and service. That is the first place we invest, whether it's capacity, equipment, staffing, training. We do that as quickly as possible with all the new acquisitions. Given all the stores we've acquired over the last couple of years, I think that's part of the puzzle. Another part of the puzzle is the technician recruiting. We have, you know, significant efforts underway there. The four-day workweek is certainly part of it.

We have other programs that we do that support tuitions and training and uniform sponsorships and mentoring programs, and we have a, you know, a career pathing in place for our technicians. I think there's a whole combination of things. I can't tell you there's a secret sauce. We just try to put a lot of focus on a number of areas. Then, you know, we really, what I see happening right now is, you know, we're all benefiting probably from, you know, some pricing in the market over the last couple of years, which I think has come to an end and coming to an end.

You know, I think the game is turning to throughput again here in the future. A lot of our focus and efforts will be towards that. We still see a lot of demand out there. Car park is still really aged. There's still a lot of repairs to be done on vehicles that have been that are older units, older vehicles. I believe that there's still the outlook is for parts of service is still bright, still really bright, still opportunistic.

John Murphy (Managing Director and Senior North American Automotive Equity Research Analyst)

Just one follow-up on AcceleRide. You made mention that 50% of your, you know, customers were going through five steps of the transaction with AcceleRide. I'm just wondering if you can kind of explain, you know, what exactly those five steps are, how many steps there are that you count in a transaction, and when would this ultimately start, you know, saving you costs or helping you maybe reduce headcount? You know, I don't know if you can quantify that, but how do you think about that potential savings over time?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Well, we saw productivity improvements in the quarter. We didn't mention them in the script, but we did see productivity improvements with our sales teams year-over-year, we attribute that to AcceleRide. We also. There's about 10 steps in AcceleRide, and, you know, the thing we want to do is engage customers as much as we can through AcceleRide. We're testing a few things around the country.

We've done some, a few things here in the last six months or so, where we are, you know, focused on the way we've been using AcceleRide, we're also trying a few new things in some markets, determine how that affects engagement, how that affects closing rates, how that affects the customer experience as well. You know, we're still in the early days of AcceleRide, we feel like. I can't tell you what a number is. I don't think we'll see a day where 100% of our customers are going 100% of the time through AcceleRide. We've designed it so the customers can choose where they engage and don't engage.

We try not to make it lockstep, and we try not to make it where, you know, if they wanna take another path, they can, and so it's flexible. Long-winded answer to your question, John, but I think we're still learning as we go.

Daniel McHenry (SVP and CFO)

John, it's Daniel here. Just to add to what Daryl had said, to put it into perspective, salesperson productivity has increased by 32%. That's the average number of units a salesperson would sell versus pre-pandemic. As Daryl says, you know, we see that continuing to increase.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from David Whiston from Morningstar. Please go ahead with your question.

David Whiston (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks. Morning. Just going back to the service technicians, particularly the U.K. headcount increase. I know you've got some good initiatives like the four-day workweek and what not, but I'm just curious, in the U.K. market, what else may have helped there? Are people perhaps more eager to work than they were a year or two ago? Just any other labor market dynamics you can share specific to that market? Thanks.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

We're experimenting with four-day workweek, there, David. It's not nearly as ingrained there as it is in the U.S. The work schedules in the U.K. are different at retail, so, you know, the value of a, of a four-day workweek is different there than it is in the U.S. You know, the things we're trying to do are, you know, make sure that our compensation is certainly at a competitive level, and we're working to try to ensure that we're kind of the workplace of choice for our team. We've also added some significant resources in our aftersales team at our corporate level in the U.K., which has helped us significantly put some more focus and emphasis on technician recruiting.

David Whiston (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks. On used, obviously, it's a struggle for everybody, but your metrics to me, they didn't the year-over-year deltas just didn't seem as large of a decline as I remember seeing in, at, some of the other dealers. I'm just curious, maybe are you not cutting prices right now quite as hard there as prices are coming down, or are you just procuring inventory smarter than in the past?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Well, I'd love to say we're smarter. I would say we're trying to be disciplined. We implemented some new technology about a year ago that I think is really helping us with one of our partners, and it's helping us stay more disciplined on our pricing, and I believe that's helping us quite a bit. You know, the old days of where a used car manager will go and price their inventory, we're kind of trying to get away from that because we want the technology to help us lead that. We implemented some things about a year ago to help us do that, and I believe that's paying some dividends.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Rajat Gupta from JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Rajat Gupta (Executive Director of Autos Equity Research)

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. I just wanted to, like, ask a broader picture question, just, in terms of consumer, you know, health of consumer. Obviously, you talked about the interest rate impact and how that's impacting you and, like, your financing. In general, we have seen new car volumes, holding much better than expected so far year-to-date. You know, curious, what do you think might be driving that, you know, in context of the pricing and the rate environment? What is your sense of, how it can persist through the course of the year?

And tied to that, you know, is there a range, you can give us in terms of how you think the new car GPUs might play out, you know, into the third quarter and maybe into the fourth? I have a follow-up. Thanks.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Rajat, you know, we see consumers just looking at the order banks in the U.K., looking at the pre-sales in the U.S.. I mean, to us, that indicates, you know, a pretty healthy, strong consumer. Looking at the after-sales pull-through, we see evidence of a pretty strong consumer. You know, we're seeing a little pressure in F&I, but it's just a little bit, honestly. You know, I mean, it's $100. From a consumer perspective, you know, we see good things there, and I don't know that that will change.

In terms of the gross profit trends you asked about, on new cars, I don't believe we will see anything different than what we have seen over the last couple of quarters, three quarters, where it's a gradual, decline, you know, from where it's been. But nothing we don't see any cliffs out there at all.

Rajat Gupta (Executive Director of Autos Equity Research)

Got it. That's, that's helpful. And maybe just on capital allocation priorities, you know, buyback has been a little lighter this year relative to, you know, what you did in the last couple of years. Obviously, you've spent a little more on M&A here. Curious how you're thinking about balancing that in the second half. You know, maybe any comment around just the M&A environment, you know, what kind of deals are flowing into the pipeline, you know, how the multiples are? Just like how the activity is and, you know, willingness for deals to close. That would be all. Thanks.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

We believe we want to deploy capital efficiently. We want to buy the right kind of deals, and if you look at our last five or six deals, that's really indicative of the kind of purchases we're looking for. In Toyota of North Austin and in our big Chevrolet deal we did in Florida and the big Beck & Masten acquisition here in Houston and down in South Texas. Those are the type of acquisitions we want to do, and those are the kind we are looking for in growth markets. If we can't find those, then we will deploy capital towards stock buybacks, which you saw a great example of that last year, where we bought quite a bit of the company back.

We believe that that's still an opportunity, but we want to grow the company, and that's a priority for us. That comes first, but not at any cost.

Operator (participant)

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one. Our next question comes from Daniela Haigian from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead with your question.

Daniela Haigian (Equity Research Associate)

Thank you, all. I wanted to ask about rising EV inventory. Do you have any comments around incremental demand for EVs from the start of the year to now? Any sense of change in demand recent weeks, or just any commentary on inventory levels rising overall?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Our EV day supply is 61 days. It's a little higher. It's a small universe for us. You know, we have 11,000, roughly, units in stock. 700 of those, 740 of those are EVs. It's hard to draw conclusions about general trends based on that small of a number. We have, it's concentrated in just a few brands and, in some of the brands, you know, there's a little more support for sales to sell them, and in other brands, there's, you know, there's a bit of a struggle. That's the difference between our EV and our ICE inventory levels at this point.

Daniela Haigian (Equity Research Associate)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we will be ending today's question and answer session, as well as today's presentation. We thank everyone for joining today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.