Group 1 Automotive - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

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

Pete DeLongchamps (VP of Manufacturer Relations and Financial Services)

Thank you, Jamie, and 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 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 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 directly comparable GAAP measures on its 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 hand the call over to Daryl.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Good morning, everyone. In the third quarter of 2023, Group 1 Automotive reported $169.8 million in adjusted net income, record total quarterly revenues of $4.7 billion, and all-time quarterly revenues across all major lines of business. Our teams also delivered record quarterly adjusted diluted EPS from continuing operations of $12.07, an increase from the third quarter of 2022. Starting with our U.S. operations, our inventory levels remained relatively flat from the second quarter of 2023. No major shifts in mix, including from our brands affected by the UAW strike. In the third quarter, Stellantis was 4% of our mix, Ford, 7%, and General Motors, 10%. On a same-store basis, our U.S. new vehicle unit sales were up nearly 12%.

During the third quarter, 30% of our new vehicle sales in the U.S. were pre-sales, down a bit from 33% in the prior quarter. Also important to note, in a tough used vehicle environment, our used vehicle sales were up both year-over-year and sequentially, and our gross margins were up year-over-year. We saw strengthening throughout the quarter in our used vehicle margins. In addition, we saw strengthening in our CPO business to nearly 25% of our mix. CPO is a key driver of loyalty and aftersales and repurchase, and we continue to focus on organic sourcing, including acquisitions through AcceleRide, customer trades, which were up in the quarter, and service drive acquisitions. Our outstanding F&I team also achieved record quarterly revenues, capitalizing on the opportunities to sell products that are both good for our customers and good for their vehicles.

Our gross profit per unit sold of $2,367 only minimally declined on a same-store sequential basis. We expect some continued pressure on finance penetration due to existing interest rates and slightly tighter lender requirements for some used vehicle buyers. Now shifting to aftersales. We focus on the aftersales impact on the customer journey by increasing customer retention through more convenient service hours, training of our service advisors, selling service contracts with vehicle sales, and improved customer relationship management software that allows us to provide targeted marketing to our customers. We continue to believe that aftersales is an area of underinvestment in our industry, and we invest heavily and without reservation when we acquire new stores.

With this focus, our parts and service team continues to achieve record results, notching the 10th consecutive quarter of record revenues at an all-time quarterly high in gross profit. We continue to focus on the hiring and retention of technicians in this challenging labor market. Our four-day workweek benefits our customers by extending our hours of operation during the week, and, in return, leads to higher technician productivity in our shops. We continue to explore avenues to increase our capacity and drive more incremental productivity. We also continue to invest in new ways to reach our customers through one-to-one marketing technology and by using artificial intelligence. In the third quarter, we set over 360,000 service appointments digitally and through our customer development center. We also generated over 10,000 customer appointments in just 6 brands using artificial intelligence.

We believe these EV customers to be incremental and expect this, expect this initiative to grow and generate more incremental service business in the future. Now, let's shift to SG&A. U.S. adjusted SG&A as a percentage of gross profit increased only 88 basis points year-over-year and improved sequentially, reflecting our focus on controlling costs in this inflationary environment and the structural cost improvements made since the pandemic. Current adjusted SG&A as a percentage of gross profit of 61.4%, continues to be down from 70.5% in pre-pandemic 2019. Now, a quick look at the U.K.. The U.K. achieved record quarterly revenues thanks to record used vehicle performance. Vehicle demand remains resilient and new vehicle availability is still constrained, keeping vehicle pricing and GPU strong.

We continue to see signs of production improvement year-over-year by certain manufacturers, as demonstrated by the near 10% increase in same store new vehicle units sold. Despite this increase in same store units sold, we experienced vehicle delivery shortages from BMW, Mini, and Volkswagen in the third quarter of 2023, limiting our upside potential for the quarter. The lack of vehicle deliveries from these manufacturers resulted in higher than anticipated SG&A as a percentage of gross profit, giving our staffing levels, assuming the sale of these vehicles. As of September 30th, our new vehicle order bank was approximately 17,700 units. As a reminder, our U.K. business mix is predominantly luxury, and those consumers are more resilient during times of economic uncertainty. And now to capital allocation.

We deploy a return-focused capital allocation strategy that balances the use of our capital between opportunistic portfolio management, share buybacks, and the return of capitals to shareholders in the form of quarterly dividends. This approach continues to benefit our shareholders, allowing us to achieve all-time high and adjusted diluted earnings per common share from continuing operations in the third quarter. Successful portfolio management involves not only acquiring great assets, but also disposing of assets for which we believe a higher return proposition exists. In the third quarter of 2023, we disposed of eight franchises and voluntarily terminated a ninth franchise. We intend to benefit our shareholders by using the proceeds from these sales to either buy additional dealerships or buy back additional shares. Our number one priority is growing the company.

We evaluate all brands and geographies to expand our portfolio, seeking to acquire dealerships or dealership clusters in growth-positioned or economically stable markets, or that are economically accretive to our existing markets. In October 2023, we consummated the pending acquisition of a Subaru dealership in Manchester, New Hampshire, bringing the number of franchises owned in Manchester to five. Our recent acquisitions of Beck & Masten GMC and Kia dealerships, as well as Estero Bay Chevrolet in Florida, serve as a reminder of the strength of this portfolio optimization approach. We continue to explore ways to consolidate our holdings in highly profitable, scalable dealerships and dealership clusters. We believe this is a critical element to our growth story, which leverages our scale and proven integration capabilities, optimizes our rooftop performance, and grows the company in a meaningful and incremental manner.

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, and good morning, everyone. As of September 30th, we had $53 million of cash on hand and another $211 million invested in our floor plan offset accounts, bringing total cash liquidity to $264 million. We also had $463 million available to borrow on our acquisition line, bringing total immediate available liquidity to $726 million. Through the first nine months of 2023, we generated $555 million of adjusted operating cash flow and $448 million of free cash flow after backing out $107 million of CapEx. This capital was deployed through a combination of acquisitions, share repurchases and dividends.

During the current quarter, we spent $65 million repurchasing approximately 246,000 shares at an average price of $261.89. The result of this repurchase activity is just over a 1.7% reduction in share count over the current quarter. Our share count as of today is down to approximately 13.8 million. Our balance sheet, cash flow generation, and leverage position will continue to support flexible capital allocation approach.... including serious consideration of share repurchases in addition to pursuing external growth opportunities. Our rent-adjusted leverage ratio, as defined by our U.S. syndicated credit facility, was 2x at the end of September. Our strong balance sheet will continue to allow for meaningful and balanced capital deployment.

Our quarterly floorplan interest of $16.5 million was an increase of $10 million from the prior year, entirely due to higher vehicle inventory holdings. We effectively manage our floorplan interest expense by holding excess cash in our floorplan offset accounts, reducing the balance exposed to interest, as well as through our portfolio of interest rate swaps, which saved us $3.4 million of interest expense versus the comparable prior year quarter. Non-floorplan interest expense of $26.5 million increased $6.9 million from prior year. However, our mortgage swap portfolio saved us $3.5 million versus the comparable period. As of September thirtieth, approximately 65% of our $3.4 billion in floorplan and other debt was fixed.

Therefore, an annual EPS impact is only about $0.66 for every 100 basis point increase in the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, or SOFR, which is the benchmark reference in our floorplan 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. This concludes our prepared remarks. I will now turn the call over to the operator to begin the question and answer session. Operator?

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 touchtone telephones. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset prior to pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. To withdraw your questions, you may press Star and two. We do ask that you please limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up. Please note that you may rejoin the question queue. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. Our first question today comes from John Murphy from Bank of America. Please go ahead with your question.

John Murphy (Managing Director)

Good, good morning, guys. Daryl, I just wanted to ask a question on inventory levels. You mentioned that they're tight and constraining your sales in the U.K., but I'm just curious, you know, what your take is on inventory levels here in the U.S., and are they sufficient or are they constraining sales? And maybe kind of secondly to that, where do you think inventory levels are going so that we can understand where floor plan interest expense, you know, may go?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

John, good morning. I think, you know, the surprising, I guess surprising, maybe not so surprising thing about the inventories Q3 over Q2, is they didn't change much on a day supply basis. I think we were up two days. The mix between brands didn't change very much. We saw Stellantis come down a little bit. We saw a little bit of remix with some of the luxuries. But I think that it's constraining sales in probably the import brands. And when you look at our day supply is still almost single digits in those brands, and you look at the sales growth that's there, and we still had 30% of our mix was basically presold, which at this point, I'm a little surprised by.

So I think there's probably, you know, more inventory coming in those brands. I think the luxuries are probably in about the right place. I think they've got some mix issues to deal with between EV and non-EV. And then, you know, the domestics, I think, are fine in terms of their total. We'll see what happens with the UAW impact, especially with the plants that were announced this week.

John Murphy (Managing Director)

If I could sneak in one follow-up on F&I. I mean, you know, it sounds like it's a slight pressure point, still doing fairly well. But could you just remind us what part of F&I PRU is product and what is it, is spread-based, and you know, what your sort of thoughts of that, you know, going forward? I mean, there's a lot of good product in there, the consumer benefits from. So I'm just curious what you think the risk or even opportunity is going forward there.

Pete DeLongchamps (VP of Manufacturer Relations and Financial Services)

Hi, John, it's Pete DeLongchamps. So the, you know, we were very pleased with the overall F&I business, and I think, you know, it continues to be the headwind with used car penetrations. We're down about 400 basis points year-over-year. A third of our revenue and gross profit comes from the spread and the originations, two-thirds from product. And I'll tell you, the... When I look at the overall results, our product penetrations haven't varied more than 100 basis points either way on any of our product penetrations. So we're really pleased with the product sales that we've had, which has certainly helped keep our PRU numbers in line.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

John, one thing we do see is, you know, as Pete mentioned, even though we're not, we don't over rely on rate, when we do lose some attachment on financing, oftentimes we're able to preserve some incrementality on the product sales. So as an example, don't take this literally, but if we lose three points of finance penetration on used cars, we might only lose a point and a half or so of product penetration. So there's still some we're able to preserve.

Operator (participant)

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

Rajat Gupta (Stock Analyst)

Great. Thanks for taking the question, and congrats on the execution. I had a question on parts and services. Could you help us understand or help us gauge any potential impact from the parts shortages at especially, you know, General Motors and Ford, where you have a little higher exposure? You know, any way to quantify what that impact could be? You know, when should we start to worry about shortages hitting your stores? Any color on that would be helpful. And I have a follow-up.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Rajat, this is Daryl. So far, the impact has been minimal. We purchased ahead and stocked up on the fastest moving parts in advance of the strike, or advance the contract negotiations, I should say. And so we're still able to, you know, we're still living off of that extra stock. We also are able to leverage our other stores around the country when we do have a part shortage. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that in the next quarter, we'll start to see more part shortage issues from the two brands you mentioned. I don't know that they'll be significant. The OEMs have been fairly responsive with being able to supply us. But I don't know that it's...

I think it'll probably be a bigger issue for us in Q4 than it was in Q3, but I can't say it'll be severe.

Rajat Gupta (Stock Analyst)

Got it. Have you already started to feel that impact in the fourth quarter, or does the strike need to continue for another week or so before you start to feel that?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Well, you know, we won't have a full picture until after the quarter's over, so it's, it's hard to say right now.

Rajat Gupta (Stock Analyst)

Got it. Got it. Just on SG&A then, you know, helpful color of the slide deck around the productivity improvements. You know, in the past, you've given us some color around how much permanent SG&A to gross reduction you expect to see. I think you'd mentioned, like, 300-400 basis points in the past. Like, this was probably more than a year ago. Curious, as to if you have any update to that, you know, based on what you're seeing in the business, you know, even in the U.K.. Any, any new guide rails or guardrails we should be thinking about in terms of what a normalized SG&A to gross should be for the business? Thanks.

Daniel McHenry (SVP and CFO)

Rajat, good morning. It's Daniel here. You know, I think an important statistic to note that I don't think it's in our investor deck is that, you know, we're still 7% down in terms of headcounts in the U.S. versus 2019 on a same-store basis. And with that, we've added 11% more technicians. So the element related to SG&A is down even more than 7% in terms of headcount. And at this time, I don't see any of that headcount returning. You know, clearly, 30% additional productivity per salesperson. Again, I don't see us going back to the ways that we were pre-pandemic. So I think all of that cost reduction or that people headcount that's out is out permanently.

You know, in terms of the guidance, I guess, that we've given, pre-pandemic, whole company, we were at 74% SG&A as a percent of gross. I don't see that ever being above 70%, all subject to, you know, recession or major changes in the industry.

Operator (participant)

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

David Whiston (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning. Really impressed by the used vehicle performance, and I wanted to just look at that both sides of it, really. Like, how are you convincing the consumer who is really struggling with used affordability to pay over $30,000? But then on the procurement side, how are you keeping the GPU up as well?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

David, good morning. Daryl. I think we're being smarter about what we're sourcing and how we're sourcing. We implemented some new technology about a year ago, which helps us with acquisition, and it helps us with pricing. And it's much more responsive. It takes more of our, for lack of a better word, our gut instinct out of it, and relies much more heavily on data and market intelligence and on a mass basis, not just on a car-by-car basis. And we're, I believe, leveraging that better today than we ever have. So I think we're probably getting some incrementality out of our used car performance that we have not seen in the past. And so I think that's the results of what you're seeing, and I believe that's really the difference.

We added some additional training in our dealerships around the country and some staffing around the country to try to help with the execution on used cars about a year ago as well, and I think some of that is coming to fruition. So I believe those are things that are helping us. And we get you know, I mean, you know this. Just the advantage we have of being able to source things organically is just a real advantage for us. And so we're compared to the used car pure plays, and so we're extremely fortunate to be able to do that.

David Whiston (Senior Equity Analyst)

Staying on that topic, I mean, on the consumer side, though, there's, they're really struggling. Are, are they, or have you changed your mix in any way to make it worthwhile to them to pay up, or, or you just have really good business?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

The ASPs are down a little bit, almost $2,000, I believe, year-over-year. So we are seeing, you know, that the pricing is coming down some, and we're responding with the right stock to be able to do that, and that's how we were able to preserve our gross margins. And so I think we're being more responsive with what we're stocking, given the market today, that there's more pressure on it from a price and payment perspective.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Michael Ward from Benchmark. Please go ahead with your question.

Michael Ward (Managing Director)

Thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Good morning, Mike.

Michael Ward (Managing Director)

Two questions. First one, a quick one. Are you seeing any change at all in credit availability for consumers? And then the second question is more kind of strategic. It seems like you're selling off some of the smaller stores, and you're growing some of the bigger ones, and I'm guessing, like, the—that should imply that the parts and service departments get bigger. Am I reading that correctly?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Mike, I'll take your second question, and then Pete will take your first question. This is Daryl. You're reading it correctly. You're reading it exactly correctly. We're looking for a portfolio. We want to generally operate in clusters and generally with higher revenue rooftop stores where we can build and develop scale on a better basis. And that certainly helps us feed our parts and service business, which, you know, for us, we consider, you know, one of our real strengths and something we invest heavily in. So yes, absolutely. And when you look at our acquisitions over the last couple of years, whether it's Beck & Masten or Toyota North Austin or Estero Bay Chevrolet, they're large, high-revenue stores.

For Beck & Masten and Toyota North Austin, they're right in the middle of a cluster of other stores that we own. So ability to leverage scale and ability to grow and leverage our SG&A base and drive more parts and service are all key benefits in that case. And then on the F&I question on the buyers and the lending environment, I'll ask Pete to speak to that.

Pete DeLongchamps (VP of Manufacturer Relations and Financial Services)

Mike, what we've seen with credit is it's certainly available, and I think that our strategy of partnering with the big banks in all different credit tiers is certainly paying a dividend for us right now. There has been some tightening, clearly, on loan-to-value and some of their metrics, but with the way we run our business, with audit and compliance, our loss ratios are in line or better than with all of our lenders. So we've had great partnerships and, you know, I ask our operators all the time, "Have we lost car deals due to credit?" And that's a resounding no.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

We're also seeing the OEM captives, really, really, get more aggressive right now.

Pete DeLongchamps (VP of Manufacturer Relations and Financial Services)

Yeah.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

And I think that really helps us as new car dealers, obviously give us an avenue to be able to rely on and support from them that they’ve stepped up with some additional programs and support as well.

Michael Ward (Managing Director)

Daryl, if I could follow up on the dealership issue. You, you have a couple of good charts and slides in there about the parts business and the growth and the benefits of AcceleRide and EV sales. As vehicles become more complex, especially on the battery electric side, the service has to be done at the dealers because there is no independent aftermarket. Are your stores able to service some of these other startup EV companies that are service-constrained, call it like a Rivian?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Well, you know, I hope that we have all the work we can do with our own brands. We haven't had any discussions with anybody like a Rivian or anything like that, around any repair work or warranty work or anything like that. Could we? I'm certain that if we work on the brands we do, we could work on those. But, you know, our focus is on the brands that we have relationships with today, Mike.

Pete DeLongchamps (VP of Manufacturer Relations and Financial Services)

Mike, can I just add one thing to that? It's Manuel here. We do do collision work for the EV, so we are approved at some of our collision centers for work, and those startup companies or more established EV operators.

Operator (participant)

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Our next question comes from Daniel Imbro from Stephens Incorporated. Please go ahead with your question.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director)

Yep. Hey, good morning, guys, and congrats on the quarter.

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director)

Daryl, I want to start or follow up on the service side. So obviously, trends remain strong there. You talked about parts availability. I want to talk about the labor side. So you've been able to hire and retain for a while here with the four-day workweek, but I think you guys have been testing some new comp plans. Just curious how the reception has been. Is that helping you kind of maintain your lead on the hiring side? And has anything changed materially on the technician availability or retention?

Daryl Kenningham (President and CEO)

Daniel, thank you. Yes, we are still focused on attracting technicians and have had some success over the last year attracting them. Our turnover rate with technicians is down year-over-year. And then we are also piloting some different compensation plans that are, you know, we hope will make us a more attractive place to work, and we hope will give technicians more certainty in their compensation. And, you know, right now we've got that in about four stores that we're piloting and measuring. We wanna make sure we maintain our productivity and our throughput as well as employee retention and engagement, obviously, are super important there. So yes, we're testing that. We're also taking a hard look at our shop productivity, Daniel.

You know, there's traditional metrics around how much work we can put through our existing shop base, but then are there some other levers we can pull to either increase the capacity of those shops or increase the throughput and productivity of those shops? And so we're taking a look at some things we might be able to do there. So, at the end of the day, we still see lots of room to run. And after sales, we see lots of opportunity in after sales, and we continue to want to invest there and think that there's gonna be continued growth there for a long time into the future.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director)

That's, that's helpful. I appreciate it. And then, Daniel, maybe one driving over cap allocations. So you've made good progress, obviously, on the portfolio optimization. But, but curious what you're seeing. Are seller multiples continuing to compress in the M&A market as we move further from peak same-store earnings? And I guess with the stock multiple compressing and the cash flow generation, where do share repurchases kind of fall in your capital priorities from here, just as you look at how to spend that free cash?

Daniel McHenry (SVP and CFO)

You know, Daniel, as Daryl said, our key priority is to continue to grow the company. I think it's fair to say there's a lot of potential acquisitions on the market at the moment. I think the market is more buoyant at the moment than probably it has ever been. Quality acquisitions are still, you know, more expensive. And I think that, you know, the prices will continue to compress. We're gonna remain balanced in terms of capital allocation. As and when we think it's opportunistic to buy our stock back, we'll continue to buy our stock back, and I think that was clearly messaged in our prepared remarks.

Operator (participant)

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