Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

John Murphy: And then on Clicklane, I think you said two things that were kind of sort of opposite. You said, I think that 92% of the customers of transactions were new to Asbury, but then you said vehicles were delivered within 18 miles, which could indicate they’re already in your market. So I’m just curious where the Clicklane customers are coming from. Was that statement, correct, maybe I misheard something there, the 92% were incremental. And if they’re within 18 miles, it sounds like they’re just coming from another brand as opposed to another dealer maybe. I’m just trying to understand where these folks are coming from, because it sounds like you’re going to have a good bump up here in potentially incremental revenue from Clicklane?

David Hult: So John, I’ll do my best to answer that. If you need a follow up, please take it. That 92% incremental means these are local customers that were doing business with other dealer groups that chose to leave the brand or the dealer that they were doing business with to come over to us. We believe they made that decision, because of the ease and transparency of being able to transact online instead of sitting in a showroom. At some point over the years that number will fall off a little bit as the market catches up with transactional tools. But that 90 — we love the fact that it’s local. We don’t want to sell a car 500 miles away, we will on certain occasions. But the parts and service business, the retention, the relationship is really what we’re into.

So we focus on really a 50 mile radius around our rooftops and we try and do our Clicklane transactions within that space. So 92% new customers to us, meaning they were doing business with other local competitors that we compete against in that market.

John Murphy: So just a follow up then. I mean, you’re saying $1.1 billion to $2.5 billion on Clicklane year-over-year for €˜22 to €˜23, right? So $1.4 billion in incremental, just shy of 10% and that’s about 9% incremental coming from Clicklane alone. Do you expect that to remain that incremental in €˜23? Because I mean that’s almost like that’s a 9% increase in your base revenue for 2022. It’s a kind of a big statement.

David Hult: Some of it’s timing. We added LHM and Stevenson in the fourth quarter. We didn’t have them in the Clicklane numbers most of the year. We’ve been on Clicklane software for a couple years. Anytime a store or a market goes on Clicklane, it takes them a full year to get the conversion rate up right. So you’re catching up to the conversion for the stores you added. We’re assuming SARs going to increase a little bit. We’re going to have a higher day supply of new at some points during the year, which is going to increase the sales as well. And as we’re experiencing with the tool and then our sales incrementally going up, it’s just logic based. If you could spend 15 minutes purchasing the car very transparently from your living room, would you rather do that than spending two and a half hours in a showroom.

So the additional $1.4 billion, if you will, is the full company being on it for a full year. The legacy store is improving slightly on conversion and the other new acquisition stores increasing their conversion rates throughout the year.

John Murphy: I appreciate you being humble, but it is $1.4 billion incremental, and it is a question of timing. But I mean, it is incremental, so it’s pretty impressive performance. Just lastly, on the net leverage, I think you guys you said you were at 1.7 times at the end of €˜22. You’ve been at 2.7 times at the end of €˜21. How should we think about where you want to target that and where that could go to if there was another large deal that came available to you?