Group 1 Automotive, Inc. (NYSE:GPI) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Daniel McHenry: Sure, Adam. In terms of our inventory, in terms of day supply, it hasn’t increased as much as you may well have – be well have 22.35 expected. We have seen a total units, increase by about 35% in that term and our floor-plan will increase exactly by that amount effectively. We’ve seen some moderation in interest, but it’s fairly low. It’s going to continue on a constant basis.

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

Rajat Gupta: Great. Thanks for taking the question. I had a first question just on parts and services. It did look like the revenue growth on a single store basis did slowdown there, quite a bit in the fourth quarter, both in the U.S. and U.K. I’m curious, if you’re able to dissect that a little bit more for us. How much of that slowdown, was traffic versus ticket? How much was like from the selling days, lower selling days? I know you have the four-day workweek, but I don’t know if the selling days had an impact at all? Or yes just if you could like just to help break that apart for us, would be helpful?

Daryl Kenningham: One of the things that’s, I think important to think about is for us, we focus heavily on customer pay, which was up 7%, which you’re right, Rajat, that’s not normally, we normally double-digit increases. We’re lapping two really good fourth quarters. Last year, we were up 13%. Year before that, we were up 22%. And so, we are seeing our customer counts aren’t growing as much, and that’s something that, we’re focused on now. And what we saw after COVID, one trend that we have really seen, is our Saturday business. After COVID, the Saturday business didn’t come back as quickly as the rest of our business. And we’re really trying to put a lot more focus and attention on our service departments are open all day Saturday, which is fairly unique in the industry.

You don’t see that, in a lot of dealerships. And so, we’re putting a lot more focus and emphasis on that with our customers. Then later in the quarter, we started to see that volume, really increase on Saturdays, which I expect we’ll see that continue through the quarter, through the year, I’m sorry.

Rajat Gupta: Got it. And was there any impact from the strike at all that, you experienced in the quarterly?

Daryl Kenningham: Not that we could discern. There was a few parts, things for us, but the strike itself, honestly, I wish I could blame something on that, but I don’t. We didn’t see any material impact, other than a few parts delays here and there.

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

David Whiston: Thanks. Good morning. I want to go back to the U.K. As I’m sure you guys know, the U.K. used vehicle market has been soft for everybody for a while now. I’m just curious in Q4, did things get a lot worse, or has it just been piling up to a point where you finally decided that, we have to do headcount reductions? I’m just trying to figure out if anything really changed severely, negatively in Q4?

Daniel McHenry: David, it’s Daniel here. I’ll take the first part of that question. In terms of used inventory, we came out of September, with probably too much inventory. September is traditionally the big, registration month in the U.K. You get a lot of trades in that month specifically. Rolling into October, November, and December, the drop that was seen at the auction prices was over 10% in the U.K. over those three months. So, I think that was a change that was seen there in that period that hadn’t been seen historically. So, I would say that was a market correction or a one-time hit effectively that happened in the U.K. I’ll let Daryl pick up on the headcount reductions and costs.

Daryl Kenningham: Yes. We’re addressing the headcount honestly, David, because our headcount crept up last year – over the last couple of years actually in the U.K. It got beyond the level that we were comfortable with. And given the challenge in the fourth quarter in the used vehicles and some other areas, we felt like it was the right thing to do. We’ve had better discipline in the U.S. on that than we have in the U.K. And so, it wasn’t necessarily related specifically to used cars. It was just a general overall resource allocation.

David Whiston: Okay. And on switching gears here to Fisker and some others, I’ve talked about wanting to franchise now. I’m just curious if you guys are interested in any of the EV start-ups in getting a franchise, or are they too early in their life cycle for you?

Daryl Kenningham: We’ve looked at a couple of them over the last couple of years. It’s really hard to get into pencil. I think that maths is getting harder.

Operator: Our next question comes from Daniel Imbro from Stephens Inc. Please go ahead with your question.

Daniel Imbro: Yes. Thanks, guys for taking the question. I want to start on the cost side actually. I guess two quick SG&A clarifiers. One, you mentioned a 10% headcount reduction. Any way you could size up the annual cost savings, is it $15 million to $20 million? Is it $30 million plus? Like any sizing on that? And then you’re lowering SG&A in the U.K. Is there a risk you find yourself in the same position in the U.S., maybe a year or two as the industry continues to normalize? How do you think about the cost-based tier and profitability normalization?