Sonic Automotive Inc (SAH) 2016 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning and welcome to the Sonic Automotive second-quarter 2016 earnings conference call. This conference call is being recorded today, Tuesday, July 26, 2016. Presentation materials, which management will be reviewing on this conference call, can be accessed at the Company's website at www.sonicautomotive.com, by clicking on the Our Company, then Investor Relations, then Webcasts and Presentations.

At this time I would like to refer to the Safe Harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. During the conference call, management may discuss financial projections, information, or expectations about the Company's products, our market, or otherwise make statements about the future. Such statements are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

I would now like to introduce Mr. Scott Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Sonic Automotive. Mr. Smith, you may begin your conference.

Good morning and welcome, everyone, to Sonic Automotive's second-quarter 2016 earnings call. I'm Scott Smith, the Company's CEO and Co-Founder. Joining me on the call today are David Smith, our Vice Chairman; Heath Byrd, our CFO; Jeff Dyke, our Executive Vice President of Operations; C.G. Saffer, our Chief Accounting Officer. I trust everyone has read the documents released earlier this morning, and I will provide some brief comments before opening the call for questions.

For the quarter, we generated $0.50 per share from continuing operations. This is $0.20 better than our prior-year quarter on a GAAP basis, and $0.04 better on an adjusted basis. Please see our earnings release for a discussion of the non-GAAP adjustments made to the prior-year quarter. There were no adjustments in the current-year quarter.

We continue to perform in line with internal estimates. A lot of the industry themes from the first quarter carried into the second quarter. The new vehicle market continues to remain highly competitive. We believe many of the new vehicle oversupply issues have worked their way through the retail pipeline during the quarter, although this cannot be easily seen in our new vehicle retail volume numbers, which were down 3.3% on a same-store basis. Gross profit per unit improved to $89 or 4.7%. This resulted in improvement of same-store gross margin dollars for new retail units of approximately $1 million, or up 1.3%.

Our pre-owned business, with the exception of EchoPark, struggled a bit as the affect of stop-sales prevented us from retailing many of our vehicles in inventory. Same-store used vehicle retail unit sales declined 1.8%, and the related gross profit per unit declined $65, or 4.8%. We can discuss this and provide a little more color in our Q&A.

The EchoPark segment, on the other hand, continues to grow. Retail unit sales from EchoPark improved 28.9%, which enabled gross profit to grow approximately $1 million. SG&A expenses declined about $100,000, despite the increase in retail activity. EchoPark was able to narrow its pre-tax loss compared to the prior year by a little more than $700,000, which -- excuse me, with one of the stores achieving same-store profit during the quarter.

We're also excited about the June openings of our new stores in the Stapleton and Dakota Ridge neighborhoods in Denver. We expect one additional store to open in the Denver market around the end of the current year, and continue to assemble parcels to use in Texas and the Carolina markets as we expand the geographic footprint of the EchoPark brand.

Fixed ops results in the quarter were mixed, as we were able to grow same-store revenues by 3%, but related gross profit was relatively flat. This was primarily driven by a decline in warranty gross profit. The mix of warranty work during the quarter was less labor-intensive than the prior year, and this yielded fewer gross profit dollars.

F&I gross continues to remain strong, up 2.9% on a same-store basis, despite a decline seen in overall retail unit sales. We were able to offset the effects of lower retail unit volume by increases in product penetration, particularly in the finance and service contract areas.

SG&A to gross for the quarter came in at 78.5%, an improvement of 160 basis points over the prior year GAAP amount, and 70 basis points better than the adjusted prior-year quarter of 79.2%. We continue to analyze costs and estimate -- and eliminate those activities that do not contribute to the bottom line.

The rollout of OSOE technology continues to occur in our Birmingham, Chattanooga, and LA markets, and is being well received by both our associates and customers.

During the quarter, we invested approximately $13.1 million in share repurchases to repurchase 759,000 shares, bringing total year-to-date investment to $57.5 million for 4.9 million in shares. We plan on continually evaluating our repurchase program as we identify windows of opportunity to reduce our share count and enhance shareholder value.

I'd also like to provide a little color on our earnings guidance for the second half of the year. Based on our current estimates, we believe diluted earnings per share from continuing operations for the third quarter to be between $0.52 and $0.54; for the fourth quarter, to be between $0.66 and $0.69.

At this point, we'd like to open the call for your questions.

(Operator Instructions). John Murphy, Bank of America.

Just a first question on EchoPark, just two parts, actually. Is there a reason that gross profit per unit there would be lower than your other franchised stores? It just seems like it's running a lot lower.

And then secondly on EchoPark, what are the original stores' profit and loss statements look on a stand-alone basis? Are we turning the corner on those? As you are adding these new stores, you can see the whites of the eye profitability for the entire entity.

John, Jeff Dyke. If you'll look -- we're playing with our mix and pricing with EchoPark -- if you'll look, whatever we dropped in front-end margin we made up in F&I. We just got a little more aggressive in pricing during the quarter. And we see that going on in the marketplace. And in Denver that tends to happen. June is kind of a funny month in the market. So, the overall margin is the same; it's just coming from different buckets, so nothing of concern to us from what our original forecast was for margin per unit.

And then, yes, we are very excited. Thornton, which is our big hub, turned a profit for the quarter. And so that was our original store that opened up. And the other two stores that opened up originally, certainly improving. Centennial is on its way there. Cash flow -- I think it's close to being positive, or positive. I can get you the exact on that. Highlands Ranch, as we look at it -- probably under-built that store. It holds 100 cars, and we really need it to hold 150-plus. So that one is not improving as fast as we'd like it.

Then the other two stores that we just opened came out of the chutes significantly faster than the stores that we originally opened. So we're very excited about where we are. Cash flow looks good. Profitability is certainly moving along for what we forecast, if not better.

And then our other two markets, Texas and the Carolinas, from a property perspective, are coming along quickly. So, nothing but positive things. And then the feedback that we're getting from our guests at EchoPark is nothing short of -- is just fantastic. If you read the feedback that we get, it's unbelievable.

And Jeff, hopefully this is a fleeting issue, but how are you dealing with the stop-sale issue at EchoPark versus your franchised dealers? Are you just sidestepping those vehicles that have stop-sale and not dealing with them? Or how do you work with them there?

So, the stop-sale cars, it just depends on the brand, John. For BMW, we can move those cars to our BMW stores, but the other brands are not as flexible. So stop-sale, we don't have that many at EchoPark; it's not that big of an issue. On the ground, I think we might have 120, or something like it, in our total inventory of maybe 1,800 cars. So that's not a huge number. And we can -- we'll easily deal with that and we will sell some of them off at wholesale.

It's a much different story on the Sonic side, because that certainly affected our used car business. I've been here almost 11 years now, and I can hardly remember a quarter when we were that down year-over-year. It has affected a large -- we broke the inventory down into unaffected and affected buckets. And our unaffected inventory on the Sonic side, we are up about 8% year-over-year. But our affected inventory, we're down like 48%, just because we can't get the airbags in fast enough to get them out on the lot and ready for sale.

So, it's certainly playing in issue here. We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully in particular BMW and Honda will get that cleaned up here in the coming months and put this behind us. But it certainly has been a bit of a challenge for the stores.

Thanks, that's helpful. And then if you could talk about the valuation of the stock versus the potential for acquisitions. It just seems like where the stock is right now versus the multiples we're hearing about in the private markets, it just seems like there's an odd arbitrage going on right now. And would you be more aggressive in buying back stock as we go forward during the course of the year as you build up greater cash from earnings?

This is Heath. We're always, always looking at the market to see if it's an opportunistic time to buy back shares. We think that our share price is affected by our performance at EchoPark and our rollout of One Sonic-One Experience. Obviously we have a different strategy, a more long-term strategy. And once this thing starts turning, we believe the share price will reflect that.

We're looking at our capital allocation. Again, share price is always a part of that equation. But we definitely need to keep dry powder for our expansion in EchoPark, as well as updating some of our facilities.

And we continue to look at acquisitions as they come across our table. If we find something that fits in nicely with our portfolio and our geographical coverage, we consider those as much as any other capital allocation.

Okay. And then just lastly on the 3 add points that you guys were awarded. That's great news. How did you pull that off? How did you win those? What's the capital requirement versus making acquisitions? And do you see a lot more of those on the horizon?

John, thanks for that question. Look, at the end of the day, Sonic Automotive, five, six, seven, eight years ago, was just not in a position to receive add points and -- for a number of reasons. Customer satisfaction scores being the big one; just wasn't there. Now we're atop the leaderboard in a lot of those measurable categories.

And so, given that, the manufacturers -- and pretty much across the board, because it's not just one manufacturer versus another -- and we'll have more to announce in the coming quarter or two -- are looking at Sonic and saying, look, they are doing exactly what they said they were going to do. Their customer satisfaction scores are good. They are market leaders when it comes to share and volume, and we're going to allow them and partner with them to invest in our brand.

So, to us, it's just a big feather in our cap, and we are very excited. We're also working with our manufacturer partners better than ever. It just makes a big difference when you can come together as two companies and work to accomplish your goals. It has made a big difference for us. And we are very excited to add the revenue and the profitability, along with the headcount that's going to help us really generate a lot more gross for our shareholders. So, great, great opportunity, and appreciate the question.

And John, I'm going to get back to you, just real quick, on the question you'd asked on cash flow in pre-tax. The original store, in detail, had a cash flow -- a positive cash flow of about $310,000 for the quarter; about $100,000 a month -- it made a pre-tax of about $115,000.

And then the two stores that opened up a few months behind them -- one is cash flowing negative 60,000 a month, somewhere in there; and the other one is cash flowing negative $80,000, somewhere in that ballpark. So, when you combine all of them, we're damn close to be cash flow positive, not including the two new stores. And that's just getting better and better as we move through. We're having a really nice July in the stores, and we expect that to continue.

Great. I'm sorry, and just the CapEx or cost of opening the add points versus making an acquisition, I'm just curious if you can give us some color on that. Heath, maybe if you have some (multiple speakers).

Yes, it just depends, John, on the brand. We're opening a Mercedes-Benz store in the north part of Dallas, in McKinney. The property and the building there is going to be more expensive than the Nissan store that we're opening in Cleveland, in Tennessee that's outside of Chattanooga. It just depends. So one might have an $8 million allocation; the other one might have a $22 million allocation. It just depends. But then you get a bigger return out of one than the other, so it's all over the board.

And for the ones that we know that we're going to be getting here in the future that we'll announce in the quarters, it's the same thing. You're just making -- whether it's high line or import or domestic, it just depends on what the brand is. It depends on the investment.

But a material discount to making an acquisition of existing franchise, in building and land?

Yes, it's a hell of a lot -- it's -- there's no blue. There is no blue sky.

Yes.

If whereas if we're looking at an acquisition that's a $40 million investment in blue sky, or $100 million investment in blue sky, those dollars aren't there. We just have to go build the property -- I mean buy the property and build the building -- and work with your manufacturer partner to make sure that building meets all the specifications. And we're working a lot with them to make sure that it meets their future specifications for retail, along with our One Sonic-One Experience specifications.

I think that's also played a big role in our ability to get the additional points, is how we look at future retail and the investment that Sonic Automotive is making there.

Great. Thank you very much.

Paresh Jain, Morgan Stanley.

A couple of questions. First, can you provide us an update on the timing of OSOE deployment? Where are you versus your expectations earlier in the year, in terms of rollout and some performance metrics there?

Yes, sure, Paresh. This is Jeff Dyke. So, One Sonic has rolled out -- we rolled out, as Scott said in his notes, into Chattanooga -- our Chattanooga market, Birmingham, and Southern California. That now goes along with our Charlotte stores. We are training and working on those stores. And we always said we're going to roll out the next phase and make sure that i's are dotted, t's are crossed, and see how that goes. We're also working on some data transfer issues from our current CRM system into our new CRM system.

And so, we're looking for ways to do that more effectively and efficiently, and to speed up the rollout process. I would tell you that in the Phase 1, we're a little bit behind schedule in terms of the original schedule that we put down to roll out. But hopefully given the moves that we're making right now in partnership with Microsoft and a few other companies, that's going to speed the overall schedule up. So we're working very hard to make all of this happen, but it's got to be done the right way.

And we've said since the very beginning, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We're going to run into road bumps, and we've hit a few, but nothing that's detracting us from the overall goal.

Understood. And then a question on EchoPark strategy. I think it is worth asking this to any used-only business that wants to scale quickly. It seems like the online only or the peer-to-peer model is gaining some acceptance now. And they can scale fairly quickly, reduce capital requirements, and improve cost savings.

So my question is, instead of having multiple stores in one market, would you consider doing a hybrid of brick-and-mortar with an online only model, where the customer doesn't even have to step into the store at all?

Yes. So obviously there's no question that that's where the industry is going. The big question is, how fast does it get there? If you still look at the volume leaders in all the markets, they are still brick-and-mortar stores. And so, we are working on what we call Sonic One-Stop, and that is the ability for our guests to shop and purchase a vehicle online without ever having to come to our stores. Obviously as the industry moves that way, you need much less brick-and-mortar on both the new car side and the pre-owned side.

And so, but at the same time, Paresh, we are trying also to build our brand. That's why we've taken the opportunity to not build these big, tens of millions of dollar palaces for pre-owned. For EchoPark, we're building significantly cheaper stores with the inventory.

So right now, we're going to market at about $7.5 million, property and building included. So it makes it feasible for us to have a few points in the marketplace and also put in our guests in a position where they can purchase online. So you can both build the brand, along with the guest buy the vehicle online and us deliver it to their home or at their place of business.

Sonic One-Stop, hopefully between now and the end of the year, makes its debut. We're working diligently with some of our vendor partners that we've built One Sonic-One Experience with, and we look forward to introducing that to our customer base.

And I think it's important for us -- this is Scott. It's important to note that nobody in the industry has a 100% paperless transaction that's going on right now. Every state has different franchise laws and different requirements on paper that has to be signed.

To my knowledge, we are as far ahead as anyone in the industry as far as delivering vehicles where the customer never, ever has to set foot at a dealership. We can do the entire transaction from the comfort of you sitting in your underwear, on your couch, or out by the pool. You can buy a car, we will deliver to your house, the paperwork will show up, and you can sign it and never have to see or speak to a single individual. We have that today. That's real; it's not vaporware.

That happens -- I don't want to say all the time, because I don't want to mislead you. It's a very, very small, small percentage of our business. But if you think of these online retailers that you think they are out there just sucking up the industry, they're not. People still need a place to take their car and get it serviced.

We've done absolutely zero with EchoPark in the way of advertising for fixed ops. And our fixed ops departments are full right now with our UIO service work and doing all of our recon for sales. So we're going to be able to pick up that gross that we get in the fixed ops department. Over time, I think that will also continue to be a differentiator. And we happen to agree with you that you don't have to have a whole lot of bricks-and-mortar to sell cars.

And that's why we've gone to the neighborhood model, where we feel like being closer to the customer and being able to service the cars is what's really going to differentiate. Because at some point in time, down the road, everybody is going to be able to sell cars paperlessly and without having to have these great, big, huge facilities.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Rick Nelson, Stephens.

I'd like to follow up on the third-quarter guidance, flat year-over-year. You're coming off a quarter where you did 9% EPS growth. And it looks like for fourth quarter, you are guiding to 10% EPS growth, but a little slower in 3Q. I'm curious about that.

Rick, this is Jeff. A couple of things. One, we start the quarter -- we're short a day in fixed operations -- we start the quarter off in July with how we measure fixed operations day. If we do about $2,480,000 a day in fixed gross, and we're going to be short year-over-year three days, so that's some $7 million worth of gross. So we've got a big uphill battle to climb there.

And then so goes Sonic Automotive, so goes BMW; and BMW it backwards and forwards. And so, BMW's been struggling a little bit. They are a 30%-plus piece of our profitability. And they are working on, as you know and we've been fighting this all year, they are working on reducing their overall inventory levels, in particular in the 5 and the 7 series, which have not been doing as well. Margins are shrinking there. We just see that being a little bit of a challenge for us this quarter as we clean up and get ready for new model year products.

And we'll see how things go. Maybe we can do better. But we'd rather guide you guys -- and it seems like every year, there's a little bit of mis -- we're just -- yes, missed cadence. We always do a whole lot better in the fourth quarter than we do the third quarter.

Instead of just saying, hey, here's where we think we're going to be for the year, we thought we'd give you guys some quarterly guidance that would help get everybody thinking on the same page as what we see coming with the business. That's really what's happening there.

That's very helpful, Jeff. July sales -- any commentary there on what you're seeing?

Yes, we've got an extra Saturday, so new car volume is just okay. Used car volume is much better. Margins are still tight. Fixed operations, a little better, so it's a lot of the same. I don't see a whole lot of difference. There's just less days in fixed operations than we had last year. But the daily run rate -- as a matter of fact, the daily run rate in July will probably be higher than it was prior year. We just are going to run out of days.

And then when I look down the road here, August and September, should be a little better just because of the way the days all line up. And I think the volumes will come in a little better, because I think the incentives are going to continue to be strong, or stronger, as we come to the end of the third quarter and people are trying to balance out inventories.

And then any comments on geographies? Especially Texas I guess I'm interested in.

In Texas, you really got to break down. Dallas is fine. Houston, on the other hand, is struggling. And really it's the energy corridor in Houston. And really it's high line in the industry corridor in Houston, and we just are right dead smack in the middle of all that. That's a big hub for us, as you know. We have 19 stores there, and a lot of high line stores there.

So we're fighting the fight. When oil is high, and things are rolling, you've got wind in your sails. And when it's not, you've got a little wind in your face. But it's nothing we can't overcome, haven't seen before and are adapted to handling. It's just -- that's a struggling piece.

And then the Southwest region for us is a bit of a struggle. That's a little bit of what's going on in the marketplace, and a little bit of us. We've had four major facility projects. We would have chosen not to do them at the same time, but we had manufacturer reasons and dollars on the line to do them all at the same time. So we've got two big high line stores in the Denver market and two big old BMW stores in the LA market that were all under construction at the exact same time, and it just creates a lot of chaos and havoc.

That has bothered us a little bit. But by the end of the year, we will have all that behind us, and push forward and then reap the benefits of all that. So, those are the two markets. The rest of the markets are doing great. Northern California is doing really well. The Florida market, the Carolinas, all of them -- they are all doing just fine. They are equal to or better than last year. We're certainly pleased with those performances. It's really Houston that's the big deal.

Thanks for that. If I could ask you EchoPark -- I know you are pursuing some new sourcing, refurbishment strategies with Manheim. Are you starting to test those? And what sort of traction are you seeing there?

Rick, this is David Smith. Something to mention with that construction is that it's not like we don't have a plan there. We are under timelines that we have to meet. So it's not like we would just do all these projects --.

Yes, the manufacturer puts us under pretty strict timelines. We fought those timelines as hard as we could, but that's what ended up driving that in the Southwest. And then on to -- what was your question about EchoPark?

Yes, your new strategies in terms of sourcing and not doing the refurbishments on-site; you are going to use Manheim to do those. Are you starting to test those within the Denver stores?

Yes. So Manheim, great business partner for us. We love them. They are working their tails off. They are doing about half of the inventory right now in the Denver market, from a reconditioning perspective, for us, which obviously lightens our load, overhead, that kind of thing. So, slowly but surely, they are going to grow with us in the Carolinas and they are going to grow with us in Texas. We've got plans; they've already made investments in -- but I don't want to put words in their mouth, but I think they've made investments in San Antonio, Dallas, and South Carolina.

They are following right along with us, and we're going to continue to recondition cars as well. Right now what we're seeing is as we've got such a demand; our business is growing so quickly, it's taking both companies to really keep up for the number of stores that we have. Hopefully, as we move forward over the years here, Manheim will assume 100% of that, and we will be out of the reconditioning or refurbishment business moving forward. A little hybrid model between now and then, as they get ramped up and we teach them some things and they teach us some things, and we work together to accomplish that goal.

And are the economics better with the Manheim relationship?

Certainly they will be, because we don't have to build the facility to recondition cars. We don't have to have the buying team. We don't have to have the all the technicians, all the staff, everything you have. So the economics will be significantly better when we get to the end of that roll.

Great. Thanks, and good luck.

Patrick Archambault, Goldman Sachs.

I just wanted a clarification on the stop-sale. You have some good information in slide 34, where you say I think it's, like, 11 of your 46 days of used inventory have some kind of a stop-sale on it, so about 24%. Can you just update us? Have you guys gotten all of the VIN numbers from NHTSA, and identified all the inventory that is likely to be identified under this last wave of Takata recalls? Or is that a number that could creep up?

Well, certainly it's a number that can creep up as you take in trades and everything. But we've got all the information that we have on the inventory that we currently have on the ground today. Now it's a waiting game to get the airbags and the replacement parts, get the cars in the shop, and get them out without destroying your customer pay, availability of hours, and your warranty availability of hours and your recon availability of hours.

So you really got to be careful in how you balance that and get those cars through the shop as quickly as you can. That's why we're doing extended hours and things like that, so that we can get those vehicles in as the airbags come into us, or the available part (multiple speakers) come into us.

Yes, that actually dovetails into my next question. I take it -- I guess there's two parts to it. What you said about PNS being impacted by margin, it was that kind of a Takata recall issue. Because I think you guys had said previously that maybe it was like $100 of gross profit on a $300 job, which is obviously lower than what you are used to. So I guess that would be question number one.

And question number two, I guess that would imply that parts of inflaters are starting to become available. And maybe we can talk about what's -- the impact of that is positive, right? So maybe just help us frame that.

So, look, the manufacturer is not paying you a ton of money to switch those things out. And we totally understand; there are so many cars, you could break them, too. So this is a total investment on both retailer side and the manufacturer side. We're getting the parts in. There is a flow of parts coming in; there's no question. We're trying to take care of our customers that need parts, plus the inventory that we have on the ground. We probably have 4,200 or 4,300 pre-owned cars sitting out there, and predominantly those are BMW and Honda for us.

It's a mixed bag. We're working very hard to get the cars out onto the front line so we can reduce that extra 11-day supply that's sitting there. And it's affecting our volume. If you think about it, the BMW 3 series, we sell more 3 series than just about anybody, and it's certainly by far the number-one volume vehicle for us, followed by Honda Accord. And both of those cars have been decimated by the airbag recall, so that's certainly hurt our business and we're working hard to overcome that.

So mix plays a role in all this as well, because if you don't have a bunch of Honda stores and a bunch of BMW stores, your used car business would be just fine.

Another point of that that we would talk about, so you also got additional floor plan expense as we continue to floor these stop-sales. So that's another impact that could be a positive, once we get these things flowing through again.

And has there been an impact on -- one of the things one has to wonder is, is there an impact on used prices? Because obviously there's all these models that can't be sold, like tens of millions of them, quite frankly. So, unless somebody wants to sit and wait, they have to buy another car. So is that putting upward pressure on used prices for other vehicles that aren't affected?

Logically, that's what you would think would happen. We have not really seen that yet. And then the cars that we have wholesaled, that we have either fixed and wholesaled because we got too many -- they've been bringing good money. I think this is just a matter of -- the cars are not being depreciated at a huge, fast amount. Because it's the same car; it's just a switch out of a part. Once that happens and we get past the flood of inventory that we have, I think everything really returns to normal.

The pricing has not been overly impacted by this. Now, we've gotten a little more aggressive because our days supply is a little higher, when you include the airbags, than we are normally used to. You know Sonic runs at a 30- to 32-day supply on a typical basis. I think we're running at 34 now. We're trying to carry some of the unaffected inventory. We're trying to ramp that up a little bit so we have inventory to retail.

But it's just a hell of a balancing act. And for the companies that are larger companies -- the AutoNations and the Group 1s and those of the world -- especially if they have this brand mix, they got to be battling that and carrying that inventory. It's going to plague us here until we get all the parts done. And hopefully by the end of the year, we will push through all of this and put it behind us.

Okay. Yes, that's the time frame that's much more -- and you guys -- see, that's why I'm interested, because you guys see this stuff actually coming in. I know that's a time frame for fixing all this is -- stretches well into the end of next year, right?

Yes, it's going to take a while. But when we saw happening is, really from about the beginning of the year where we had -- on pre-owned on the ground -- maybe 500 cars. It got up to 5,000 cars in five months. And we were, like, oh my God. If this flood keeps happening, we're going to have 25,000 cars here faster than we can snap. It has begun to slow down a little bit. We're not seeing -- in other words, we're not seeing that we're going to go 6,000, 7,000, 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 cars.

Unless there is -- there's all kinds of talk about all these millions of more cars that have recalls coming. That's unforeseen; so we'll see what happens as we move forward. But right now there's a little bit of lull in the action in terms of incoming, and we're working very hard to get the cars that we have on the ground out in retail.

Got it. All right, cool. Well, thanks for talking us through that. Thank you.

Tony Cristello, BB&T Capital Markets.

The first question I wanted to talk a little bit more about is on the parts and service side of the business. It was certainly impacted a little bit this quarter. You talked about warranty. And it seems like last year, you also had a third quarter perhaps that had some strong warranty business in it, as well. So the trends that we saw this quarter, should we expect that for the second half of the year, where you've got a stronger perhaps customer pay and a little bit less on the warranty side?

Well, here's the deal. Last year in Q2 and in Q3, we had this huge BMW -- we did a fantastic job of it, too -- we had a huge BMW engine recall. And we did a lot of heavy warranty work there. And with BMW, and the percent of business that it is of Sonic, it made warranty a lot higher. Warranty is now -- it is still high, but it's just leveled back in at its normal run rate from what that was.

I would tell you that I would look sequentially versus year-over-year here for a couple of quarters, because we're out running that BMW deal. I expect customer pay to continue to stay strong for us, and solid. We're going to be faced with shorter days in the third quarter, but I expect fourth-quarter to come right back and be the same type of performance that we've been having. There's nothing -- our tech count is still really strong. All the basic principles that we put in place in first quarter last year, or fourth-quarter the year before that had been driving our fixed business, are there. And just fighting a little warranty battle there on a year-over-year comparative.

And if you think about the customer pay dynamic, if, let's say, you get more of the recall parts available for those type of repairs, is it just simply then less available bay space, if you will, to take a customer pay order? So will there be some fluctuation once you have those recall parts back in stock, that you may see some swings?

Well, we were a little overzealous last -- 2014 Q4, as we started digging into all this, and started using up our hours on that. We're a hell of a lot more mature today than we were back then, and to be quite honest with you. So we won't let customer pay hours to be affected by that. We will remove hours into the evening hours. We will add rotations where we need to, in order to make that happen, so that we don't affect our customer pay business.

That is something that happened in the very beginning. And, to be quite honest with you, we've been working with a lot of our manufacturer partners, educating them on some of the things that we think we did wrong to begin with, so that they don't ask us to do things like fix 50 customer cars a day, on average, or something like that, where the shop hours just can't handle it and you really destroy your CP business. I think we're much more educated and ready to handle that. And we won't have the kind of issues that we had way back then when this all started.

Okay. And maybe one last question. If you think about used being impacted a little bit by the various topics you earlier discussed. If we think about used and CPO and the strength that those should have down the road as things normalize, what is ultimately the impact on the F&I side with respect to growth and then margin? And should we realize any meaningful difference than what we're seeing today?

I think that the overall impact is we're going to sell more cars, once these cars get handled, and we're going to ultimately drive a lot more gross. We're going to have an -- and if you think about it, and we've got a bunch of BMW 3 series and Honda Accords sitting on the ground today. Those are our bread-and-butter cars. Those are the ones that Sonic Automotive knows how to -- and I can't answer for everybody else, but that's what we know how to sell extremely well.

So, as those cars become available, it's like a candy store. We will have them, and away we go, and that's going to positively impact F&I. And then our F&I performance has continued to just get better and better and better over the last six or seven quarters, as you can see from a PUR perspective. So when we combine those two things, there should be a little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so to speak.

Okay. Very good. Thank you for your time.

Mike Montani, Evercore ISI.

Mike, you may proceed with your question. We will proceed to the next -- Mike, are you there?

I am. Can you hear me?

Go ahead, sir.

Great. Sorry about that. I just wanted to ask on the used car comp trend, guys, it had been running steady mid-single digits, and then obviously turned to down low singles. It would you attribute that basically to Takata? And then how should we think about the cadence moving forward?

Yes, 100%. For us, like I said earlier, our unaffected volume -- unaffected unit volume was up about 8%. So cars that were not affected by the airbag, that's mid- to upper-single-digit growth. And that's what we're used to, and I think you're used to from us at Sonic. For us to have a down trend for a quarter is a little bit unusual, but the affected units were down about 48%.

I think we're going to be dealing with this -- although we are getting a little more aggressive in our pricing to help try to blow some of the inventory out -- we're going to be dealing with a little bit of this as we move forward. I think we will take the brunt of that in the third quarter. And then hopefully as the fourth quarter moves on, it will be cleaned up and we'll be in good shape as we move into 2017.

Got it. And if I could on credit availability, can you just talk about -- on the new and used side, how available is credit from your lending partners? And also as it relates to subprime.

Yes, it's fine. It's great. There's no issues there whatsoever. Our lending partners have been fantastic, in particular on the EchoPark side. Yes, we have no issues. We don't do a ton of subprime business at the Company. It's not a part of the industry that we really chase after a lot. But at the end of the day, the credit availability is there, and we don't have any issues.

And then the last one, if I could, it was just on One Sonic initiative. Can you just talk about maybe latest thinking there as it relates to also single price point selling, and just some incremental granularity? I know you have rolled out to incremental markets, but just in the process itself, where do you stand right now with that?

Yes, so, just to be clear, we have not rolled out one price -- the only place that we have one price is in the Carolinas, in Charlotte. The other markets, we just rolled the CRM tool, our appraisal and desking tool, in our desk management system. The one price would not come along until we finalize our new car pricing tool. We're hoping that's sometime year end or Q1. We'll see how that goes. But we're not -- we're pricing centrally and doing all of that in the Charlotte market only. The rest of that is being handled by the stores, and they traditionally price and all our other markets other than EchoPark, which is one price.

And then we price centrally on pre-owned across the entire country, and have been doing that for a while. We set the initial price at the home office. We will see. Our market share is solid. Our Charlotte stores have improved greatly. We've got a really nice year-over-year profit pickup increase; and we should -- we're comping against lighter results just from the rollout last year. But we're making nice progress. If you leave the guest as your guiding light, and you listen to what they're telling you about the experience that you're delivering, you do this every day and twice on Sundays -- they are just -- they are glowing about the experience that they're getting.

We're working our way through the technical road bumps that we have. And we're getting One Sonic rolled out as quickly as we can, but it's got to be effective and efficient.

Okay, thank you.

Bret Jordan, Jefferies.

On the EchoPark service side, I think you were saying earlier you were splitting that volume, or the refurbish, with Manheim, and that your service bays are pretty full. Are you not offering customer pay service in EchoPark yet?

We definitely are; we're just not marketing it. We're not out there running huge promotions and things like that to drive a bunch of business in. Because, quite honestly, we don't have the unavailable shop hours to handle it if they do come in. As we keep ramping up our volume, we're seeing nice volume growth. It's taking up more and more shop hours. And that's why -- but we have reduced the number of -- just so you know, we have reduced the number of headcount on the EchoPark side in that marketplace, and Manheim has increased their headcount.

So we're really trying to -- we're in the middle of shifting. As they take on more responsibility, and they learn, they've got to produce a lot more cars than they are producing today, and they are working on that. We've got a team that meets every week, we have a call, and we're working diligently to get that through. But we're just moving through a transition as they learn and grow. No, we're not out there pushing CP yet. That would be a mistake on our part. We would upset customers, and our whole EchoPark is about guest experience. So we've got to make sure that we're prepared for that when we do start advertising and marketing.

Well, we do think that might be? As you look at the transition to Manheim for the refurb, is that something [that's be] first half of 2017? When can we see what the CP traction is?

Yes, that's a great question. That's a question I ask every day. I don't think so. We will see. We're taking a wait-and-see on how the EchoPark stores are doing from a profit perspective. And now we're starting to turn profit, so we want to speed up -- speed the market, we are going to roll out more stores. Manheim has got to keep up with that. I'm hoping that they will be able to transition both the Texas market and the Carolina market faster than they did Denver. Maybe by the middle of next year, Denver market, they will be handling all of it, but that's yet to be seen. We've still got work to do there.

Okay. And then one question, I think maybe Heath had mentioned it. You were talking about floorplan being a little bit of a headwind as you accumulate the stop-sale inventory. It's my understanding that a lot of the OEs are subsidizing the floor plan and depreciation. Is that something they are not paying you until after you clear the inventory?

Yes, we're not realizing that -- those dollars until we clear the inventory.

Until you sell the car.

Yes. So, we have not been taking in dollars until we sell the cars. There's some dollars out there, and available to us, as soon as we -- and some incentive, as soon as we get those cars cleared.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Irina Hodakovsky, KeyBanc.

I wanted to ask you two things. So the first one is just your guidance. You've basically trimmed the guidance at the upper end by about $0.05. Wondering, where are you more bearish in terms of your outlook?

Well, one of the issues that Jeff mentioned, as you know, we got less days in Q3 in service. And right there, each day is $2.48 million, so obviously that's going to affect our EPS. And as we work through these stop-sales and especially in the used car area, it's going to affect our third quarter.

Great, thank you. And then on that subject, BMW specifically, we've been hearing that there is a large inflow of off-lease vehicles. We were expecting this to come in, and just wondering, are you seeing this? Is it a good or a bad thing from your perspective? Is it helping? These are off-lease vehicles, so theoretically these people are replacing them with new leases; should be driving new vehicle volume. But then is it creating too much inventory? What are you seeing, and how is it impacting you?

Yes, so, our friends at BMW are working their butts off to align their inventories and prepare for a new model year. And then with the slow down for BMW in particular in Texas, it has created a wave of cars. So you have off-lease cars coming in, we have the airbag issue, and the overall inventory issue. So we're in a bit of a perfect storm with the brand right now, and in particular in some markets. It's a short-term issue. It's something that we'll overcome; but certainly something that we've been battling here for a good part of the year, and we're going to battle into the third quarter, no question.

So you expect this will persist through the third quarter, at least?

Yes. Yes, definitely. It's probably going to persist through the end of the year, but it should be getting better as we move through the end of the year. That's why we always -- and we are giving this guidance, because the fourth quarter for us is always just so darn strong, and it's driven a lot by BMW. And our big BMW stores really hit on all cylinders in December, and we blow out a lot of inventory. We're hoping -- and that's held true for 10 straight years, and we're hoping it's going to hold true for another year this year.

Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.

Bill Armstrong, CL King and Associates.

On the new car side, your gross profit per unit had a nice increase. I was wondering if you could discuss the drivers there. And also in terms of -- especially on the luxury side, availability of SUVs versus sedans, where obviously consumer demand is skewing towards the SUVs. I was wondering if you could discuss any recent trends there.

Yes, sure. Our Honda margin remains pretty darn strong. And our high line margin, in particular, really -- from Mercedes-Benz to BMW; Lexus is strong for us, so that's what driving it. It's such a large portion of our business, and if BMW and Mercedes are good, our margins are going to be up. And that's exactly what's happened. And then I'll take all the high line luxury SUVs I can get my hands on. We'd sell them all. They're short there; and with gas prices being low, it's going to drive that. The manufacturers are retooling as fast as they can to get us inventory. Certainly it's a improving a bit, but it could improve a whole lot more.

So you are beginning to see a little bit of improvement from the OEMs on that?

Yes, we are. There's certain model lines, the Macan and things like that, that you just can't get your hands on but -- that we're all waiting for. There's been some improvement, and I expect that to continue to get better. The manufacturer began shifting a few quarters ago. And as gas prices dropped off, and with oil looking like it's settling in the $40 to $50 range, we're going to continue to see that opportunity, and sell trucks and SUVs across the board.

Got it. Okay. And sorry for not quite getting this, but why is it that you have -- you have three fewer days in Q3 versus last year (multiple speakers) for service?

So the way that -- now, I'm just speaking for us -- I don't know how everybody measures their service days. But for us, we had 23 fixed days last year versus 20 this year, and it has to do with the way that June ends. The Fourth of July fell on a Sunday versus a Monday, because we don't count that holiday, and the way August starts. So we have three less fixed days for the way we measure the business, and that's going to certainly play a role in our overall gross from a fixed perspective. And then we will bust our butts; we pick up a day in August, and we're flat year-over-year in September, I think. So we will bust our tails for the remainder of the quarter to catch up, but it's just going to be very difficult to catch that up.

So the service departments are closed on Sundays. And so they are also closed on Labor Day and on Fourth of July?

We've got a handful that open; but yes, the majority of the stores are.

Got it. Okay, thank you.

Mike Montani, Evercore ISI.

Just wanted to ask on the days sales outstanding on new, it was a material improvement there. How were you able to work that out? Was it cancellations, et cetera, there? And then secondly, GPUs have stabilized nicely here. So are we looking for 1,900 full-year type levels, or can you just expand on those two points?

Yes, sure. We've been telling you since late fourth quarter, October and November of fourth quarter last year, that we expected to see an uptick in new car inventory; just because all the inventories that are out there, and we want to work with our manufacturer partners to help relieve those inventories. But we began, February, March, really tightening down new car inventory levels in particular brands. And as a result, our inventory is dropping, and we can -- we expect it to continue to drop. And as your inventory gets in better shape, your margins go up.

I don't see any major shifts in where our margin is today versus what it should be in Q3. A lot of it depends on our BMW/Honda mix and how that plays out overall, and what kind of volume we do with those brands. So, we'll see as we move forward, but certainly it has stabilized.

Okay, thank you.

At this time, there are no additional questions.

All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you on our next earnings call. Have a great day.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.