Earnings call transcript: Sonic Automotive Q1 2025 sees revenue rise, stock steady

Sonic Automotive Inc. (SAH) reported its first-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing an adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.48, slightly below the forecast of $1.42. The company achieved a record consolidated total revenue of $3.7 billion, surpassing the expected $3.47 billion. Trading at a P/E ratio of 9.6x and currently valued near its InvestingPro Fair Value, the stock saw a modest increase of 0.56% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor confidence in its revenue growth and strategic initiatives.

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Key Takeaways

• Sonic Automotive reported a record Q1 2025 consolidated revenue of $3.7 billion, an 8% year-over-year increase.
• Adjusted EPS came in at $1.48, slightly below the forecast of $1.42.
• The EchoPark segment showed robust performance with a 5% increase in retail unit sales.
• Stock price rose 0.56% in pre-market trading despite the earnings miss.
• The company maintains a cautious outlook due to market uncertainties, including tariffs.

Company Performance

Sonic Automotive demonstrated strong performance in Q1 2025, with an 8% year-over-year increase in consolidated revenues, setting a new first-quarter record. The EchoPark segment, a key growth driver, reported a 5% increase in retail unit sales and a significant rise in gross profit per unit. The company continues to focus on expanding its technician workforce and balancing warranty and customer pay services, contributing to a 40% growth in warranty work.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $3.7 billion, up 8% year-over-year
• Adjusted EPS: $1.48, a 9% increase year-over-year
• Consolidated gross profit: Increased by 6%
• Consolidated adjusted EBITDA: Rose by 7%

Earnings vs. Forecast

Sonic Automotive’s Q1 2025 adjusted EPS of $1.48 fell short of the forecasted $1.42, marking a minor miss. However, the company exceeded revenue expectations with $3.7 billion against a forecast of $3.47 billion, indicating strong sales performance despite the earnings miss.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Sonic Automotive’s stock price experienced a 0.56% increase in pre-market trading, closing at $59.03. This movement reflects positive investor sentiment towards the company’s revenue growth and strategic direction, despite the slight EPS miss. The stock remains within its 52-week range, with a high of $76.78 and a low of $51.27.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Sonic Automotive remains cautious due to uncertainties in the automotive market, including potential tariff impacts. The company plans to expand its EchoPark stores towards the end of the year and maintain its SG&A target in the low 70% range. Additionally, a quarterly cash dividend of $0.35 per share has been approved.

Executive Commentary

CEO David Smith emphasized the company’s commitment to delivering top-tier guest experiences, while President Jeff Dyke highlighted the company’s resilience amidst market challenges, stating, "We’re Teflon. We can’t handle anything." These statements underscore the leadership’s confidence in navigating the current market environment.

Risks and Challenges

• Tariff uncertainties could impact pricing and inventory levels.
• The used vehicle market is experiencing tight supply, which may affect sales volumes.
• Potential price increases in the automotive market could deter consumer spending.
• Balancing warranty and customer pay services remains a focus area.
• The electric vehicle market’s inventory-demand alignment poses competitive challenges.

Q&A

During the Q&A session, analysts probed into the impacts of tariffs on pricing and inventory strategies. Discussions also covered the mix between warranty and customer pay services and EchoPark’s sourcing and pricing strategies, providing insights into the company’s operational adjustments in response to market dynamics.

Full transcript - Sonic Automotive Inc (SAH) Q1 2025:

Conference Operator: Good morning and welcome to the Sonic Automotive First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. This conference call is being recorded today, Thursday, 04/24/2025. Presentation materials, which accompany management’s discussion on the conference call can be accessed at the company’s website at ir.sonicautomotive.com. At this time, I would like to refer to the Safe Harbor statement under the Private Securities and Litigation Reform Act of 1995. During this conference call, management may discuss financial projections, information or expectations about the company’s products or 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. In addition, management may discuss certain non GAAP financial measures as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please refer to the non GAAP reconciliation tables in the company’s current report on Form eight ks filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today. I would now like to introduce Mr.

David Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Automotive. Mr. Smith, you may begin your conference.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: Thank you very much and good morning everyone. Welcome to the Sonic Automotive first quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. As you said, I’m David Smith, the company’s Chairman and CEO. Joining me on today’s call is our President, Jeff Dyke our CFO, Heath Byrd and our Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Danny Wylan.

We would like to open the call by sincerely thanking our amazing teammates for continuing to deliver a world class guest experience for our customers. We believe our strong relationships with our teammates, our manufacturer and lending partners and our guests are key to our future success. And as always, I would like to thank them all for their support and loyalty to the Sonic Automotive team. Turning now to our first quarter results. GAAP EPS was $2.04 per share and excluding the effect of certain items as detailed in our press release this morning, adjusted EPS was $1.48 per share, a 9% increase year over year.

First quarter consolidated total revenues were a first quarter record of 8% year over year while consolidated gross profit grew 6% and consolidated adjusted EBITDA increased 7%. Moving to our franchised dealership segment results. In the first quarter, we generated first quarter record franchise revenues of $3,100,000,000 up 9% year over year. This revenue growth was driven by an 11% increase in new retail volume and a 6% increase in fixed operations revenues. First quarter results benefited from an increase in new vehicle sales in the final days of the quarter, which we expect was the result of customers buying in advance of tariffs that went into effect on April 2.

Our fixed operations gross profit and F and I gross profit also set first quarter records up 79% year over year respectively. Same store new vehicle GPU was $3,089 down sequentially from the fourth quarter due to our luxury brand mix and in line with our guidance given on our last call. On the used vehicle side of the franchise business, same store used vehicle volume decreased 2% year over year driven by lower levels of late model used vehicles and consumer affordability challenges. Same store used GPU increased sequentially to $15.55 dollars per unit. Our F and I performance continues to be a strength with same store franchised F and I GPU of $2,442 in the first quarter, up 1% sequentially and 4% year over year.

The continued stability in F and I at these levels supports our view that F and I per unit will remain structurally higher than pre pandemic levels even in a challenging consumer affordability environment. Our parts and service or fixed operations business remained strong with a 7% increase in same store fixed operations gross profit in the first quarter. This strong growth was driven in part by higher levels of warranty repairs combined with the effects of the increase in technician headcount we achieved in 2024. Turning now to the EchoPark segment. First quarter segment income was an all time quarterly record $10,300,000 and adjusted EBITDA was an all time quarterly record of $15,800,000 up 116% year over year.

For the first quarter, we reported EchoPark revenues of $560,000,000 flat year over year and all time record quarterly EchoPark gross profit of $64,000,000 up 21% from the prior year. EchoPark segment retail unit sales volume for the quarter was approximately 18,800 units, up 5% year over year. On a same market basis, which excludes closed stores, EchoPark revenue was up 3%. Gross profit was up 19% and retail unit sales volume increased 7% year over year. EchoPark segment total gross profit per unit was an all time quarterly record of $3,411 per unit, up $456 per unit year over year, rebounding from the temporary GPU pressure we faced in the fourth quarter as we indicated on our previous earnings call.

We continue to believe that our data driven centralized inventory management strategy is a key differentiator for EchoPark, which should help to minimize disruptions from market volatility in the short term, while maximizing EchoPark’s long term growth potential. When combined with the strategic adjustments we’ve made to our EchoPark business model, we believe we are well positioned to resume disciplined long term growth for EchoPark once used vehicle market conditions sufficiently improve. Turning now to our Power Sports segment. We generated record first quarter revenues of $34,400,000 first quarter gross profit of $8,500,000 and a segment adjusted EBITDA loss of $700,000 which was in line with our expectations for a seasonally light first quarter. We are beginning to see the benefits of our investment in modernizing the powersports business and we remain focused on identifying operational synergies within our current network before deploying capital to expand our powersports footprint.

Finally, turning to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $947,000,000 in available liquidity, including $430,000,000 in combined cash and floor plan deposits on hand. We continue to maintain a disciplined balance sheet approach with the ability to deploy capital to grow strategically as market conditions evolve. Additionally, I’m pleased to report today that our Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.35 per share payable on 07/15/2025 to all stockholders of record on 06/13/2025. As you can see on page 13 in the investor presentation we released this morning, we have updated or withdrawn certain items in our previous financial guidance for 2025 in light of uncertainty around the effects that the tariffs are expected to have on the automotive industry. We are working closely with our manufacturer partners to understand the tariff impact and our manufacturer production and pricing decisions and the resulting impact that tariffs may have on vehicle affordability and consumer demand.

Despite these challenges, our team remains focused on near term execution and adapting to ongoing changes in the automotive retail environment and macroeconomic backdrop, while making strategic decisions to maximize long term returns. Furthermore, we remain confident that we have the right strategy and the right people and the right culture to continue to grow our business and create long term value for our stockholders. This concludes our opening remarks and we look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of John Murphy with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

John Murphy, Analyst, Bank of America: Good morning, guys. Morning. I just wanted to ask a first question around sort of the obvious on tariffs and just maybe from three specific angles if you could comment as best you know right now. First, what kind of commentary are you getting from your factory partners? Second, as you think about the pull forward in March and early April, what you’re seeing outside of your stores, maybe inside of your stores on pricing and GPUs because it doesn’t seem like you’ve necessarily taken advantage of stuff there yet, but there’s certainly stories of other folks.

And then third, what kind of impact do you think the uncertainty has around M and A activity and pricing?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: It’s Jeff, John. From a manufacturer’s perspective, this is the all balls in the air right now. No one really knows. Parts are coming in from out of the country on American made cars. And so it’s for us, it’s just steady as she goes.

We had a great first quarter. We think we’re going to have a great second quarter. And we believe based on conversation with the manufacturers over the next ninety days that things will settle down. Is there going to be a price increase? Maybe, but we don’t see it as being a 25 percent price increase.

And we’ve had price increases before and we faced a lot tougher situations than this. And the industry is Teflon from my perspective. We can we’ll battle our way through this. And we just are not watching the news. We’re putting our head down.

We’re going to work. We’re very focused on executing our playbooks, our processes and we think those results showed up in the first quarter. And we’ll see what happens in the coming months ahead. But I’m not and our team is not too concerned that we won’t have solid resolution over the next ninety days or so. And I think the manufacturers will end up participating if the tariffs come along in some sort of cost cutting measure to help with MSRP pricing.

Maybe the dealers and the consumers have to participate a little bit, not sure yet. And hopefully, the governments will come along and get a hold of this. But at the end of the day, it’s not some massive concerns. In terms of M and A, it hasn’t really made a huge difference at this point. We’ve got a lot of discussions going on.

Certainly, it’s come up. If anything, maybe it’s we’re buying a little bit of time just to kind of see what happens over the next ninety days before we finalize some transactions, but no big changes there from our perspective.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: And John, this is David. I think one thing to mention about pricing because I think you alluded to it is that some dealers out there are I think taking advantage of the situation and taking advantage of customers and we’re definitely not doing that. We have our the highest guest satisfaction we’ve ever had and we want to keep it that way. And so we’re doing more market pricing and not gouging our customers.

John Murphy, Analyst, Bank of America: I appreciate the balance for you. Maybe just one quick second one on fixed ops. I know you guys were a little slow on headcount hiring last year. Just curious if there’s any update there and what kind of opportunity you think there is to ramp up that hiring process and really

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: It’s Jeff. Look, at the end of the day, since last March, we fired three forty five incremental technicians in the organization, and that’s made a huge difference from us for us in terms of fixed ops. So we’ll continue to hire as we grow through the year. We’ve got capacity with open stalls and bays for those technicians that we’re hiring. And it’s been a huge focus for us as you know since the end of the first quarter last year when we sort of put our stake in the ground and changed our culture in our fixed operations departments to focus on bringing in more technicians as a part of our culture and driving our growth.

And I think the results have proven that in the last four or five quarters.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: And we’ve had a number of stores where we opportunistically were growing our service. We’re building new stalls, adding stalls. So there’s definitely opportunity to grow.

Heath Byrd, CFO, Sonic Automotive: Agree. I’m sorry. A quick reminder on that John, we added about a third of those headcount in the last two months of last year. And so we’re still really trying to get those newly hired or newer hired technicians to full productivity. So there’s still some runway there.

And right now with the additional warranty and recall activity we’re seeing, there’s a lot of volume running through the service lanes. So as we go forward and get those technicians fully productive, we’ll be better to balance better able to balance the customer pay and warranty side of the business as long as these warranty tailwinds persist.

John Murphy, Analyst, Bank of America: Super helpful. Just one follow-up on that. I mean as you think about the opportunity is a lot of it volume or because you’re in the high class you have the high class problem of too much demand that you might see door rates inch up a bit?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: I mean, we’re looking at our door rates on a quarterly basis, John. That’s something that’s been ongoing forever. Now the demand, the volume is there. There’s just plenty of volume from a fixed perspective and we’re taking advantage of that. And there are more techs to be hired.

And our culture has taken over. We’re not having to push so hard to hire techs. The culture has taken over and our teams are out bringing in techs and they see the results. It’s made a big, big difference. And again, that’s been a year in the making of really changing our store level culture from a fixed operations perspective to get us to where we are.

As David and Danny said, there’s a lot of upside there.

John Murphy, Analyst, Bank of America: Yes. So fair say volume and price, right opportunity?

Chris Pearce, Analyst, Needham and Company: Yes. Okay.

Financial Team Member, Sonic Automotive: I’ll just add one point John. And speaking of tariff impact, services is one of those areas where we can pass that along to the consumer. So that’s another opportunity we think if there are tariff issues, people are making a buy versus repair decision that can help that and we can pass along the tariff increase to the consumer.

John Murphy, Analyst, Bank of America: Love the whole time, the whole team tagging in there. Appreciate all the answers. Thank you guys.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Thank you. Our

Conference Operator: next question comes from the line of Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Patrick Buckley, Analyst, Jefferies: Hey, good morning guys. This is Patrick Buckley on for Bret. Thanks for taking our questions.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: Good morning. Good morning. On the used side, could you talk a

Patrick Buckley, Analyst, Jefferies: bit more about what the GPU trajectory looks like from here? I guess with Q1 above the ’25 outlook, When should we start modeling in contraction and what’s driving that?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: I mean, it’s just sort of an unknown right now based on what’s going on with the tariffs. If nothing changes and things are steady as she goes, I mean, the margins that you saw in the first quarter should hold true on the franchise side throughout the end of the year. And EchoPark’s margins are growing. We’re buying a larger percentage of our cars off the street. We’ve moved from 20 to 25% up to 30% to as high as 35% of the cars now on a weekly basis coming from street purchases.

That’s making a big difference in our front margins and that really helped out in March of the first quarter and it’s carrying over into April and that’s a change for us. So front end margins are improving there and we expect that to continue.

Patrick Buckley, Analyst, Jefferies: Great. Thank you. And then I guess on BEVs, have you seen any changes year to date with the current administration and just a little shake up as far as mandates? And I guess what’s the current outlook there on inventory versus demand?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Yes. It’s dropping. If we have less supply. Yes, we’re I mean everything positive there. I mean the thing is that now inventory levels are beginning to get closer to matching what consumer demand is and that’s where it should be.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: The demand lining up with

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: With the inventory levels, right. And so, we’re applauding that. We’re having to carry less inventory that doesn’t turn as fast. We think the manufacturers are coming around and that’s the new administration that’s supporting that and that’s a big applause from this team.

Financial Team Member, Sonic Automotive: And you could see in the front end GPUs, we had a headwind of around three fifty and the full year of 2024 is down to 200 in Q1. So aligning that inventory to demand is helping reduce that headwind in EV GPU.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: And we think some of our manufacturer partners are a great job with offering vehicles that where it’s really speaking of customer demand, the customer gets to select their drivetrain. And that strategy is a great strategy. So if they want an electric vehicle, they can choose an electric one or if they want an ICE, they can choose that. We like that strategy.

Patrick Buckley, Analyst, Jefferies: Great. That’s all from us. Thanks guys.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Licht with Stephens Inc. Please proceed with your question.

Jeff Licht, Analyst, Stephens Inc.: Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking our question. Good morning.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: First one is, I wonder if

Jeff Licht, Analyst, Stephens Inc.: you could break down the warranty work, service and parts work a little bit as it relates to warranty customer pay. I know you’re getting into a little bit, but just what the metrics were in terms of warranty growth as it relates to the comp and customer pay?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Yes, about 40% warranty growth in the first quarter versus the 2% to 3% customer pay growth. That’s not a mix we like at all. It’s an adjustment that we’re making. We need to a lot more focus on getting our CP customers through the lanes and pushing the warranty work out a little bit. And those are adjustments that you’ll see us make in the second quarter.

That’s just too big of a differentiator in the mix between warranty and customer pay for our liking. And there’s a lot of warranty work out there that can’t be helped. But we need to adjust in terms of that mix coming through our lanes.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: And we think it’s a great sign of our that our team, you may want to mention that, that they already highlighted and noticed that. It wasn’t like that we just noticed this

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: year. Yes. The team towards the end of the first quarter saying, look, this is just not the mix of revenue coming through the service drive is not the mix we like. We need to start making some adjustments and those adjustments are being made. And we’ve got the technician headcount now to handle that and that’s growing.

So put all that together, and we think we can pivot pretty quickly in how that mix is coming through the service drive in the second quarter.

Jeff Licht, Analyst, Stephens Inc.: Is there evidence? Or do you have ways to track kind of the occurrence of crowding out customer pay because of the warranty? I mean, do you see yourself even inadvertently turning away customer pay jobs in lieu

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: intentionally, but it’s common sense. I mean, if you got that much warranty coming through, it’s easier work, it’s higher margin, it’s everybody’s taking the licks at that. And it’s just it’s not the right way to run the shop. You need to load the shop differently. We know that.

There’s a lot of warranty hit us all at the same time. And service provider can take a warranty job in. Technician can flip it and get another one real quick because there’s another one standing in line. And so we’re not doing the additional service requests and the things I think from a playbook perspective that we should do. We got to slow down and execute at a higher level.

It’s great to have the warranty work. It certainly played a big role in our quarter from a fixed perspective. But we can do a better job in making sure that we’re balancing customer pay and fixed the right customer pay and warranty the right way and loading the shop appropriately and we’re making those changes.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: Yes. And I would say it’s more of rather than saying turning customers away, it’s more scheduling properly.

Jeff Licht, Analyst, Stephens Inc.: And just a quick one on EchoPark. If you and this is kind of just a hypothetical. If you think about a tariff scenario where, let’s just say, the SAAR does go down, pick your number, 1,000,000 units, one point million because prices rise. And obviously, that’s going to come at the franchise dealers, there’ll be less trade ins where franchise dealers tend to get more of their supply through trade ins. I’m just curious, I could see either way how this could affect EchoPark.

Obviously, is the whole premise is it’s a value proposition. When you think about the puts and takes of all the different dynamics in terms of less stuff going through the auction lane and whatnot. Do you guys view a tariff scenario as beneficial to EchoPark? Or would it be a headwind?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Well, we’ve seen this video before, right? I mean, we played this out in 2020 and 2021 and 2022 with COVID and we’re prepared for it. That’s why you’re seeing us buy a lot more cars off the street. We think we can push that up even higher, maybe the 40% to 45% level. This is just turning knobs.

We are really in shape for something like this where I would say that we were not when COVID hit. And so it could have been a headwind if this was 2020, but we don’t look at it like that now. We’re very prepared and just had an amazing first quarter with EchoPark. We look to have another one in the second quarter. April shoring up that way.

And prices at the auctions are already up over $1,000 a car from what we’re seeing in buying, but margins are continuing to grow volume solid. So, don’t see it being a big problem. Also, we’re

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: if you think about it, we’ve noticed that especially in our mature markets, as you may have heard on our previous calls, our EchoPark stores have the number one Reputation dot com score in the industry. So we’re seeing where a lot of repeat customers, their friends and family coming to EchoPark. And those people as you’ve seen our gross is going up, people are identifying EchoPark and saying, we want to go there and buy a car and just choosing to go there first. And we’re seeing that in our numbers. So I think that our team will adapt.

Prices go up. I still think that customers will pay for that amazing guest experience.

Jeff Licht, Analyst, Stephens Inc.: Not just the sourcing. Obviously, sourcing could go up. But if your demand goes up and your value proposition goes up, even your prices could go up, but your value proposition relative to the alternative could actually widen. That’s what I was trying to get at is

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: 100%. Saw that at the March, we’re seeing it in April.

Jeff Licht, Analyst, Stephens Inc.: And we’re

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: still going to be higher in the marketplace. Even if our price is $1,000 higher, everybody else is going be a lot higher, including our own franchise stores. So it’s just the difference in the model. And we really have that dialed in, in particular around the inventory management, the day supply, how fast we’re moving inventory through the system, twenty to twenty two, twenty three day supply on lot. We’re turning those cars in twelve days just as fast as they can go.

We don’t the inventory is not sitting. And so it just if you can turn the the two is going win and we have that we’ve had great education.

Heath Byrd, CFO, Sonic Automotive: Between what we saw in ’twenty one through ’twenty three versus what you may we’re a lot smarter and more nimble than we were even ’24, ’30 ’6 months ago.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Four fifteen cars, a rooftop in March, every store profitable and the big EchoPark stores among the most profitable that we had in the company. And so we’ve got it dialed in and now the question is can we get inventory to stabilize a little bit because once we do that we can start opening some stores and we’re hopeful that towards the end of the year or the beginning of next year we can start announcing, hey, we’re going to bring a strategy that shows you how we’re going grow the footprint of EchoPark.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: And it’s worth mentioning that our new EchoPark store in Houston, for example, we’ve gotten speaking of things we’ve learned as we opened that store and I think November. I mean, it went off like very efficiently. We’ve got a mature team in there and they did 400 plus cars like in their second month.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Yes. And have been profitable since day one. So which is just a great sign.

Jeff Licht, Analyst, Stephens Inc.: Awesome. Well, thank you very much and best of luck in Q2.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Thanks so much. Thank you.

John Murphy, Analyst, Bank of America: Take care. Bye bye.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Rajat Gupta, Analyst, JPMorgan: Great. Sorry, have just one more follow-up on EchoPark here. The first quarter results obviously pretty strong here. It looks like you did take up your full year guidance, but maybe it seems a bit conservative in context of how strong the first quarter was. It looks like you feel good about the EchoPark retail GPU, the F and I, you maintained your unit guidance.

I’m curious like why isn’t the guidance higher than the range you provided based on the first quarter start?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Noise. We’ve taken the guidance up further.

Rajat Gupta, Analyst, JPMorgan: Sorry, I think like there might be some issues with my line, I’ll try again.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: We heard your question.

Rajat Gupta, Analyst, JPMorgan: Oh, you did? Okay, great.

Chris Pearce, Analyst, Needham and Company: Can you hear us? Can you hear us?

Rajat Gupta, Analyst, JPMorgan: It broke up like in the response, I can check the transcript. Maybe it’s on my line, but I’m not sure it looks like others have got it. But if you want to repeat the answer, that’s fine. Yes. It’s a headwind on SG and A.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: That’s no problem. We said you sound like our Board of Directors yesterday in our Board meeting asking the exact same questions. And look, the tariffs are playing a role in our forecast there. We’ll get a lot more we can get more aggressive if things play out the way we think they’re going to from a tariff perspective and they turn positive. But we need to be conservative there Rajat, so we don’t get out ahead of ourselves if things do get tighter from a used car pricing perspective.

And so, further adjustments as we get into announcing the second quarter if things play out the way we think from a tariff perspective.

Rajat Gupta, Analyst, JPMorgan: Understood. Understood. That’s helpful. And then just on SG and A, one of the things you’ve noticed in your print and some of the peers that have reported, we did see a little more deleveraging in the first quarter than maybe at least what I had been expecting and maybe some other investors might have been expecting. Some of your peers talked about like some weather headwinds in January, February, a couple lower selling days that might have caused that.

I was curious if there’s anything you would want to call out on the SG and A if the leverage was in line with your expectations or was it worse or better? And also, have there been any pay plan or commission type adjustments within the workforce that’s maybe driving the SG and A higher and which could be more sticky? So just wanted to unpack all of this a little bit if possible. That’s all I had. Thanks.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: I could just mention that in our this is David. From our kickoff to the year, we had a big focus on SG and A expenses and throughout the company in our annual meeting and we think that that’s taking effect as you see it in the numbers.

Financial Team Member, Sonic Automotive: Was just going to mention there are a few things that our first quarter ’1 times, we had some compensation that was just for the first quarter that will be driving that up. But there’s nothing that’s material. There hasn’t been any changes to pay plans that would have caused that. It’s really just your first quarter things that we clean up in the first quarter such as payroll taxes or higher etcetera, but nothing systematic that is going to be going through the next three quarters and through the year.

Rajat Gupta, Analyst, JPMorgan: Understood. That’s helpful clarification. Thanks a lot and good luck.

Heath Byrd, CFO, Sonic Automotive: And maybe one final point on that. We reaffirmed our full year consolidated company SG and A target in the low 70 range and so there’s going be some puts and takes as to what comes from the franchise and what comes from EchoPark as we go through the year. And obviously depending on how the tariff situation plays out on demand and volume. Volume is a big driver of sales compensation, the variable compensation piece. But overall, we’re still in line with what we anticipated for the year through the first three months.

Financial Team Member, Sonic Automotive: And I think this is Heath. I think it’s interesting to point out that this quarter EchoPark’s SG and A as a percent of gross was lower than the franchise. And that just shows you as the volume and the gross increases, you have more money that flows to the bottom line quicker because of the fixed expense structure that we have at EchoPark.

Rajat Gupta, Analyst, JPMorgan: Got it. That makes sense. Thanks for flagging that. All right. Great.

Thanks again and good luck.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: Thank you, John. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Daniela Adjane with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive0: Hi, thanks. One more on EchoPark and apologies if you answered this earlier. I also had some connection issues, but you mentioned anticipating an increase in used pricing, uplift to demand as a result of tariffs. With newer used vehicle supply still tight, even with the mitigating factors like diversifying your sourcing and off lease incrementally improving in the next year or so, do you see opportunity moving into older used vehicles to meet some affordability concerns as well?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: I mean, we did that during COVID, Daniela. This is Jeff. We did it during COVID. It’s a small percentage. It’s 10 to 15% of the overall volume, maybe even less at times.

And sure, we would flex that way if we need to. We haven’t seen a need to do that yet. And remember, we’ve reduced the number of stores that we had. So we’re down to 17 EchoPark stores. We can buy enough inventory to support those stores both off the street and trades and through the auction lines.

So I’m not too concerned about getting inventory. We’ll watch pricing and adjust the mix accordingly. But if we need to, no question, we can increase the percentage of five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten year old vehicles. It just adds complexity to the business when you do that. Recon times take longer.

There’s just a lot of complexities and we’re trying to stay away from that because complexity is not part of the EchoPark model. But it’s certainly something that we have the capability of doing and we did during the COVID years.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive0: I hear you. Thanks.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Ward with Citi Research. Please proceed with your question.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: Michael?

Conference Operator: And Michael, you there? Your line is

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: currently open.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: Sorry about that. You am I good?

Chris Pearce, Analyst, Needham and Company: You’re good.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: Sorry about that. One thing we haven’t touched on is that if we get these price increases for tariffs, you get a corresponding increase in the residual values of vehicles coming off lease, particularly at the luxury end, the import luxury end. How fast do those residual values adjust?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: I mean, they will adjust quickly, Michael, but we’re still dealing with the lack of lease returns from lack of lease sales in the previous That

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: was my next question. Do you have any line of sight on that?

Chris Pearce, Analyst, Needham and Company: When does that start to turn

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: the other way?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Year. You’ll start see, yes, an adjustment, but not in this calendar year, no way.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: So if anything, of those vehicles coming off lease this year at the lower supply, you’ll get a pretty big increase in the residual that should help on the CPO side and offset

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: can. Yes, it can.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: To help mitigate it. Okay. All right. And then one last thing on EchoPark. You kind of alluded to that the timing of considering reopening some of the locations could be at the end of the year.

If you do it sounds like you’re showroom traffic has picked up. Certainly, your costs are in line and some of the other things. If necessary, can that be accelerated? Or are you still just going to wait and see before you turn the keys back on?

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: Yes. I can tell you that we are our team is as Jeff mentioned earlier, we’ve learned a lot from the pandemic and how to open stores and when to open stores. And I think you’re going to see that in the future quarters that if these if our performance continues the way it did in this quarter, you’re going to see us opening some stores. We found that we can very efficiently open them like the one in Stafford, for example, which by the way was that particular location that was Jeff Dyke was a General Manager at that location back in the day. First GM job. It

was great. We got once we acquired that location from the time we did to opening was a very short period of time and it was off to the races as I mentioned earlier in the call. Within a couple of months, we’re selling over 400 cars out of that location. So once we get ramped up and get going, again, you’re going to see we’re able to

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: do very And this is Jeff. We’ve got obviously properties, facilities that we own that are ready to go, things that we can go pull the trigger on. There needs to be some stability here.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: Yes. It’d

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: be nice, wouldn’t it?

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Yes. God, it’s just we were laughing the other day. It’s just keep throwing

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: it at us.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: We’re Teflon. We can’t handle anything. And so this tariffs, what

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: the hell, who cares? Mean, we’ll just get

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: the that’s right.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: It’s has to be autos.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: It’s honestly an important message, think, for The Street and our team, is to understand, we’ve got a lot of leather on We’ve been through this before. We’ve seen a lot of curveballs thrown at us. It’d be nice to have a year or two of just straight, let’s go sell some cars and service some cars and have some great guest experience and build the great technologies. But we’ll deal with it and we seem to always find the rows here in the garden and we’ll do that again with this little gig that we’re facing.

So we’ll see. It’s going to be a fun year. We’re going to sell a lot of cars. EchoPark is going to do great, but a few bumps in the road so to speak.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: And our EchoPark Chief Operating Officer, Tim Keene is not here with a stake as his daughter is getting married this weekend. But we can tell you that Tim has been on the road looking at potential locations recently that are that we’re really excited about. So we’ll have more on that in the future.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: Sounds like you planned it out properly back when you made those decisions. Did it. Yes, it will give you the flexibility. Thank you.

Financial Team Member, Sonic Automotive: Thanks, Mike. Thanks.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Pearce with Needham and Company. Please proceed with your question.

Chris Pearce, Analyst, Needham and Company: Hey, good morning everyone.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: Good morning. Can

Chris Pearce, Analyst, Needham and Company: you just walk me through, think the question was asked earlier on used vehicle GPU. I just want to make sure I understand the assumptions when I look at first quarter recent history and then the guidance. Is it that because prices might go up and you still want to move units, yourselves and the industry will take a lower GPU or is there something I’m missing? I just want to make sure I understand the puts and takes there.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Meaning GPU or margin percentage from a franchise perspective?

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: Dollar GPU.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Yes. A dollar GPU from a franchise perspective, that’s something crazy happens with the tariffs. We ought to be in the same ballpark that we’re in now. I think we’re at $1,500 and something. That’s kind of we’ve been operating for years now in the 1,514 hundred to $1,600 range.

And somewhere in that $1,500 range, we’re going going to be from a franchise perspective. I don’t see that really changing. And then but I do see EchoPark’s front end margin getting better historically, because of the percentage of cars that we’re buying off the street and we’re trading for versus the percentage of cars the mix is changing that we’re getting from the auction. That’s now a seventythirty mix, a 60 fivethirty five mix. It was an eighty-twenty mix.

And just by definition, if you’re buying cars off the street, you’re going to have better margin.

Financial Team Member, Sonic Automotive: Yes. And this is Heath. One thing to add, I think the disconnect here is, one of the big issues is that you have seasonality. And so as we go through the years, we do the quarters, you’re to have certain quarters that are historically lower. And so you’re going to end up like we said between that 1,300 and 1,500 range.

Chris Pearce, Analyst, Needham and Company: Okay. And then just lastly one on EchoPark F and I per retail vehicle. If I look at the number this quarter and then look at the guidance, I mean, there some is there seasonality based on the type of customer you see in the first quarter that takes a higher percentage of warranty or pay the higher interest rate so you can sell off the loan at a higher amount? I just want to understand because it looks like the per vehicle number comes down through the rest of the year to get to the guidance that I can park.

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: Yes. Honestly, we’re probably being conservative there. We’re executing at a really high level from a warranty penetration perspective. We’ve done some cost work on what we’re paying for warranties and managing that better. That’s flowing in other products.

Those are flowing to the bottom line. So our F and I performance is just stronger and I would project that it’s going to continue to be stronger.

Chris Pearce, Analyst, Needham and Company: Okay. And just to clarify that you’re saying that you’re seeing price advantages from your third party warranty providers and that’s flowing through? We’re seeing price

Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive: advantages from moves that we’ve made with our third party warranty providers that’s flowing through to the bottom line. Yes.

Chris Pearce, Analyst, Needham and Company: Okay. Okay. Perfect. That’s everything for me.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: Again, it’s also important to emphasize again that our team, our EchoPark team is delivering the number one guest experience in the industry. So it’s there’s no doubt that that’s reflecting in the numbers.

Chris Pearce, Analyst, Needham and Company: Perfect.

Rajat Gupta, Analyst, JPMorgan: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back to David Smith for closing remarks.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive: Thank you everyone. We’ll speak with you next quarter. Have a great day.

David Smith, Chairman and CEO, Sonic Automotive1: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And this concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines and we thank you for your participation. Have a great day.

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