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Lithia Motors is an automotive retailer that sells new and used vehicles and parts, and provides vehicle repair and maintenance services in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. Lithia also offers vehicle financing and insurance products, allowing customers to lease retail vehicles; it offers fleet management solutions as well. Lithia was founded in 1946 and is based out of Medford, Ore.

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Lithia Motors (LAD): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Lithia Motors

lithia motors

Good evening and welcome to the Lithia Motors and Driveway 2025 third quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Jardon Jaramillo. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us for our third quarter earnings call. With me today are Bryan DeBoer, President and CEO, Tina Miller, Senior Vice President and CFO, and Chuck Lietz, Senior Vice President of Driveway Finance. Today's discussion may include statements about future events, financial projections, and expectations about the company's product, markets, and growth. Such statements are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from the statements made. We disclose those risks and uncertainties we deem to be material in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We urge you to carefully consider these disclosures and not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. We undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements that are made as of the date of this release. Our results discussed today include references to non-GAAP financial measures.

Please refer to the text of today's press release for reconciliation of comparable GAAP measures. We have also posted an updated investor presentation on our website, investors.lithiadriveway.com, highlighting our third quarter results. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Bryan DeBoer, President and CEO.

Thank you, Jardon. Good morning and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. This quarter was all about execution at speed, where we improved our same-store revenue across all business lines, focused on cost control, and deepened the integration of our adjacencies within store operations. The result is a high-quality earnings mix with more profits coming from recurring streams to create compounding cash flows. Quarterly revenue was USD 9.7 billion, up 4.9% year-over-year, and adjusted diluted EPS was USD 9.50, up 17%. These outcomes reflect the power of our ecosystem in combining local market leadership with a unique omnichannel platform. This quarter highlights an inflection in our performance with strong top-line growth across all business lines, highlighted by the accelerated growth in our highly profitable used vehicle and after-sales segments, demonstrating our focus on execution.

We look to continue to capture market share and increase customer loyalty, finishing strong in 2025 and springboarding into 2026. Our team is quickly converting our momentum into share gains, faster throughput, and sustained cost efficiency, so earnings power builds from here. Our unique and diversified earnings engine is outpacing the industry while also being more durable despite a mixed customer backdrop of normalized GPUs and customer affordability issues. The gross profit growth in our recurring after-sales department, resilient F&I attachments, and a focus on increasing market share created strong top and bottom-line results. Combined with tight SG&A control and a focus on fast-turning used cars, we have multiple levers to expand margin and cash flow in any environment. Our results reflect our momentum in building value for customers through simple, empowered, and convenient solutions.

As such, same-store revenues for the quarter increased 7.7%, driven by growth in every business line. Despite continued normalization of front-end GPUs, total gross profit also increased 3.2%. Total vehicle GPU was USD 4,109, down USD 216 year-over-year, consistent with industry trends. Note that all vehicle operation results are on a same-store basis from this point forward. New and used volumes both contributed nicely to top-line growth. New retail revenue grew 5.5%, with units up 2.5%. New GPU was USD 2,867, down USD 348 sequentially. The past few quarters of lagging domestic brand performance shifted this quarter and drove most of our year-over-year improvement. Adversely, luxury brands performed the weakest year-over-year, and import brands relatively flat. Our used vehicle performance continues to improve nicely, now considerably outperforming the industry with used retail revenue increases of 11.8% over last year. This was driven by a 6.3% increase in unit growth and higher average selling prices.

Our value segments continue to deliver high growth with a 22.3% unit increase year-over-year. Well done, Team Lithia. Lastly, used front-end GPU was USD 17,670, declining by USD 90 sequentially. Our strategic focus on used vehicles provides another durable layer in any cycle and affordability level. We will continue to prioritize high ROI used vehicles, keeping all price levels of our vehicles in our ecosystem, turning inventory efficiently, and increasing the F&I and after-sales attachment to deliver more connected and repetitive ownership experiences with our customers. F&I also continues to grow with F&I revenue up 5.7%, reflecting our continued focus and opportunity in this high throughput area. F&I per retail unit reached USD 1,847, up USD 20 year-over-year, which includes the impact of lower F&I from increasing penetration of EV leases and strengthening DSC penetration in the quarter.

Vehicle inventory and carrying costs improved nicely with new day supply at 52 days, a decrease of 11 days sequentially. Used DSO was 46 days versus 48 in Q2. Floor plan interest expense declined USD 19 million year-over-year due to tailwinds from decreases in inventory balances and slightly lower interest rates. After-sales continues to be the largest single driver of customer retention and earnings growth. After-sales revenue increased 3.9%, while gross profit rose a hefty 9.1%, with margins expanding to 58.4%, up 280 basis points year-over-year. We saw strength in all key after-sales categories, with customer pay gross profit up 9.2% and warranty gross profit up 10.8%. The strong growth across both categories shows the resilience and opportunity of after-sales and illustrates the value of increasing the number and frequency of customers in our ecosystem.

Cost discipline driven by productivity gains and managing performance through people is a key element of our earnings engine. North America's adjusted SG&A was flat sequentially at 64.8% as we bent the cost curve, even as GPUs continued to normalize. In the UK, our teams are responding to market conditions and regulatory labor costs that increased in the year by improving productivity and managing performance through people. Globally, we are increasing market share and growing our high-margin after-sales business as we simplify the tech stack with Pinewood AI, retire duplicative systems, and increase sales efficiency without compromising the customer experiences to drive incremental SG&A leverage. This leverage is amplified by our digital platforms, where we're unifying the customer experience across driveway.com, GreenCars, and our MyDriveway owner portal to make shopping, financing, and service simpler and faster.

The sale of our North American JV back to Pinewood AI streamlines the path to market for North America rollout, creating a single industry platform for stores and customers, reducing duplication, and increasing speed of delivery by empowering associates and customers. Together, these steps deepen retention, support SG&A leverage, and reinforce the power of our ecosystem. Driveway Finance continues to build a growing base of stable earnings with healthy spreads and disciplined underwriting. The path to higher penetration is clear as our focus on growing market share provides us a larger funnel of high-quality loans as we move towards our long-term targets, converting retail demand into reoccurring stable earnings through any economic cycle. I'm happy to congratulate our DFC team and our store leaders for achieving our 15% penetration rate milestone a few quarters earlier than expected.

Turning to capital strategy, we remain focused on investing where we can create the most shareholder value. With our stock trading at a meaningful discount, this quarter we prioritize repurchases, buying back 5.1% of our outstanding shares at prices that will drive significant long-term accretion. This quarter we issued low-cost, well-priced bonds, increasing our flexibility without stretching risk. Looking ahead, we'll keep making incremental accretive decisions, buying back more when the discount is wide, funding selective acquisitions when returns are clear and more affordable, and continuing to invest in technology. Each element of our ecosystem is building traction and momentum. We're increasing market share and productivity, building stable earnings power in our service drives, accelerating high ROI value-adds, and scaling our adjacencies while improving SG&A leverage. Optionality in our free cash flows and expertise in M&A provides a strong foundation to grow durable EPS and cash flow in any environment.

Strategic acquisitions remain a core pillar and key differentiator of our growth model. From USD 12.7 billion of revenue in 2019 to approaching USD 40 billion today, we've paired scale with consistent EPS compounding in one of the most unconsolidated retail sectors. This growth was accomplished while also building a much more diversified and profitable business model. Today, our cash engine and unique ecosystem give us the flexibility to both accelerate buybacks and continue to grow organically through exceptionally high return targeted acquisitions. We remain disciplined and U.S.-focused in our acquisitions, prioritizing stores that strengthen our network, especially in the Southeast U.S. and South Central U.S. regions where population growth and operating profits are strongest. Alongside these additions to our network in the quarter, we reiterate our USD 2 billion acquisition revenue estimate for 2025, expecting a strong finish with some complementary acquisitions by year-end.

Our acquisition financial hurdle rates are unchanged to acquire at 15%-30% of revenue or three to six times normalized EBITDA with a 15% minimum after-tax return. It is important to note that our track record over the past decade has yielded high rates of return, nearly doubling these hurdle rates. Over the long term, we continue to target USD 2 billion-USD 4 billion of acquired revenue annually, deploying capital where each incremental dollar compounds value per share the fastest. If seller expectations stay elevated, we'll lean harder into repurchases. When fit and value align, we move with speed to integrate accretive acquisitions. With the foundation set and strategic design now providing meaningful tailwinds, Lithia Driveway's differentiated model is delivering. Our long-term USD 2 of EPS per USD 1 billion of revenue targets are powered by a consistent set of levers.

Lift store-level productivity and throughput, expand our footprint and digital reach to grow U.S. and global market share, increase DFC penetration, reduce costs through scale efficiencies, SG&A discipline, and an optimized capital structure, and capture rising contributions from omnichannel adjacencies. Together, these levers will continue to convert momentum into durable EPS and cash flow growth. Our nationwide network of amazing people paired with industry-leading digital tools is driving engagement across the full ownership lifecycle. Strengthening used vehicle after-sales in our captive finance business deepens customer economics and smooths out any economic cycles, while inventory and network scale improve speed and choice. Operational leaders across the network are driving store and departmental towards potential, integrating adjacencies, leveraging our ecosystem, and elevating our customers' experiences. The result is a model with consistency, resilience, flexibility, and visible compounding power that will deliver accelerating shareholder value.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Tina.

Thank you, Bryan. Our third quarter momentum is clear. Year-over-year EPS improved, financing operations delivered continued growth on solid credit and healthy spreads, and we made progress on SG&A efficiency. Strong free cash flow generation supported meaningful share repurchases, and our balance sheet remains flexible with ample liquidity to fund growth and returns. These outcomes reflect disciplined cost actions, a maturing captive finance platform, and balanced capital deployment. Taken together, they position us to continue compounding value per share. Adjusted SG&A as a percentage of gross profit was 67.9% versus 66% a year ago. On a same-store basis, SG&A was 67.1% compared with 65.1%. As Bryan mentioned, sequential SG&A in North America was essentially flat at 64.8%, which reflects the cost discipline of our teams considering the sequential decrease in total vehicle GPU of USD 315.

Our teams continue to focus managing costs through growing market share and gross profit as we start to lap prior comps that reflect our 60-day cost-saving efforts last year. In the UK, macro and mixed headwinds pressured margins and labor costs, and we are focused on actions to increase gross profit, including increasing market share in used autos and after-sales and reducing SG&A through efficiency and cost control. We've seen solid SG&A results as we bend the cost curve in North America, and we're making improvements across our network, particularly in the UK, with specific levers: raising productivity through performance management and technology, simplifying the tech stack and retiring duplicative systems, renegotiating national vendor contracts, and automating back-office workflows. These actions should build benefits each quarter, containing the SG&A trend even if front-end GPUs continue to normalize. Driveway Finance Corporation continues to scale profitably, underscoring the differentiation of our model.

Financing operations income was USD 19 million in the quarter, with portfolio growth offsetting seasonal trends in profitability. We achieved USD 52 million in financing operations for the year to date, hitting the low end of our full-year expectations a quarter early. Net interest margin of 4.6% was up 70 basis points year-over-year, while North America penetration reached 14.5%, up 290 basis points year-over-year. Our disciplined underwriting and credit management practices have resulted in strong provision experience, and we have not seen meaningful changes in consumer credit trends within our portfolio. Our position at the top of the demand funnel and high-quality originations keep credit risk low and capital efficient. With managed receivables now about USD 4.5 billion, the maturing portfolio is delivering profitability that supports our earnings trajectory with steady, consistent growth.

Strong origination flow, improving margins, and a clear runway to increase retail penetration rates give us confidence in the path of our long-term DFC profitability targets. Now moving on to our cash flow and balance sheet health. We reported adjusted EBITDA of USD 438 million in the third quarter, a 7.7% increase year-over-year, primarily driven by lower flooring interest. We generated USD 174 million of free cash flow, converting operating momentum into liquidity that lets us both return capital and invest for growth while maintaining a strong balance sheet. This steady self-funded cash engine keeps us nimble and focused on deploying dollars where they compound value fastest. This quarter, we strengthened our capital allocation commitment to focus on share buybacks. With our share price significantly lower than intrinsic value, we allocated approximately 60% of capital deployment to share repurchases, buying back 5.1% of outstanding shares at an average price of USD 312.

So far, in 2025, we have repurchased 8% of outstanding shares at an average price of USD 313. Slightly less than one-third of capital was deployed to high-quality acquisitions in targeted regions, and the remainder to store capital expenditures, customer experience, and efficiency initiatives. Our capital allocation philosophy is to act opportunistically and with leverage in our target range and ample liquidity. We've accelerated share repurchases to capitalize on the meaningful disconnect between our stock price and the fundamental value of our business. This quarter's higher buyback pace allows us to compound returns for shareholders while still preserving capacity for high-return strategic acquisitions. Our strategy remains consistent while we continue to grow, generating differentiated stable earnings from an omnichannel platform that serves the full ownership cycle. With talented teams, class-leading digital and financing capabilities, and a strong flexible balance sheet, we're scaling core operations and high-margin adjacencies with measured discipline.

Our omnichannel model creates durability and flexibility as business conditions evolve while preserving capital flexibility to deploy where returns are highest. As we move into 2026 and beyond, we will continue our focus on translating share gains and throughput into cash flows and compounding value per share. This concludes our prepared remarks. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for questions. Operator?

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Ryan Ronald Sigdahl with Craig Howland Capital Group. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, Bryan. Tina, nice to see the operational improvements. I want to start with EVs. EVs were given the EV tax credit expiration, but it seems like Lithia cleared through most of their EV inventory or refreshed a lot of it anyways. Can you talk through kind of what you saw in the quarter, what that meant from a sales standpoint and also GPU standpoint, and then how you think about that category going forward?

Sure, Ryan. This is Bryan. Thanks for joining us today. Believe it or not, our electrified vehicles in the quarters were back to 43% of our total new car mix, which was a nice number. We actually started the month of September, and this is close to correct. I think we had 6,000 electrified vehicles that qualified for the USD 7,500 federal credit going into the month, and then we ended at just under 2,000, with really the only product that's remaining is a little bit of the higher price stuff, which we spoke to in the past. The other thing that's pretty important to remember is manufacturers incentivized those cars quite nicely as well. Many of the manufacturers are carrying over those incentives, plus they're basically replacing the USD 7,500 credit on top of that to be able to keep that volume hopefully somewhat static.

I imagine it's going to drop a little bit, and I don't have the preliminary October results, but I would imagine it'll drop a little bit. The important thing to remember is that the way that they push those units out the door and what the impact is of the USD 7,500 is basically an affordability issue because most of those vehicles were leased. Our lease penetration, I think, was the highest we've ever had on a blended basis. We were almost 40% lease penetration on new vehicles, which was quite nice, which means most of those customers are coming back in the next 24-30 months or whatever the length of those terms are. Kind of neat to see that we can move the market when we need to.

What I would take away from it is those vehicles, those 4,000 vehicles or so that we pushed out in September, were really first-generation BEVs, a lot of first-generation BEVs, Hondas, Toyotas, Subarus, and some of the domestic products that now second-generation cars are coming either in the 2026 model cycle by the end of the year or early in 2026. We're going to have, rather than a 200-mile range car, we're going to have a 300-400-mile range car for about the same price.

Yeah, it's great color. Not just consumers coming back, but like you said, the first right of refusal for that inventory on the used side coming in the door for you guys. I want to switch over to the UK. Appreciate the disclosure on kind of North America SG&A to gross. If I back into it, I think it implies the UK was something in the high 80% range, understanding kind of the margin challenges there, the labor challenges, etc. It sounds like a lot of company-specific initiatives from cost efficiencies to focusing on parts and service and used and things that the US did a decade ago. Do you see any kind of line of sight to improve market conditions there, or is it really kind of a self-help, do what you can do given the Chinese mix and kind of the constraints in the market?

No, Ryan, great questions. I think the insights on the labor market really happened in January, and it was twofold. One was a minimum wage, and then one was a payroll tax. The actual impact to the organization was USD 20 million for us. They curbed about USD 11 million of it in the first six months purely through headcount reductions and productivity gains. They've now earmarked another USD 8 or USD 9 million, which will get them beyond what the impact was, but there's another USD 3 million coming in 2026. They're really working on how to do that. I think even though our SG&A is higher than last year and the market has shifted, our team's doing a pretty nice job, relatively speaking, of how to respond to that. A lot of the increases, I think we were up to USD 10 million approximately in operational net profit in parts and service.

Big improvement there. Our used cars are beating the market by a little bit, and our new cars are basically in line with the marketplace. I would say this, last year we had, let's see, we had three BYD stores and an MG store, which are Chinese brands. This year, right now, we have seven total Chinese stores with, I believe, five more that open in the next 60 days. Unlike the United States, where you have to go buy and pay goodwill to be able to shift your manufacturer mix, in the UK, if you've got a facility and you've got good relationships with manufacturers, you have the ability to add and respond pretty quickly to the marketplace. We're pretty pleased about what we're seeing there, and our team there is doing a really nice job responding.

We should exit the year with almost a dozen Chinese brands, which are up a pretty nice amount. Some brands like Ford and stuff are up quite nicely as well. I think we're able to respond to the market, but like you said, it's our response. It's not necessarily coming from strength in the marketplace right now.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Federico Merendi with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, everybody. We've seen some turmoil in the subprime market, and today there were more news on that front. My question is, Bryan, could you give us an overview of the used market and how subprime can impact it? I understand that you're a higher credit quality, but what are the ramifications for Lithia and the credit portfolio?

Would love to, Federico. I think let me speak directly to the used car market as a whole and as a whole for Lithia and Driveway, not specifically to our DFC part of our organization, because their buying behaviors are different than the marketplace of more of a prime type of lender. What we're seeing in the marketplace, in the used car marketplace, is a lot of opportunity. This is from a Lithia standpoint in the value auto segment. The value auto segment is our most affordable cars. I think there's a general belief in the industry that value autos are driven off of low-quality credit. It's the exact inverse of what you think. Lower priced vehicles are only financed about 50% of the time, whereas a certified vehicle is typically financed 90% of the time.

The reason why is that lower priced vehicles, or what we call value auto, are typically quite scarce. They take money to recondition, so your price to book value is typically quite high, meaning it's difficult to finance. I got Chuck sitting next to me here shaking his head that those are really hard cars to finance because, you know, at a USD 15,000 car, if you've got three grand in disequity, you're now financing 20% over LTV without profitability and without down payment. You've got some big anomalies that remember that value autos are driven off a higher credit quality customer that typically saves their money or has the ability to finance at a fairly high LTV, loan-to-value. Really interesting dynamic.

This is what we teach our stores and why our value autos were up 22% on a unit basis in the quarter and a lot of our real strong tailwinds. Other market dynamics that are important to remember, we actually achieved 74% of our used car sourcing in the quarter was bought directly from consumers. That's trade-in, obviously, or buying them directly off the street from consumers or off-lease vehicles, so on and so on. That's the highest we've had all year, meaning that our teams are keeping pretty much every vehicle that they can make stop, steer, and go. You're selling a safe vehicle, but you're digging into the affordability landscape of these high-quality customers that ultimately you make pretty good money on because the vehicle is scarce. Some other little tidbits of information.

Our margins on used vehicles, and I believe this is more of a Lithia thing because we now have Driveway and GreenCars to be able to spread our wings and get more eyes in front of every type of car. This is a little better than what we've been in the past. We made 5.1%, 5.2% margins on both certified and core product. Okay. As a percentage, right? Our value auto this quarter was almost 16%. Okay. Remember, that's a lot lower priced car. Our actual annual return on our value autos is 130% cash on cash return. Okay. Massive improvement relative to certified and core that's under 50%. Nice improvements. We're pretty excited about what's happening in that space. To finish that thought, Federico, remember that the mix in the market nationally in North America, only 11% of used vehicles sold are one to three-year-old vehicles. Only 11%.

We spend very little of our time, and it only makes up about a fifth of our total sales selling those. We do it because we've got the off-lease returns and it's easy. People expect us to have those certified cars. Another quarter of the market comes from core autos or three to eight-year-old vehicles. We were about, you know, that makes up 26% of the market, which leaves over nine-year-old vehicles makes up 63% of the marketplace. That's a huge amount. That's a number that's bigger than new car SAR. Remember, that's where the big money is in the business. As a new car retailer, we're top of funnel to get the first waterfall effect of trade-in, and then the second waterfall effect, and ultimately that second and third trade-in, which is really that value auto that brings those nice returns that we're looking at. Hopefully, that helped, Federico.

Thank you, Bryan. It was super helpful. The second question I have is on the UK and the regulatory environment. I mean, we have seen that in the U.S., the EV regulatory environment has changed, and continental Europe is, it seems that they're moving into that direction. What do you think is going to happen in the UK over the next, I don't know, 18 months in the regard of EVs?

Yeah. Federico, let me just reiterate for everyone, the UK makes up a little over 10% of our revenue and makes up about 5%-6% of our net profit. We don't have a ton of impact coming from the UK, but what we're seeing is growth of the Chinese brands, but it's not coming from the electrified segment. It's coming from their introduction of ICE vehicles into the marketplace. I think when BYD, when MG, and those others first came into the market, they were electrified vehicles. Today, the reason why they're gaining market share is they're selling ICE vehicles and plug-ins. I was there four weeks ago and traveled the marketplace. We now have a Chery franchise there as well, looking at the product.

What I see in the electrified vehicles, at the price point that they're selling them for in the UK, they have zero ability to compete in North America. That may change, and they may have margin that they can still take out of the formula. I looked at a Chery vehicle that was AUD37,000, which is equivalent to almost USD 48,000-USD 50,000. It was an electrified vehicle that had about a 256,00-257,000 mile range and wouldn't hold a candle to any of the imports or the domestic cars at about USD 10,000 less. We're actually not as concerned, and it's great to be able to see what's happening in the UK. Remember this also, in China and the UK, they've plateaued in terms of electrified vehicle sales. They both sit at about 55% penetration rates, and that's the same as it was last year.

Really, the impact that's happening is coming from the ICE vehicles. I don't think that message gets out there. I do believe that the Labour Party in the United Kingdom is definitely into sustainable vehicles. At times, I wish we were a little bit more into that as well, but that's probably now five to seven years out in the United States. It is making it hard expense-wise in the United Kingdom, and I imagine they'll embellish that further with more quotas on electrified vehicles.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Ward with Citi Research. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks very much. Good morning, Bryan. How are you, sir?

Two things. On the U.S. EV sales, you mentioned there are about 4,000 units. I believe what I hear in the industry, the margin on those is very light. If you take that out, probably your overall new vehicle gross has been relatively flat, if I'm doing the math right, over the last couple of quarters. Is that correct?

I believe you're correct. Tina, do you have any insights there? I'm looking here real quickly. Yeah, I think that that's a fair assumption, Mike, that the BEVs are a little bit lighter and we're pushing those out the doors. Our manufacturers are asking us to help them meet their CAFE standards so they can ultimately continue to build other higher demand cars at the current time. You know.

Look at it, Bryan. It's a much higher repeat buyer too, right, the EVs? Like once people buy them, they love them.

I think you're right about that. The big thing is we're conquesting second and third-generation Tesla customers. Yeah, massively conquesting them. That's a positive thing, especially in the West where Tesla penetration is high. I would say our managers and store leaders are not as opinionated about whether they should sell an electric car, a plug-in hybrid, or an ICE engine. They seem pretty savvy on being able to convert customers. I think what a customer gets is a wonderful service and after-sales experience. The lifecycle of the ownership is a much different experience than maybe their first one or two experiences with the Teslas. To be fair, most manufacturers now have competitive product in price, in range, and in speed, which is something that a lot of consumers are looking at. The performance elements of the car are quite exciting.

We're really excited about the next generation of the Japanese and Korean imports that are hitting in the next couple of months to really be able to start to push those vehicles out to the consumers at really affordable levels.

Yeah, it sounds like the profitability aspect probably bottomed with the 3Q, with the rush to buy. That's probably a fair statement.

The second thing is, you kind of alluded to that you have about, it sounds like about USD 1 billion in acquisitions that could close by year-end. Is that what you're seeing? Have the multiples come back into check? It looks like, it sounds like you have a lot of opportunity there.

Yeah. You know us. I mean, we don't usually stretch on deals. We're fortunate that we've got great relationships with our manufacturer partners, which allows us to fish in every possible pond. I think in North America, we've been real fortunate to be able to find a few deals in the first three quarters of the year, but we've got some really nice deals coming in Q4 and are pretty excited that you can find them in this type of market, especially the quality of the deals. It's those long-term relationships that may take three to five years to get into that point where certain things start to drive the decisioning of those sellers.

We're fortunate that they chose us to be able to be their suitors and their successors at what we would look at as well within our 15% hurdle rates on ROI and three to six times EBITDA and so on and so on.

You're keeping that allocation plan tight. It's nice to see. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rajat Gupta with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. I just wanted to dig in a little bit more on the U.S. versus the UK performance. Anything more you can share in terms of, you know, how the GPUs were in the U.S. versus the UK? You know, how was the services growth? I appreciate the SG&A comments, but just any more clarity around the profit performance would be helpful. Then relatedly, any more color on the U.S. in terms of how you feel you're doing versus the marketplace now, particularly given like historically you've had some tough exposure in terms of your regional mix. Curious how that's doing versus the broader market. I have a quick follow-up. Thanks.

Yeah, sure, Rajat. I think maybe I'll spend most of the time on what we think of our North American performance and where we sit in the marketplace. It does look like we massively beat on used cars. The market is showing flat. We think we sit quite nicely at 11.8% revenue increase and almost 7% unit increase. Also, if you reflect back on the used-only retailers that have reported so far, remember they were down 6%. It speaks to the strength of our model and ability to respond to the marketplace in a little bit tougher conditions. We're pretty excited about that. If you look at our after-sales business, we were up over 9% in gross profit, which was a really, really nice number as well. That's driving a lot of the profitability in the United States, which is great.

Really, the new car market was where maybe a little bit of weakness lied, because ultimately our GPUs did come down. Even though we were up 5 or 6%, that also looks better than what the marketplace was. I'd say this. I think our team is responding. To be fair, last quarter, our results were kind of middle of the pack. This quarter, I believe that we're going to look nice in terms of top-line revenue growth. We'll see tomorrow and next week where we sit. No matter what, I believe that we've got lots of opportunity. I think our team believes there's lots of opportunity, and they're really driving towards that two-to-one ratio. In terms of the UK, the UK's profitability was only down 2.4% year over year. It wasn't that much, and it didn't affect things that much in terms of our overall numbers.

Most of the USD 300 in GPU was truly North America, which is the sound bite. We have read some third-party information. It appears that the GPUs as a whole were down almost 16% on new vehicles for the nation. If that's true, we probably beat by 5-7% in terms of GPUs. Obviously, on the top-line side on new unit volume, we beat on a pretty good amount there as well. All in all, I can tell you this.

My team's looking forward to the challenge, and I think being back in operations and getting to know a lot of our operational middle leaders and top leaders a little bit better, we've got great people that understand the opportunity and know it's game on and are looking for how to show that Lithia is the best operator in the segment, and most importantly, how to leverage the ecosystem and the massive amounts of acquisitions that we've added over the last five years to really differentiate ourselves as operators.

Got it. That's helpful color. I just want to follow up on Mike's question around this M&A, just a little more finer point on that if possible. You've retraced your USD 2 billion target for the year, but you also noted you're very return-focused. I'm curious, is that a hard target that you want to meet here in the fourth quarter? If not, would we expect that excess cash flow to go into buybacks? I'm just curious, is that something you're forcefully working towards to achieve in the fourth quarter? Thanks.

Yeah. I think the return thresholds at any given time are balanced, but that is a hard number. We don't flex. We haven't had to flex even over the last three or four years where earnings were elevated and as such prices were elevated. We've always bought off normalized earnings. We have not put in the value creation that comes from the ecosystems in our return metrics still, which gives us another 50% of lift when we think about where we stand there. You know there's good opportunity out there. You just got to be able to fish in a bigger pond to find the opportunities that are great. I think one thing that I know about how we think about our network is we do look at density. We are starting to gain market share and expand loyalty.

At about 188 miles from over 95% of the population in the U.S., we sit in a nice place to be able to grow and push market share. I think our team spent the last three or four years getting to understand the benefits of what driveway.com can do, what the MyDriveway owner portal can do, and how Driveway Finance Corporation can help drive sales while still being extremely controlled in what we buy in Driveway Finance Corporation to be able to get there. We're pretty pleased. You saw that we bought, what, 5.1% of our shares back in one quarter. The implications of that, we buy the whole company back in five years. That's 20 quarters. I don't believe that can happen.

If the world can't see what we built and can't see that we know what we're doing and that we had the courage and the boldness to be able to redesign our organization for a higher profit model that has lower costs, and can't see that the synergies that are coming from Driveway Finance Corporation and Driveway and fleet management businesses and Pinewood AI experiences and partnerships, I'm not sure what they're looking at, but this management team and our board believe that we have a rocket launching into space. If people don't get it, we'll continue to buy our shares back.

Understood. Thanks for all the color. Good luck.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Glenn Chin with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Hi. Good morning, folks. Can we just drill down a little more into your used performance? As you pointed out, very promising, 6.3% same-store unit growth. That's the best number you've put up in almost four years. Can you just tell us what drove that, Bryan? Was it a change in focus, a change in process? It doesn't sound like it was a change in market.

Adam did a nice job kicking off used car focus. To be fair, that's my love. Everyone's getting the message, and it's very clear that we know what we're doing. It's a matter of keeping those. Remember this, Glenn, we bought USD 25 billion in revenue with not a lot of messaging to the stores over that first three or four years of ownership that we keep every car. We bring people into our ecosystem through affordability, and then they eventually step up to buy better or newer cars, and then eventually buy new cars. That is our model. I think I'm proud of that USD 25 billion that joined us to be able to clear their mind that they can actually sell these cars in a respectful way.

It's a higher quality car than Joe's garage down the street that doesn't have warranties on their cars, may not have a car that actually stops, steers, and goes for some period of time. You know we've got the integrity and the support to be able to do that. We've got digital channels that are putting more eyes on that cars to make that, you know, that 16% profit margin on those value auto cars. We're going to continue to push, though, in all three of the buckets. I know that our team can do it, and it's truly a focus on being able to walk, chew gum, and then eventually run at the same time. I think our team's in the walk stage and will continue to get to jog and run on used cars. It's the biggest area that we built the ecosystem for.

Even our sustainable vehicles and used cars are looking like a quite nice number at almost 20% of our sales were electrified in used cars as well.

You've emphasized that messaging to me the last several quarters that it was going to be a point of focus for you and the team. Was last quarter the inflection point, meaning, should we expect positive comps from here on out? Is that a safe assumption?

Absolutely. Okay. If you remember, pre-COVID, Glenn, pre-COVID, the company basically for eight years had high single-digit, low double-digit increases in used cars quarter over quarter. I don't remember a quarter that we were ever below 7.5% or 8%. The market is there. Remember, we have less than 2% of the used car market. We are top of funnel. We built our ecosystem to be able to grow used cars how? By finding the best cars, reconditioning them closest to the consumer, meaning I don't have the fees to transport cars because I have 350 reconditioning locations in North America. On top of that, 75% of our cars, or three-quarters of our cars, are coming directly from consumers, so we don't have to pay auction fees. It's about a USD 1,000 advantage over used car retailers. Important thing to remember, and we're just getting started.

Yep. To your point, I mean, I'm looking at my model here. You have positive comps every quarter prior to COVID. Apologize for the noise. Back to as far as my model goes, from 2012 through 2020, you had positive comps every quarter.

Since I've got everyone on the call, in October, we're trending up 10% in unit sales. We've got tough comps, and we had tough comps last quarter because we had all the carryover units from CDK that gave us a bigger number last year in used car sales. We're just getting started.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Christopher James Bottiglieri with BNP Paribas. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Two quick ones for me. The self-sourcing was 74% this quarter, the highest of the year. Can you just remind us what that looked like pre-COVID?

Actually, pre-COVID, we were a low 70% percentile. The area that grew is what we procured directly private party, meaning what we buy directly from a consumer. They don't actually trade in the car and buy a car from us. That was 3% or 4%, if I remember, pre-COVID. That's pushing 8%-10% in most quarters now. A lot of that is driven off of the Driveway ability to be able to procure a couple thousand cars a month. That Driveway procurement is really retraining a lot of our store leaders that cars are worth more than what they think. When they pay a little bit more on a trade-in, somehow they sell them for a little bit more.

Remember, our thesis on our design elements 10 years ago is that we buy cars for about USD 1,200 to USD 1,500 less than what the used-only retailers, primarily driven off what I just spoke about of reconditioning closer to the customers and closer to what cars sell, not having auction fees and having more of our cars come off trade-in. That gives us a distinct advantage. Unfortunately, we pass it all through to the consumer, and we sell cars for about USD 1,000-USD 1,500 less than what Carvana and CarMax sell them for. That's purely because we believe they've got more eyes on cars, and it's a pretty nice transparent selling process that they have, much like what we have in Driveway.

Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, that's what I show too, that USD 1,000-USD 1,500 gap in my price surveys. No one ever believes me. Anyway, my follow-up question would be, can you just elaborate more on the net losses as a percentage of managed receivables this quarter? Also, the allowance for the end of the quarter as a percentage of ending receivables. Just want to get a sense.

Your last quarter, you had a really good quarter last quarter. The allowance didn't really move much. Just wondering if that's conservatism or just you're a little bit spooked by maybe some of the fringe parts of the subprime market. You guys don't really play there, but just kind of curious how you think about that allowance going forward.

Yeah, Chris, this is Chuck. I would say you know there's a lot of noise in the marketplace, but we're very happy with how our portfolio is performing. Just a couple of quick data points. Our first payment defaults, which is the biggest indicator of fraud and highly likely fraud, is actually down year over year. Our delinquency rates are down year over year on a sequential basis. Our default rates, which leads to the provision that you're talking about, are also at or below at each credit segment year over year after we adjust for seasonal adjustments. This really speaks to the power of our ecosystem of being top of funnel, Chris, and that this credit discipline, while still increasing our originations by 33% over last year, that's pretty much key to DFC's ability to drive and hit our long-term goals of USD 500 million of pre-tax profit.

As it relates back to the provision, we're very comfortable that keeping that at where we've got it should be more than enough to cover what our losses are on a go-forward basis. Thanks for your question, Chris.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Francis Lick with Stevens Inc. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, Bryan. Congrats on a great quarter and the rest of the team. Bryan, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind just drilling down a little more on the new GPUs as we go forward. I think we're going to be lapping a tougher Q4 than last year with the election bump. I think the OEMs had some dealer incentives. As we get into next year, there really hasn't even been any talk on this call of tariffs, which is amazing in and of itself. I'm just curious how you see the outlook for new GPUs as we go through Q4 and 2026.

I think that's a good insight, Jeff, that Q4 of last year did have some nice numbers in it. To be fair, when we think about how we grow our business, it's taken us a year or so to get back to performance through people. Our store leaders out there are making good people decisions, and a lot of those were made in the summer and are now taking hold. What happens in the quarter we'll have to see. I would say this: when we look at tariffs and the impact of those tariffs on GPUs, I would say it's offset more by the competitive environment that manufacturers are all dealing with new entrants. They're dealing with new product lines. It feels like incentives are starting to creep, even though they only show up slightly year over year. We feel like there's a turn there.

I just got from one of the Korean manufacturers this morning that dropped their APR on their two highest moving products down to 0% again, on top of the big rebates that they already have on the table. I'm feeling like that could help offset some of the comparative numbers that came from the election period last year. We're feeling pretty good. I would also say that the tariffs, though there are some pretty big implications and it does look like some of those may stick, I think the biggest sound bite as to whether we're at 50% or 150% tariffs on China, the North American market is not going to behave like Europe or the rest of the world.

Lithia Motors (LAD) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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