Earnings Labs

LKQ Corporation (LKQ)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 30, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the LKQ Corporation First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Joe Boutross, Director of Investor Relations for LKQ Corporation. Thank you, Mr. Boutross, you may begin.

Joseph P. Boutross

Analyst

Thanks, Kevin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. This morning, we released our first quarter 2015 financial results. In the room with me today are Rob Wagman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Nick Zarcone, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and John Quinn, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of our European operations. In addition to the telephone access for today's call, we are providing an audiocast via the LKQ website. A replay of the audiocast and conference call will be available shortly after the conclusion of this call. I would like to remind everyone that the statements made in this call that are not historical in nature are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include statements regarding our expectations, beliefs, hopes, intentions or strategies. Forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainties, some of which are not currently known to us. Actual events or results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances arising after the date on which it was made except as required by law. Please refer to our Form 10-K and other subsequent documents filed with the SEC and the press release we issued this morning for more information on potential risk. Also, note that guidance for 2015 is based on current conditions, including acquisitions completed through March 31, 2015, and excludes any impact of restructuring and acquisition-related expenses, gains or losses related to acquisitions or divestitures, including changes in the fair value of contingent consideration liabilities, loss on debt extinguishment and capital spending related to future business acquisitions. Hopefully everyone has had a chance to look at our 8-K, which we filed with the SEC earlier today. As normal, we are planning to file our 10-Q in the next few days. And with that, I'm happy to turn the call over to Mr. Rob Wagman.

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Robert W

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on the call today. In Q1, revenue reached a new quarterly high of $1.77 billion, an increase of 9.1% as compared to $1.63 billion in the first quarter of 2014. Net income for the first quarter of 2015 was $107.1 million, an increase of 2.3%, as compared to $104.7 million for the same period of 2014. Diluted earnings per share of $0.35 for the first quarter ended March 31, 2015, increased 2.9% from $0.34 for the first quarter of 2014. Please note that adjusted diluted earnings per share for the first quarter of 2015 would have been $0.36 compared to $0.35 for the first quarter of 2014 after adjusting for net losses resulting from restructuring and acquisition-related expenses, loss on debt extinguishment in 2014 and the change in fair value of contingent consideration liabilities. Organic revenue growth for parts and services was 7.5% for the quarter, following an extremely tough comp from last year. I am particularly pleased with the sequential improvement in the EBITDA margin of our wholesale European segment, which increased 130 basis points in the quarter. Nick will provide more color around margins momentarily. Now moving on to operations. During the first quarter, we purchased nearly 70,000 vehicles for dismantling by our wholesale operations, which is a 3.1% decrease compared to Q1 2014. I want to put some context around the drop in our dismantling procurement. During our third quarter 2014 earnings call, I indicated that we adjusted our procurement strategy for our salvage inventory by focusing on buying a better quality car that would part-out for additional revenue. The intent of this strategy was to drive incremental revenue and gross margin dollars. Though we are still working through the selling cycle, I am encouraged with…

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Robert W

Thanks, Rob. Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. I'll give a little color on the overall company results. In a moment, Nick will address the segment details, the balance sheet and the guidance. Q1 2015 saw LKQ reach a number of significant milestones. It was our first quarter with revenue reaching an annualized run rate over $7 billion with a Q1 revenue annualizing of $7.1 billion. And this is also the first time we exceeded $210 million of EBITDA in a quarter. These accomplishments were completed even in the face of a severe drop of scrap steel prices. Getting to the specifics in the quarter, beginning with revenue, our Q1 2015 revenue were $1,774,000,000, was an increase of $148 million compared to Q1 last year, or an increase of 9.1%. For Q1, our total organic revenue growth was 5.1% and we delivered an additional growth of 7.5% from acquisitions with foreign exchange negatively impacting total revenue by 3.4%. Rob mentioned that the Q1 2015 organic growth of Parts and Services was 7.5%. We completed 2 small acquisitions in Q1 2015, which were and are expected to be immaterial to revenue. Total change in other revenue, which is where we recorded our scrap commodity sales was negative 17.4%. That was mainly due to the negative organic growth of 17.7% with a small acquisition growth in foreign exchange almost offsetting each other. As Rob mentioned, we saw purchases of cars down in the quarter year-over-year. In the recycling line of business, we've been targeting a better quality car, whereas in the self-service line of business, we adjusted our buying to account for the difficult scrap environment, a process we started in Q4 2014. Some of that volume decrease will impact Q2 when we scrap those cars. The decrease in volume…

Dominick P. Zarcone

Analyst · Sam Darkatsh with Raymond James

Thanks, John, and good morning to everyone on the call. I'm delighted to be part of the LKQ leadership team and I look forward to sharing our financial results with you for many quarters to come. While John has provided an overview of our consolidated results, I'd like to take a few minutes to address our 3 segments: North America, Europe, and Specialty products, particularly as it relates to some of the margin dynamics. North American parts and services revenue during the first quarter grew 5.1% compared to last year, most of which represented organic growth. You may recall that Q1 of 2014 was a particularly harsh winter, which resulted in our then-strongest ever quarter. So we knew it was going to be a tough comparison and we are very pleased with these results. In Europe, revenue was up 16% on a year-over-year basis with organic growth of 14% and acquisition growth of 12.7% being modified by the 10.7% negative impact in the movement in FX rates. To put that latter point into perspective, converting the Q1 2015 local currency results, including the acquired revenue at the lower exchange rates, reduced European revenue by approximately $60 million compared to where revenue would have been had the FX rates remained constant at 2014 levels. And as mentioned, revenue for the Specialty segment grew 36%, combining 6% organic growth and 31% acquisition growth, the latter being the result of the Stag Parkway acquisition that was completed in Q4 of 2014. So organic growth from parts and services was 7.5% on a global basis, which is consistent with the guidance provided during our last call. And as mentioned by John, the significant drop in scrap prices led to a 17% decline in other revenue, bringing total organic growth down to 5.1%. When thinking…

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Robert W

Thanks, Nick. To summarize, we are quite pleased with our first quarter 2015 results. And as always, we could not do it without the dedication of our 29,000-plus employees. LKQ was founded in 1998 with a goal of forming the largest nationwide provider of recycled OEM automotive products. We achieved that objective yet have more runway to expand in that particular line of business across our existing North American network and into new geographies. With the acquisition of Keystone Automotive Industries in 2007 and ECP in 2011, we diversified our company into different markets, products and geographies with the intent of expanding the use of all alternative parts globally, both in the professional mechanical and collision repair. Though on the surface some segments and geographies look different, our strategies remain the same: identifying niche markets ripe for consolidation that offer combined synergies and network leverage; seek to acquire the #1 or #2 player with outstanding management in each segment; focus on sound return metrics and strive for the highest fill rates in our operating segments. With this strategy, we continue to believe that LKQ is a unique company, not just because of the strength of our business model and operating segments, but also because of the consistent growth we are able to deliver both organically and from acquisitions. Over the last 5 years, we have averaged over 8% organic growth for parts and services and nearly 19% from acquisitions. This performance was achieved in a low-growth environment for both our economy and for a lot of the companies in our industry. This strategy, coupled with the dynamics of increased miles driven, lower fuel prices and a strong sell rate, creates ongoing opportunities to grow our company across all of our operating segments and add long-term value for our stockholders. Devon, we are now prepared to open the call for Q&A.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Craig Kennison with Robert W. Baird. Craig R. Kennison - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, Research Division: First question just has to do with the start of the second quarter. If you could give us any perspective on the pace of revenue in the second quarter and any cost we should be aware of just so that we set the second quarter expectation correctly.

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Robert W

Craig, this is Rob. We've been talking to some of our bigger customers in North America. We didn't have a backlog coming out of Q1 that we had last year, but business has been steady, so we're pretty much where we thought we should be for April thus far. In Europe, same story there, pretty much where we expected to be. Revenue was looking to plan over in Europe as well.

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Robert W

And Craig, I think Nick noted that we're expecting some continuing impact from scrap because the cars we're selling today are ones we bought maybe earlier in Q1. Craig R. Kennison - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, Research Division: Right, that helps. That helps, John. And then maybe my second question for you, John, since we may not get the opportunity to talk you as frequently on these calls. Just maybe give us a sense for your priorities in Europe. I know it's still early, so you're still forming your plan, but what are your priorities there? And how should we look to track that progress?

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Robert W

Sure. So I spent the better part of last month over there and I guess the way I view it is we have 2 really good businesses for the Netherlands and the U.K. But within each country, I think there are still a lot of work to do to finish some of the integration or the acquisitions we have, particularly in respect to the Netherlands. First thing is don't do any harm but make sure that we can continue to integrate those acquisitions within the countries. And there are some additional deals we need to do to continue to fill out the footprint there. In the Netherlands, we are at about 72 locations. We think we can probably end up somewhere in the 80 to 85 by the time we're done and we hope that platform builds over the end of the year. And then, when you move a little bit higher and you say, what else can we do? There's more integration to be done between the 2 countries. We did some preliminary integration on procurement in the last couple of years. I think we can do a lot more on that front. And that probably starts with getting the common catalog. There was a project underway to get a common catalog among the countries. And then using that knowledge to leverage the procurement across the group. And there are also some opportunities to probably integrate the procurement a little bit stronger between North America and Europe, particularly on some of the collision businesses where there's a heavy overlap in suppliers. And then, the third platform in the car integration is probably on the revenue opportunities, with particular [indiscernible] like e-commerce, where both countries have a nascent e-commerce business and we can lever the distribution network that we have to try to go through that. And then if you take those 1 step higher, there's obviously some other opportunities to do additional product lines, like, for example, we're now distributing paint or collision business in the Netherlands. So we look for additional opportunities to do those kinds of things, probably once we get the integration done. And then other geographies so that's [indiscernible] countries they currently exist, and then look for opportunities in other countries. So I think we'll be pretty busy.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of John Lawrence with Stephens.

John Russell Lawrence - Stephens Inc., Research Division

Analyst · John Lawrence with Stephens

Rob, would you go through a simple example? I mean, for years and years we've talked about this core competency of the acquisition procurement process. So with that algorithm now, can you just sort of walk us through what that would look like when a car comes into that -- to the handheld or whatever, what exactly changes as far as just the sort of the remedial process of looking at those cars to get that higher quality?

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · John Lawrence with Stephens

Yes, really, nothing's changed, John, at all. The handheld device calculates demand, calculates the probability of sale. It's interesting, our average cost has come down from Q4 to Q1, up 4%. So we are buying a better car for less money. So we're very pleased with that trend. But in essence, whether you're buying a $300 car or a $2,000 car, the handheld does the exact same data lookup just basing on demand and probability of sale. And so nothing really has changed in that respect. In fact, it just allows our reps to get a higher dollar for that part as it's just a higher price part. We are buying, on average, about 1/2 a year younger to 1 year younger vehicle this time now as opposed to last year. So really nothing has changed at all.

John S. Quinn

Analyst · John Lawrence with Stephens

John, it's John Quinn speaking. I guess one thing you can think about is, if you got somewhere that is, for example, space constrained, the throughput whether you're dismantling a $2,000 car or a $3,000 car, it takes up the same amount of geography and roughly the same amount of labor and warehousing space. So the thinking is that if you can get a better car, you can improve your return on capital as well on those things. We don't have to buy additional land to grow the business. We've always said one way to grow this business is to buy additional cars. You provide 5% more cars, your revenues should go up about 5%. If you also buy a 5% better car, your revenue should go up 5% on basically the same footprint. And so part of this is just the strategy to try to move up market and particularly in a couple yards that are potentially space-constrained where we wouldn't -- want to avoid buying extra land.

John Russell Lawrence - Stephens Inc., Research Division

Analyst · John Lawrence with Stephens

Well, we're 40 minutes into the call, so I got to ask about State Farm, I guess.

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · John Lawrence with Stephens

Sure, glad to answer that. Update on the bumpers, Q1 was a 19.5% increase year-over-year. So still getting -- and that's up a strong comp, John. Other than that, no new news out of Bloomington, unfortunately. But we continue to really raise the number on the products they are writing in the aftermarket, in the bumpers. So we keep reminding them and we'll continue to do so.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Sam Darkatsh with Raymond James. Sam Darkatsh - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Two questions, if I could. The first one has to do with your sequential operating expenses Q1 over Q4. I noticed that there was very nice leverage sequentially. I also noticed that there wasn't a whole lot of acquisitions this quarter, which gives us a little bit of a unique look into potentially what your organic leverage might look like with the legacy business. Can you help us, I'm not sure, Nick, if this for you or for John, but can you help us in terms of sequentially, how much of that leverage came from the absence of some one-off costs that may have occurred in 4Q? For example, some of the European branches, how much of that was seasonal? And how much of that might have been organic leverage, if you could? Specifically around S&W [ph] expenses, distribution expenses and SG&A expenses.

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Sam Darkatsh with Raymond James

I think it's probably best to talk about the different segments because there's certainly a unique story in each one, right? So you're right, in North America we didn't -- we haven't done a lot of acquisitions in the quarter. There wasn't a lot of acquisition activity going, coming out of Q4, frankly, either in North America. So a lot of that was, I would say, sort of a seasonal leverage and you can just see that through the segment data. On the Specialty segment, that is a seasonal business both on -- with respect to that business and with respect to the European business. I'd just remind people that Q4 tends to be a bit softer in those 2 businesses. Historically, if you look at the company, Q1 was our strongest and Q4 was our second strongest when we were basically a collision-focused business. But as we've been diversifying into more into some of these hard parts [ph] Specialty products, Q1 tends to be the strongest quarter. And on those 2 segments, Q4 is a lot lighter. So you didn't see -- on the Specialty segment, we got the benefit of some of the integration of Stag Parkway. Stag Parkway didn't contribute very much at all in Q4 last year, probably because of the seasonal thing and partly because we haven't really executed on some of the synergies, which I think Nick spoke to the fact that they did a good job getting a lot of those synergies captured already. So some of that is, you're right, integration improvement coming through. And then on the European business, I don't have any specifics for you, Sam, but we did talk about the fact that we were carrying some additional cost associated with the branch openings. There's also a little bit of a profit deferral associated with those acquisitions that we do in the Netherlands. So we did see operating leverage with respect to the businesses there, for sure. And again, some of that's the seasonality and some of it is just better -- getting the revenue, I would say, from those acquisitions and being able to recognize more of the profit with respect to the Sator acquisition.

Dominick P. Zarcone

Analyst · Sam Darkatsh with Raymond James

And Sam, this is Nick. As Rob indicated, and this particularly goes to distribution cost, we did gain a little bit of benefit on fuel, as fuel prices came down pretty substantially from Q4 and that helped a bit. We helped thousands of trucks that travel millions of miles across the roads and highways around the globe and we consume a fair amount of fuel. So that helped a little bit. Sam Darkatsh - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Two more quick questions, if I could, and I think you mentioned this in the prepared remarks and I missed it I apologize. What was the impacts specifically of the Sator move to 2-step on overall gross margins? And I have 1 final quick follow-up as well.

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Sam Darkatsh with Raymond James

On a year-over-year basis? Sam Darkatsh - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Sure.

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Sam Darkatsh with Raymond James

Let's take a look at that while you go on and ask your second question. Sam Darkatsh - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Sure, sure. The last question, I noticed a minority interest was up pretty nicely on a percentage basis, which suggests that your Australian JV is doing quite well. Anything there that is learnings or something translatable that you're seeing down there, Rob, that you might be able to transfer over to your European operations as you try and grow that alternative business?

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Sam Darkatsh with Raymond James

Well, one thing that is nice, Sam, is that we're obviously working directly with the insurance company, so that owns a large body shop chain down there. So we're taking the parts that we're procuring directly from them and putting them right into their repair stream. So yes, we think there could be actually some move over. As you know, we entered the Swedish market last quarter and we're doing something very similar in the Swedish market there actually by procuring directly from the insurance company. So we do think there is something to be done there. The reason why we don't think it's really applicable here in the U.S. because the country is so large. I mean, Australia is a unique market in that 90% of the population live in 4 cities and we have [indiscernible] in 3 of those 4 cities. Perth, on the western side of the country, we haven't focus on yet. But yes, we do think there is something we could take from the U.S. or from the Australian market into the European market, which we're kind of doing in Sweden right now.

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Sam Darkatsh with Raymond James

And Sam, with respect to the impact of the acquisitions, we did see a little bit of improvement in the margin in the Netherlands, but because the Netherlands is relatively small compared to the total company, it wasn't really enough to drive the overall company margins.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Nate Brochmann with William Blair. Nathan Brochmann - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: I appreciate all that color. A couple of things. One, just focusing on kind of the North American organic growth rate. Obviously, we were up against a tough comp. You probably had some weather disruption in certain areas in February with cities shutting down, which ends up being a net negative for you guys. And my gut tells me that there's obviously with buying a few -- fewer cars, obviously that's probably impacted the portion of the self-service that goes into the parts and service number for North America. How should we think about that kind of going forward? Historically, you've always given a range of about 5% to 7% organic growth for North America. We have some favorable trends going on with miles driven and more parts for repair, and like you say, a little bit better quality part. How should we think about the growth rate there for kind of the next couple of quarters or the remainder of the year?

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Nate Brochmann with William Blair

Nate, we get a report from CCC, the leading estimating company here in the United States. We just had a sit down with them this week. It's interesting, they showed stats by states. And New England, as you rightly mentioned, was shut down for those 3 blizzards they had. So it was very slow in New England. It was pretty interesting from Pennsylvania West to the Minnesota-Iowa market, claims were actually down. So they -- we had very little snow in Chicago as you know. So we don't have a backlog coming out of Q1. However, as you mentioned, we're up against a tough comp. We do feel good because of those trends you're talking about, the newer car part, definitely is working in our favor. One thing you didn't mention was the amount of certified parts. Certified parts increased 18% year-over-year, which is good for obviously for the aftermarket. Our backlog is very healthy. Very strong backlog at all of our facilities. Miles driven are increasing. Gas prices, although they've come up a little bit, are still substantially down year-over-year. And the man time [ph] is finally stable. So yes, we feel good about the next couple of quarters once that all fleshes out. And certainly, when these new cars, these 16 million and 17 million SAAR rates start getting 2 and 3 years out, we feel pretty good that there's going to be a really healthy amount of cars coming to the sweet spot. So pretty bullish on the North American growth and I feel confident that the 5 to 7 is still going to hold. Nathan Brochmann - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Okay, great. And John, kind of a question along the other one in terms of all the opportunities over in Europe. And it sounds like, just based on some of the cost pressures that we had temporarily in the fourth quarter and some of things that happened, as those go away, I think it sounds like that, that margin improvement over there is fairly sustainable and probably even has upside as you implement some of those 4 things that you spoke about. Do you have any rough time line on how long you think it will take to get to each of those 4 opportunities or any initial viewpoint on how fast that kind of moves in terms of making that integration kind of seeing at 100% versus where we might be at, give or take, I don't know, 70% today?

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Nate Brochmann with William Blair

Yes. We don't have a good sense here. We just kicked off the project on sort of getting the common catalog. And I think the procurement though, we're very quick to bringing that team together, and so that will be relatively quick. I do think over time, what we'd like to get is the sustainable double-digit EBITDA margins over there. I'd be a bit like an economist to give you number but not a date, but I don't think it's years and but it's probably some time in 2016, 2017 before we get there on a sustainable basis. Nathan Brochmann - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Okay. And then just one quick final question regarding the gross margin improvement in North America, which kind of helped by not buying as many cars because of the scrap impact. Should that be -- I mean, I know that there's a net-net negative impact in the second quarter, but should we continue to see kind of those margins trend up temporarily as we kind of do some of these better pricing initiatives, et cetera? Or it will be impacted buying the better quality parts, eventually kind of offset that and maybe it's kind of a neutral going forward kind of look?

Dominick P. Zarcone

Analyst · Nate Brochmann with William Blair

Nate, this is Nick. The gross margins in the first quarter on a comparative basis to last year were actually down, just that and that really reflected the impact of the scrap and the pressure it weighed on with the -- the positive impact of increased prices on the aftermarket not being able to fully cover the impact of scrap. We do not see any major shifts in our margin structure in North America. Obviously, that assumes that scrap prices stay about where they are and it assumes that we still get the pull-through purchasing the higher-quality car that Rob and John talked about a little bit earlier in the call, because that gives us the ability to get more parts dollars off those vehicles. But we are not anticipating any major shifts in the margin structure.

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Nate Brochmann with William Blair

I was just going to add to what Nick said about scrap. Scrap last week was roughly about $135 a ton, so it at least stabilized from where it was in February. But just to put in perspective, it's 37% down year-over-year and 25% sequentially. So scrap will be a little bit of a headwind, still. Nathan Brochmann - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: But just then kind of put that into conclusion at least going sequentially, we should expect, given some of the puts and the takes, to kind of balance out and give or take, pretty flat gross margins for the rest of the year, again, assuming scrap stays where it's at?

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Nate Brochmann with William Blair

Yes, there's a little bit of seasonality on the gross margin in the Specialty business.

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Nate Brochmann with William Blair

In Q4.

Dominick P. Zarcone

Analyst · Nate Brochmann with William Blair

Right.

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Nate Brochmann with William Blair

Right.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research.

Gary F. Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

Rob, you mentioned that you're paying about 4% less for car. Is that really a function of the fact that scrap has come down? Is that what is making the car purchases a little bit better for you?

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

I think that's certainly a portion of it, Gary. I also think that there's such a large export that the auctions export, and I think that the dollar has worked in our favor. So I think that may also be impacting it. So I think it's a combination of the strong dollar and scrap coming down.

Gary F. Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

Okay. And then in terms of -- I just want to clear something up with myself, in terms of Sator, when you're going from a 3- to a 2-step distribution model, is the intent to have all of Sator's business go to that 3- to 2-step model?

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

No. It'll continue to have 3-step distribution models. Keep in mind, we're only talking about the Netherlands when we're talking about converting this right now. The Belgian operation is still [indistinguishable] and so is France.

Gary F. Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

Okay, so it's only the Netherlands, okay.

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

Well, even within the Netherlands we'll continue to have partners where -- that are distributing as well.

Gary F. Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

And I know you had mentioned something about collision parts on the continent, and I know you've purchased something, I think, in Sweden or something like that?

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

Correct.

Gary F. Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

But in terms of the bigger part of the continent, France, Germany, all that, when do you think you'll start getting some of that collision parts business out there?

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

Again, if you -- let me backup. First of all, France has unusual rules that it's against the law to put an aftermarket product on a French-made car. Until that law gets changed, probably not be huge business there, although people do distribute through companies like ourselves OE parts. The OEs use non-dealers to distribute parts there. So there is an opportunity on that front. We generally need the last mile, right? We need to be able to get the parts to the customer. At the moment, we don't have the network to do that anywhere in a particular country, as you described, Germany, France, even the Netherlands, we still not have the product -- the facility built out and the infrastructure built out. So I think the initial focus really is just to get the Netherlands integrations. And if we can find an acquisition or a couple of smaller companies that distribute aftermarket product and there's some salvage companies, if we could find one of those that was attractive and want to sell at a reasonable price, then we would probably buy that and use that as a footprint. Most of our distribution right now is to the mechanical repair shop on the continent. We have a very little interaction with collision body shops. Whereas in the U.K., we've developed very strong relationships with all of the body shops, particularly through our paint acquisitions there. So I guess what I'm telling you, Gary, is it's probably not going to be this year, but it's not going to be multiple years either.

Gary F. Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

Okay. Thanks for clearing that up. And then just lastly, on the tax rate, John. I think the last call, you had said that the tax rate would be high in the first couple of quarters, then transition down to about 34% as you start getting a better balance of profits coming from lower tax rate jurisdictions is that about where you thinking right now that by the third and fourth quarter, we would be at a 34% tax rate?

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research

No. Generally we try to do is estimate the full year tax rate and then adjust for any discrete items. So there's about a $700,000 discrete item that was -- if you look at the year-over-year increase on the tax rate, about 1/2 of that was a discrete item, that will go away in Q2. And we would anticipate using that same rate, for the rest of the year. So the rate going forward, to use a little bit over 35% is probably about right.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jason Rodgers [ph] with Great Lakes Review [ph].

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

Nice to see the continued double-digit organic growth and the 12 months and older ECP branches, and I was wondering how sustainable you think that is?

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Robert W

It takes almost 4 years for branch -- 3 to 4 years for branch to reach full maturity. So if you look at the cadence of the branches that we've opened the last couple of years -- branches that were opened, for example, in 2013 are still maturing and they're still growing. So some of that growth what you're seeing is maturing on the branches, and then also, the much older branches continue to take market share. So yes, I don't want to get into specifics and giving sort of multi-year guidance here, but we do believe we have a number of years of additional growth just as those branches, as Nick mentioned the 40-odd branches we opened last year, are going to continue to mature over the next couple of years.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

Okay. And then looking at the acquisitions that you made, the 2 distributors and the Nebraska business, how much in total revenue do you expect that to contribute on an annual basis?

John S. Quinn

Analyst · Robert W

It's less than $5 million, it's very small.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

Alright. And finally the online purchasing through CCC, about what amount in revenue does that make up currently?

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Robert W

We've been tracking it as a percentage of increase because it's still off of a small base. But revenue, Jason, was up 75% year-over-year, and purchase orders were up 70% year-over-year. It's roughly annualizing at about $22 million a year right now.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately we have exceeded our allotted time for questions. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.

Robert L. Wagman

Analyst · Robert W

Thank you, everyone, for your time this morning. We look forward to speaking to you in July, we report our second quarter 2015 results. Have a great day.