Earnings Labs

LKQ Corporation (LKQ)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 25, 2016

$30.74

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the LKQ Corporation Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2015 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Joe Boutross, Investor Relations for LKQ Corporation. Thank you, Mr. Boutross. You may begin.

Joseph P. Boutross - Director, Investor Relations

Management

Thanks, Devon. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to LKQ's fourth quarter and full year 2015 earnings conference call. With us today are Rob Wagman and Nick Zarcone. Please refer to the LKQ website at lkqcorp.com for our earnings release issued this morning, as well as the accompanying slide presentation for this call. Now let me quickly cover our Safe Harbor. Some of the statements that we make today may be considered forward-looking. These include statements regarding our expectations, beliefs, hopes, intentions or strategies. 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 statements. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in our Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed with the SEC. During this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release and slide presentation. And with that, I'm happy to turn the call over to our CEO, Rob Wagman. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Joe. Good morning and thank you for joining us on the call today. We are again delighted with our quarterly and full year results, and before I provide an update on our operations, let me briefly highlight a few key financial metrics from the fourth quarter and for the full year 2015. Turning to slide three, Q4 revenue reached $1.75 billion, an increase of 3.8% as compared to $1.68 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014. Excluding the impact to our Other Revenue category, revenue grew 8% for the quarter. Net income for the fourth quarter of 2015 was $95.1 million, an increase of 18.1% as compared to $80.5…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Tony Cristello with BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question. Anthony F. Cristello - BB&T Capital Markets: Hey, thank you, good morning. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Tony. Anthony F. Cristello - BB&T Capital Markets: The first question I had stems from the EBITDA and the margin. In the U.S. it's holding steady, some of the margins that you talked about today were actually better than would have expected. And I'm just wondering how that margin improvement will translate in Europe, and is this a situation where you will be able to close the gap, knowing that they're two totally different businesses? But yet there are some efficiencies that have yet to been extracted? Dominick P. Zarcone - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Tony, this is Nick. Good morning. Anthony F. Cristello - BB&T Capital Markets: Good morning. Dominick P. Zarcone - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Obviously, the North American margins are a little bit of a tale of two cities, right? With the increase in EBITDA margins and the wholesale business I mentioned on the call, about 70 basis points, against a drop in the self-service margins. The margins in Europe hit double digits for the year. There are a lot of folks who 12 months ago were wondering how many years it was going to take us to get to double-digit margins in Europe, and we're at 10.1% for the year, so we are very proud of that. You know, we do think that ultimately the margins in Europe will have the ability to trend north, though I would caution folks that actually in 2016, because of the…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Craig Kennison with Robert W. Baird. Please proceed with your question. Craig R. Kennison - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions as well. Just to follow up on what Tony had to say there, is the $0.11 the, excuse me, the annual impact, or would that be the impact as if you owned it for six months? Dominick P. Zarcone - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: That is a partial year, Craig, it's not the annual impact. You notice that in 2017, the EPS accretion that we gave folks back in December is $0.21 a share. Craig R. Kennison - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Got it. That's – that is helpful to clarify that. And then, with respect to your European operational priorities, I think you addressed it a little bit, Nick, in your prior response, but could you add a little more color as far as how we should evaluate your progress in Europe in terms of the goals you've set operationally? Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Craig, this is Rob. As Nick mentioned, John is hard at work and obviously we're very pleased with the double-digit EBITDA that we put up this year. The priorities would be – with Rhiag coming on board is to get that integrated into the system, and on purchasing, the e-commerce as Nick mentioned. So we've got some work to do there. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, Sator is basically done from the three-step-to-two-step conversion. So we are anticipating getting back to normal there, and I also mentioned we're going from six systems to two systems. So the work at Sator is…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nate Brochmann with William Blair. Please proceed with your question. Nate Brochmann - William Blair & Company, L.L.C: Good morning, everyone. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Nate. Nate Brochmann - William Blair & Company, L.L.C: So, Rob, thanks for some additional color on the AlixPartners kind of consulting project, in terms of where you're going with that. I was kind of curious a little bit in terms of just, if you look back a year ago when you started with that, in terms of like the progression and uncovering additional opportunities, relative to your additional – or your original expectations? And then, the second part of that is, how much of that improvement are you guys kind of including in your guidance, and whether there could be more upside as you uncover more opportunities? Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. I'll let Nick answer the guidance, but let me talk first about the – what we've found so far. We're very pleased with the work completed. I mentioned on the call – on my prepared remarks about the purchasing, but we're also seeing equal progress in our sales initiative, as well as our routing software. So the fourth leg of that, of course, was the efficiencies at our dismantling. Just to give an update on that, we have hired a Six Sigma Black Belt that's working on that project as well. So, these will take time to work through the system, but we are in the process of consolidating our sales centers into call centers, regional call centers. And then on the routing software, rolling out every one of our trucks, we'll know exactly where that truck is,…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Kelley with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

David L. Kelley - Jefferies LLC

Management

Good morning, gentlemen. This is David in for Bret Jordan. How are you? Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good, David. How are you?

David L. Kelley - Jefferies LLC

Management

I'm doing well, thanks. Just a couple quick ones. Could you maybe provide some color on the ongoing MSO consolidation trend in the market, and maybe the impact you're seeing on alternative parts utilization at the moment? Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. The MSO consolidation is continuing, it's – there are several very active buyers of body shops. We believe that's a positive for us. These MSOs are very tied to the insurance industry in driving alternative parts, so we are very pleased with that, and that – I don't see that slowing down any time soon, David. They are very aggressive in consolidating. I did just see a recent report that there're still 40,000 body shops in the United States, so there are still a tremendous amount of independents, but the consolidation will continue. As far as AP usage goes, we haven't seen the 2015 number yet from CCC, but we expect it to be relatively flat again at 36% mainly as a result of the SAAR rate. These news cars are demanding new parts. As I said earlier, we do think that's a benefit, as these tend to be higher-priced parts. But what we have seen, interestingly enough, is the number of parts per estimate continues to grow. In 2015 it went up to 9.2 parts per estimate, which is a huge trend in our favor. Obviously as cars get in accidents, we like to see parts get replaced versus repaired so that we can sell a product. So we see that trend continuing for two reasons. One, the complexity of the cars – the aluminum car is coming; I know we see magnesium is being entered into the parts stream as well. These will get replaced more often than repaired, that's a positive. And then the complexity – the body shop industry tends to be focusing more on replacing than repairing, so all positive trends, and we think, when these SAAR rates start to get into the sweet spot, we'll see that alternative part usage go from 36% to even higher as the parts make their way into the system.

David L. Kelley - Jefferies LLC

Management

All right. Great; very helpful. And then just a quick follow-up here. You mention your price paid at auction I believe was flat year-over-year, but the average age of the vehicle purchased was a year or so younger. Do you have maybe a comparable same-age change in price? We were just hoping to get a feeling for ASPs, given some of the recent FX and scrap movements we're seeing in the market here. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I can tell you on the self-service, the lower end car, our purchase price is down $51 sequentially, so that's where you are going to see the scrap impact. Manheim (54:07) has been stubbornly high still, at 124.7 was the last number we saw. I did listen to the Car Call and I heard them say they were expecting used car prices to soften 3% to 5% this year, so we do expect some relief there, but the new car that we are buying is critical to our strategy, because as the SAAR rate gets through, we are going to see more demand on that new car. So, the fact that the prices are flat and we are buying a newer car, we do know that's obviously a positive for us.

David L. Kelley - Jefferies LLC

Management

All right. Perfect. I appreciate the color, and thanks for taking my question. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, David.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ben Bienvenu with Stephens. Please proceed with your question.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Thanks. Good morning, guys. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Dominick P. Zarcone - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Management

So if I could just talk about weather quickly, you mentioned warmer winter weather. Obviously that was a headline in the automotive space in the fourth quarter. Presumably that potentially diminishes the demand for collision products in the period, but if I recall in 2014 – excuse me; in 2015, there was a backlog in a number of the repair shops as a result of the pretty severe winter weather outlook for the fourth quarter. Could you talk about maybe the puts and takes there, across 4Q and 1Q, and sort of how we should think about that landscape in the current environment? Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Let me talk about how the quarter is looking thus far. January was on plan, and thus far through February, we are also on plan as well, and we're up against some really tough comps in New England. As you remember, last year they had a blizzard it seemed like every other week for January and February, so there was some backlog. Just to put some color on the winter in Q4, ECP in December, their battery sales for one month were off 30%; that was $2.5 million difference just in battery sales. So the mild winter wasn't just here, it was also in Europe, so little bit of impact obviously in Q4. But so far through Q1, we are on plan and we're pretty happy. Now, there were some horrendous storms that came through the Southeast yesterday. Obviously those take time to get through the system, we'll see what that does. But so far, we are pretty pleased considering the comps we were up against in 2014.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Great. And then maybe dovetailing on your ECP commentary, the two-year stack on a same-store sales basis accelerated nicely despite that warm winter weather. You talked about market share gains. Could you disaggregate for us, of the 6.8%, what was secular growth, what was market share gains, and sort of what your expectation in there going forward? Dominick P. Zarcone - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. That's really hard for us to get our arms around because so many of our branches over there, Ben, are relatively close together, and we're consolidating some branches and the like. We think that the majority is related to market share gains, as we continue to expand out throughout the country. But there's, every time we open up a little branch, there's a little bit of cannibalization of the branches around it. So it's really hard to disaggregate that the way you want it.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Sure. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think it's fair to say, though, Ben, that the industry is growing circa GDP, so it feels like most of it's market share gains.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Okay; great. And then just one last one for me, sticking with Europe, the collision business, obviously is a big opportunity longer term. Any updates there, and sort of some of the things that you are working through to build that business? Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, sure. The – now that we've got the Sator business done, up basically from a three-step to a two-step, our plan is to launch that in probably Q3 or Q4 of 2016. One update on the UK: we did add one more insurance company into the program. So we are now up to 9 of the top 10 insurer company. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, it was still well over 20% growth, so still strong double-digit. We are very pleased with that, and we are excited about bringing that to the continent. I think Rhiag also provides an opportunity there as well, in the Eastern European countries, so we are excited about that opportunity and I expect to see something here in the tail half of 2016.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Very good. Good luck, guys. Thanks. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Ben.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from line of James Albertine with Stifel. Please proceed with your question. Jamie Albertine - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Great. Good morning and thanks for taking my question, gentlemen. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Morning, Jamie. Jamie Albertine - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: I can speak wholeheartedly to that storm yesterday in Washington. If you do some water removal in basements, let me know. Real quickly, on the guidance, you mentioned FX and you also mentioned some headwind from Tamworth. I didn't hear any mention of scrap in the guidance. Maybe I missed it. But what should we be considering, assuming there is continued pressure as there has been sequentially now for several quarters? Dominick P. Zarcone - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. So if scrap prices, particularly scrap steel prices, stay where they are, there should be maybe $0.01 or so, maybe $0.02 at the most in Q1, but by then most of the – this $80 scrap price will have rolled off, and we'd be in the clear. So we are not anticipating a big headwind from scrap, but again, that all assumes that prices stay where they are and they don't fall. Jamie Albertine - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Got it. And I wanted to ask as well on the Rhiag side, and going back in the, sort of – I appreciate the appendices, and apologies for having sort of a confused initial look earlier this morning on the guidance side. But with respect to one element of Rhiag you had talked about in December, refinancing opportunity there. Is that considered in your $0.11 for the balance of this year, or is that something that would be incremental theoretically to…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our final question comes from the line of Bill Armstrong with C.L. King & Associates. Please proceed with your question. William R. Armstrong - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Good morning, gentlemen. I want to just ask about Europe. Can you remind us what the average age of the car park is there? How that's trending, and how that might impact demand for your aftermarket parts? Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. It's about 8.7, Bill, is the average age, but it is growing, like the U.S. So we do expect that to be a nice tailwind for our European car parts business. As old cars get older, sort of what they're seeing here in United States, you'll see more need for those mechanical parts. So, definite positive trend. William R. Armstrong - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Got it. Okay. And one other sort of futuristic question, I guess, and that's driverless cars, collision-avoidance technologies. There are some out there to think that's going to be – eliminate accidents. How do you guys see that, playing out in terms of how that might impact your business over the next – both over the near term, and then maybe over the next five years to 10 years? Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's still very early days on that, and from what we've – the research we've looked at, Bill, most of this is currently an option right now, it's not a standard part. And it's mainly on higher end vehicles, although they are starting to work their way down. There was actually a study done by Thatcham over in UK that suggests that they believe claims volume will not drop precipitously, but severity will, and they actually expect total losses to drop, but the number of claims will. So instead of that violent roll-over collision, there will still be a collision but it just won't be as severe. So they're actually predicting pretty stability. So I think it's fair to say that it's still early days, but I will say this, it is actually part of our strategy to diversify the business. We do think it's coming, but we – and everything we've read says it's a decade-out problem, at the earliest. So we're going to continue to diversify the business, look to get away a little bit from the collision, as we've been doing over the last couple of years, but we do think there's at least a solid 10 years left of collisions that are going to stay pretty normalized. William R. Armstrong - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Got it. That makes sense. Thanks very much. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Bill. Dominick P. Zarcone - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I'd like to now turn the floor back over to Mr. Wagman for closing comments. Robert L. Wagman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Devon, and thank you everyone for your time today. But before we sign off, I just want to announce that we're very excited about, we'll be hosting our first ever Investor Day in New York City on March 15. You'll have the opportunity to hear from each of our segment leaders as they discuss their businesses, and we look forward to providing a deeper dive into our company. We hope you can join us, either in person or via our webcast. Thank you, everybody.