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DATE

Friday, May 1, 2026 at 9 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

  • Chief Executive Officer — Michael Manley
  • Chief Financial Officer — Thomas Szlosek
  • Vice President, Investor Relations — Derek Fiebig

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TAKEAWAYS

  • Adjusted earnings per share -- $4.69, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year EPS growth and a new first-quarter high for AutoNation (AN 1.85%).
  • Total revenue -- $6.6 billion, declining slightly from $6.7 billion in the prior year, which had been boosted by tariff-related volumes in premium luxury.
  • Gross profit -- $1.2 billion, essentially flat year over year, with gross margin up by 30 basis points to 18.5% of revenue due primarily to aftersales growth and customer financial services performance.
  • Aftersales gross profit -- $593 million, a company first-quarter record, up five percent overall; customer pay gross profit rose eight percent, warranty gross profit up seven percent, while internal reconditioning gross profit contracted by six percent due to lower used vehicle volume.
  • Same-store results -- Same-store gross profit increased three percent; same-store revenue was up four percent.
  • Customer financial services (CFS) per unit profit -- Achieved a first-quarter record, up six percent year over year; finance product penetration covered approximately 75% of units sold, with average product attachment exceeding two products per vehicle.
  • AutoNation Finance originations -- $460 million in loans originated, with portfolio size reaching $2.45 billion (up about $1 billion year over year), and profit of $9 million for the quarter.
  • Finance company penetration -- AutoNation Finance accounted for 17% of all financed deals, up from 14% in the previous quarter; average FICO scores on new originations were 700, and 30-day delinquency rates stood at 2.1%.
  • Used-to-new sales ratio -- Reached one, the best ratio in two years; used vehicle profitability per unit increased by more than $150 sequentially, ending just under $1,600.
  • New vehicle sales -- Same-store unit sales fell nine percent, and total store unit sales declined eight percent; battery electric vehicle unit sales fell more than 50% year over year, with premium luxury unit sales declining 16%.
  • New vehicle gross profit per unit -- Exceeded $2,500, rising more than $100, or roughly five percent, from the prior quarter; inventory stood at 46 days of supply, up eight days year over year.
  • Capital deployment -- Deployed over $350 million in the quarter, including $300 million in share repurchases; year-to-date share repurchases totaled approximately $400 million, reducing weighted average shares outstanding by two percent.
  • Adjusted free cash flow -- $256 million generated, representing 155% of adjusted net income.
  • SG&A as percentage of gross profit -- 69.8%, exceeding the targeted 66%-67% range due to increased marketing and structural investments, as well as $5 million of unfavorable self-insurance experience (with more than half related to weather events).
  • Leverage ratio -- Ended at 2.57x EBITDA, closely matching the prior-year first quarter and remaining within the two to three times long-term target range.
  • Strategic investments -- Focused on upper-funnel marketing and technology initiatives, which management expects will yield longer-term benefits; these investments presently create a "dislocation between our investment and our return" according to CEO Manley.
  • Technician headcount -- Same-store technician workforce grew by more than three percent year over year, reflecting progress in recruitment and retention.

RISKS

  • CEO Manley said, "you may see some margin compression" during the year, explaining that affordability headwinds and "ongoing inflation that we've seen as well as the fuel price movements that we've seen of late" have compounded industry challenges and are likely to persist in the near term.
  • New vehicle industry demand may remain "below that 5% forecast that we originally had coming in" due to sustained macro uncertainty and "some of those impacts" not dissipating, as referenced by Manley.
  • SG&A ratios are expected to remain elevated above targeted ranges through the year due to continued investments and the delayed payback of upper-funnel marketing and technology spend.
  • Premium luxury and battery electric vehicle sales were disproportionately impacted by volume declines, with BEV unit sales dropping more than 50% and premium luxury down 16% year over year.

SUMMARY

AutoNation (AN 1.85%) posted $4.69 in adjusted EPS for the quarter, despite a modest dip in revenue to $6.6 billion, emphasizing record performance in aftersales and customer financial services while navigating weaker new and used vehicle volumes. Management noted that AutoNation Finance delivered pronounced growth, with $460 million in loan originations and portfolio advances supporting profitability but modestly diluting per-unit CFS margins. SG&A rose to 69.8% of gross profit due to substantial investment in brand and technology, above the company's 66%-67% target range, and management indicated continued elevated expense levels as strategic initiatives proceed. The new vehicle segment saw gross profit per unit improve sequentially to more than $2,500, but same-store unit sales fell nine percent, driven in part by battery electric and premium luxury segment weakness. Used vehicle per-unit profitability increased sequentially, with the mix shifting to higher-priced vehicles and inventory quality significantly improved relative to prior periods.

  • Debt funding for AutoNation Finance increased to 90% of the portfolio, up from 74% a year ago, reflecting confidence from lenders and capital markets following a $750 million ABS issuance.
  • Management highlighted that aftersales now generates nearly half of total gross profit, underlining its recurrence and margin stability even in weaker retail conditions.
  • Share repurchase activity reduced weighted average shares outstanding by two percent year over year, backed by robust free cash flow and balance sheet capacity.
  • Manley noted that total cost of ownership pressures—including insurance costs up about 50%, and higher maintenance costs—are constraining demand, particularly for middle-income consumers.
  • The company is deliberately maintaining high levels of upper-funnel marketing investments to accelerate brand awareness, which management believes will enhance longer-term revenue streams despite current cost pressure.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

  • Aftersales: Sales and services provided post-vehicle purchase, including parts, repair, maintenance, and associated customer support, typically generating recurring, high-margin revenue.
  • Customer financial services (CFS): AutoNation's in-store automotive finance and insurance offerings, excluding results from its captive finance arm.
  • AutoNation Finance / Captive finance: The company's wholly owned finance subsidiary that originates and services auto loans, supporting vehicle purchases and contributing to recurring profitability.
  • Upper funnel marketing: Strategic advertising and promotional activities aimed at increasing broad brand awareness and customer engagement in early purchasing consideration stages.
  • ABS (asset-backed securities) issuance: The process of securitizing and selling pools of finance receivables to investors, improving liquidity and leverage for AutoNation Finance.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Michael Manley: Thanks, Derek. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Now as usual, we're going to provide a fulsome discussion of our results. And in our materials, I think you're going to notice some updates that we hope you will find useful. Obviously, we're very pleased to report that despite a challenging Q1 for the industry, particularly with year-over-year comps, AutoNation delivered its fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in adjusted earnings per share. This represents a solid first quarter for AutoNation.

Now we continue to deliver strong operating performance coupled with excellent consistent cash conversion which enables us to maintain our strategy of deploying capital in a disciplined way to deliver results to our shareholders on a consistent basis. For the quarter, we reported adjusted EPS of $4.69, up from a year ago and as I mentioned, our fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year adjusted EPS growth. Operating cash flow was also strong. We generated $256 million of adjusted free cash flow, which represents substantial cash flow conversion of adjusted earnings. Now starting on Page 3, where we cover gross profit for each of our businesses.

Results were led by after sales, which once again delivered solid mid-single-digit growth despite some year-over-year impact from adverse weather. Same-store gross profit increased 3%, and total store gross profit increased 5% to $593 million, which was a first quarter record for the company. The story underneath this solid total growth in growth gets even more interesting as you tease out the dynamics of the different sources of growth. Underneath that total growth of 5%, internal pay actually declined by 6%. And somewhat expected, I think, due to lower industry volumes. This contraction in internal pay was more than offset from 2 important segments. Customer pay, which grew 8% and warranty-related gross profit, which grew at 7%.

Now as always, there is still more for us to do in aftersales, where we believe there is more growth to come, but clearly, this revenue and net income stream is durable, as a recurring nature and is high margin. It's also an important driver of customer engagement and retention. Now moving on, I want to turn to Customer Financial Services. The team delivered another outstanding quarter, posting a first quarter record per unit profit up 6% from a year ago. The team continues to run a value-driven customer-focused process that provides our customers with valuable products and services.

Customers purchased on average more than 2 products per vehicle with extended service contracts, again, leading the mix clearly supporting future aftersales revenue and customer retention. Finance penetration also continues to grow with roughly 3/4 of units sold with a finance contract. Now this performance should be read with the added context of the growth in our own finance company originations, which, as you know, deliver a superior return over time, but in the short term, represent a headwind to the record per unit value we just delivered. And Tom, I know you're going to give everyone on the call more details of this dynamic literature. So let's look at new vehicle industry in our results.

New vehicle unit sales were down in line with the market. As you'll remember, last year, there was a significant acceleration in demand following tariff-related announcements, which clearly set up a very challenging year-over-year comp. As in the fourth quarter, following the elimination of the BEV incentives, sales declined -- BEV sales declined more than 50% year-over-year and the largest reduction of that was in our premium luxury segment. Now as a partial offset to industry volumes, we just discussed, new vehicle unit profitability improved sequentially, up 5% from the fourth quarter driven by higher per unit profit in both our import and premium luxury segments. Now moving on to used vehicles.

I feel we delivered a solid performance in the quarter. We actually achieved our highest used to new ratio in 2 years. Our margins were much more stable, delivering a per unit profitability sequentially higher. Our wholesale performance was also strong. I would say that coming into the quarter, we had a couple of challenges that were hangovers from 2025. Inventory levels that were lower than I would prefer and aging that was slightly elevated. I think the team has made good progress with these challenges, and we now enter Q2 with improved inventory position at a younger average age. Now turning to Slide 4.

I briefly touched on our customer financial services performance earlier, but let's turn to our own finance company. AutoNation Finance performed well, generating $9 million of profit in the quarter, which, by the way, nearly equaled the entire profit for 2025. AN Finance generated over $20 million of cash for the quarter, and the portfolio continues to scale and ended the quarter at $2.4 billion, up $1 billion year-over-year. Our funding profile also improved following our second ABS transaction, which closed in January. The operating momentum of AutoNation finance is obviously delivering attractive returns and we are also benefiting from the ongoing customer engagement and valuable consumer insights that come from the business. Now moving on to cash.

Adjusted free cash flow was strong again at $256 million. This reflects excellent cash conversion, which Tom will talk through in more detail. Now during the quarter, we deployed approximately $350 million of capital, including $300 million in share repurchases. While we did not acquire any franchises in the first quarter, we do remain active in evaluating opportunities that can add scale and density in our existing markets. Our balance sheet remains strong. Our leverage ratio was in line with the first quarter of last year and remains comfortably within our targeted 2 to 3x range as we maintain our investment-grade rating.

The strength of our balance sheet and robust cash flow generation give us significant flexibility to deploy capital, drive shareholder returns and grow earnings per share. Overall, it was a good quarter. strong results. And as I mentioned, the fifth consecutive quarter where we have delivered year-over-year increases in EPS. And now with that Tom, I'm going to hand it over to you.

Thomas Szlosek: Okay. Thanks, Mike. Turning to Slide 5, I'll walk through our quarterly P&L. Total revenue for the quarter was $6.6 billion compared with $6.7 billion in the first quarter last year, which benefited from the tariff-related volumes, particularly in premium luxury to talk later. First quarter gross profit of $1.2 billion was essentially flat year-over-year, and gross margin improved 30 basis points to 18.5% of revenue. That was driven by continued mid-single-digit growth in our aftersales business and strong performance in customer financial services. Adjusted SG&A as a percentage of gross profit was 69.8% for the quarter, a bit higher than our targeted range of 66% to 67%.

The increase reflects investments in marketing, including upper funnel spending to generate higher quality growth opportunities and build AutoNation brand awareness. We are also making structural investments targeting our customer experience. Lastly, we had unfavorable self-insurance experience in the quarter, including damage related to weather events. We expect SG&A to moderate in subsequent quarters as a percentage of gross profit, but remain above our targeted range, reflecting continued investment, as I mentioned earlier, of the aforementioned strategic initiatives. Adjusted operating income was $312 million for the quarter and was down 7% from a year ago. At 4.8% of revenue, it remains nearly 100 basis points above prepandemic levels.

Below the operating line, floor plan interest expense decreased $5 million or 10% year-over-year as borrowing rates moderated and we remain disciplined in our inventory management. Non-vehicle interest expense increased $6 million year-over-year, reflecting higher average balances and a slightly higher blended borrowing rate, reflecting maturities of lower-cost debt. Excluded from our adjusted results, our net after-tax gain of approximately $40 million related to our valuable strategic equity investments in Waymo and TrueCar. Weighted average shares outstanding decreased 2% year-over-year, reflecting $1.1 billion of share repurchases since the end of 2024. Adjusted earnings per share was $4.69 for the quarter.

Through strong operating execution and disciplined capital allocation, we've now delivered 5 consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth in adjusted earnings per share, as Mike mentioned. Moving to Slide 6, after sales, representing nearly half of our gross profit, continued its impressive momentum. Gross profit was $593 million, and AutoNation first quarter record. And as Mike mentioned, we saw a modest impact from adverse weather, but still delivered mid-single-digit growth. Our results reflect higher repair order count, higher value per repair order and improved labor productivity. Same-store revenue increased 4% and same-store gross profit increased 3%, while total store revenue and gross profit both increased 5%.

Growth was led by customer pay gross profit up 8% and warranty gross profit, up 7%. Internal reconditioning gross profit declined 6% due to lower used vehicle volume. Wholesale and retail parts increased 10%. After sales gross margin was 48.6% for the quarter, roughly in line with the first quarter of 2025. We remain focused on deploying technology to drive additional volume and productivity and on hiring, developing and retaining technicians. These efforts increased same-store franchise technician headcount by more than 3% year-over-year, reflecting improved retention. Growing our technician workforce is key to consistently delivering mid-single-digit growth in after sales gross profit. I'm now on Slide 7, Customer Financial Services. The momentum in CFS continues.

After growing 6% for the full year last year, per unit profitability increased another 6% in the first quarter, driven by improved vehicle service contract margins, consistent product attachment and higher finance product penetration. This per unit growth offset the year-over-year decline in unit volume. This performance is even more impressive considering the growth of AutoNation Finance. While AutoNation France is attractive in long-term profitability, it diluted CFS per unit results in the first quarter by approximately $160 million -- $160 per unit, which is a little over 5%. Slide 8 provides an update on AutoNation Finance, our captive finance company and its continued strong performance.

As expected, profitability is gaining meaningful traction as the portfolio matures and as we leverage our fixed cost structure across a much larger book. First quarter profit improved to $9 million, up from $0.1 million in the first quarter of 2025 and up sequentially from $6 million in the fourth quarter 2025. During the quarter, we originated approximately $460 million in loans and received approximately $213 million in customer repayments. Our penetration continues to improve AutoNation finance originations were approximately 17% of all deals financed in the first quarter, up from 14% in the fourth quarter. The AutoNation portfolio ended the quarter at $2.45 billion, up about $1 billion year-over-year. The portfolio quality continues to improve.

Credit performance metrics strengthened and average FICO scores on originations were 700 in the first quarter. Delinquency rates, 30-day delinquency rates were 2.1% at quarter end, stable as a percentage of the portfolio and in line with our expectations. As we've discussed, we do expect delinquencies to continue to normalize as the portfolio matures, migrating towards the 3% range over time, and our loss reserving methodology incorporates this expectation. Nonrecourse debt funding also improved, reflecting better advanced rates in our warehouse facilities and the benefits of our second ABS issuance for approximately $750 million completed in January.

Debt funding as a percentage of the total portfolio at quarter end was 90%, now that's up from 74% a year ago, reflecting lender and market confidence in our portfolio. To close on AutoNation Finance, our compelling offerings are driving strong customer takeup, and we continue to expect attractive returns on equity, as profitability grows and equity investment requirements moderating. Slide 9 provides some color for new vehicle performance. Our unit sales declines were in line with the industry down 9% on a same-store basis and down 8% on a total store basis.

Battery electric vehicle unit sales declined more than 50% year-over-year and when combined with tariff-related pull-ins in the first quarter last year, created a disproportionate impact on our premium luxury unit sales, which decreased 16% from a year ago. Domestic and import sales were down mid-single digits. New vehicle profitability again increased sequentially in the first quarter, averaging more than $2,500 per unit, up more than $100 or about 5% versus the fourth quarter. The improvement was driven by higher per-unit profits in our import and premium luxury segment. New vehicle inventory amounted to 46 days of supply, up 8 days from the first quarter of last year and 1 day from the end of December. Turning to Slide 10.

As Mike mentioned, used vehicle supply remains constrained, and the team did a great job balancing sourcing, unit volumes and overall profitability. Our used to new ratio increased to 1 in the first quarter, the highest in 2 years. Used retail unit sales decreased 5% on a same-store basis and 3% on a total store basis. Now unit sales in the sub-$20,000 category declined 9%, while vehicles priced above 40,000 increased 7%. This mix shift contributed to a 5% increase in average selling prices year-over-year. Our used vehicle unit profitability increased by more than $150 sequentially to just under 1,600 per unit, reflecting a more optimal vehicle acquisition and reconditioning inventory velocity and usage of enhanced technologies.

We had over 25,000 units ready for sale and 32,600 total units in our used inventory at month end, and the aging is in terrific shape. To Slide 11. Adjusted free cash flow for the quarter was $256 million or 155% of adjusted net income. Both of those metrics were improved from the first quarter last year as we continue to demonstrate stronger operational performance, a relentless focus on working capital and cycle times and CapEx discipline and prioritization. Our capital expenditures to depreciation ratio was 0.9x compared to 1.2x a year ago. CapEx was a little light in the quarter, mostly due to timing, and we expect full year spending to be $300 million to $325 million.

We continue to focus on driving free cash flow to improve maximum capital deployment capacity. On Slide 12, our strong cash conversion gives us flexibility to invest in growth and drive shareholder value. In the quarter, we deployed more than $350 million of capital, including $300 million of share repurchases. The remaining was spent on CapEx, which is largely maintenance and compulsory spending. Since the end of March, we have made additional share repurchases, bringing our year-to-date deployment to approximately $400 million or around $100 million per month. We have repurchased nearly 2 million shares or 6% of the shares outstanding at the beginning of the year.

In our capital allocation decisioning, we also consider our investment-grade balance sheet and the associated leverage level. At quarter end, our leverage was 2.57x EBITDA, almost identical with a 2.56x EBITDA at the end of the first quarter last year and well within our 2 to 3x EBITDA long-term target, giving us additional dry powder for capital allocation going forward. Now I'll turn the call back to Mike before we open the line for questions.

Michael Manley: Yes. Thank you, Tom. Just a quick closing from me, reflecting on a strong quarter and what I expect moving forward. I am very pleased about our EPS growth. I think that's something that the team and I were very, very focused on, and I was pleased we were able to deliver it, notwithstanding some of the dynamics in the industry that we've just discussed. Our aftersales business is well positioned. And I think that the market will facilitate growth in that, and we're obviously going to stay focused on our technician recruitment, retention and development. Customer Financial Services continues to deliver strongly for us, very consistent performance. Its profitability is also very consistent.

And we know that particularly with AN Finance, it builds strong relationships with our customers for us. And that portfolio continues to scale, improving productivity and profitability and funding. I do expect improvements in our used business over the course of the year as lease returns increase, and the execution continues to improve. New vehicle sales continue to track in line with the broader retail market and as you've seen, unit profitability continues to show signs of stabilization. And during the Q&A, we may get into discussions about forecast for margin. That's fine. We can take questions on that.

But I think all of the factors that we've talked about position us from -- particularly from a cash flow perspective, to continue to generate strong cash flow, which will enable us to deploy meaningful levels of capital always with our shareholders in mind. So with that, Tom, if you're ready, let's open up for questions.

Derek Fiebig: Rob, if you could please remind participants how to get in queue for the question-and-answer period.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Rajat Gupta from JPMorgan.

Rajat Gupta: Great. The first one was just that you removed your previous 2026 outlook slide. I'm curious, is that something to do with just what's going on geopolitically and just creating more uncertainty, just trying to understand the reason behind it. And maybe as you offered any guardrails around new vehicle GPU, used vehicle GPU trajectory from here on? I have a quick follow-up.

Michael Manley: Rajat, it's Mike. I'll start the answer and then Tom, you jump in. So when we came into 2026, I think we all would agree that we knew that the structural demand, particularly in new and used was certainly there all of the inputs to demand, I think, continued scrappage rates, household formation have continued. But I think we knew that there would be some affordability headwinds coming into the year based upon the developments of last year. And we were forecasting at that time, maybe up to a 5% impact on new vehicle industry.

And obviously, that has been compounded from a headwind perspective with the ongoing inflation that we've seen as well as the fuel price movements that we've seen of late. And I think that is going to continue for the foreseeable future. So the way I'm thinking about the industry now is notwithstanding the fact that we're going to see quarter-over-quarter comparisons that are may be uneven this year because of the industry shocks we saw last year. I think the industry will be below that 5% forecast that we originally had coming in until some of those impacts get dissipated.

Now whether that is the Iran war is over, fuel prices begin to return, whether that is transaction price movements that may happen or change over the years, interest rate movements. Regardless of what causes it, I think we need to see some movements in those areas for that unmet demand now in the marketplace to start to get released. But sitting underneath that, I think the industry is still large as we saw the volumes that we delivered in Q1, albeit down year-over-year, we're still very, very credible. And any deferred demand usually ends up relatively quickly in the vehicle Parker, and we managed to capture that with our aftersales business as well.

And that's why aftersales is typically anticyclical because I expect our aftersales business to benefit now because there's certainly some deferred purchases in new. There's certainly some segments shifting from new to used and the deferred purchases and used as well, and that will find its way into aftersales. And then finally, because your question was quite detailed along and you have to tell me if I've actually answered it. When I think about margins for the year, you may see some margin compression. From our point of view, what's important is that, that drives an improvement in volume because some margin compressions as long as it feeds its way through into average transaction price should stimulate volume.

And I'll be very comfortable with that balance, by the way, because I think driving new car volume is important for us over the long term. Tom, do you want to add something?

Thomas Szlosek: Yes, quickly. Rajat, just relative to that -- the original thought process, I think Mike said it well in terms of we're facing a different macro environment for very obvious reasons, won't get into us. But if you look at the main tenants in our outlook. I mean, apart from the market, I think all of them are intact in terms of what we're committing to deliver, whether it's customer financial services, sustained performance, the AutoNation portfolio growth after sales, continued mid-single-digit growth, good conversion on cash and just shareholder focused capital allocation, I mean, all those things are still intact and we're committed to.

Rajat Gupta: Got it. That's helpful color. And just on the investments, the strategic investments, could you double click on that a little bit? what areas are you looking to go into? How should we think about as a return on that for the business? Any specific areas those are targeted would be helpful.

Michael Manley: I'll start and then Tom can finish up. I think there's probably 2 main areas that I would call out as part of this call. When I look back at -- I think one of the benefits that automation has is that we have a national brand. And I think the benefit of that is not truly unlocked yet. And what that means is that we continue to invest with high-quality, but good third-party partners to generate opportunities for us. We're very focused on changing that dynamic.

And to change that dynamic, we need to make some more upper funnel investments to be able to grow our brand recognition higher in certain areas than it is today because we will reap the benefits of that over time. Now they will not be immediate. So what you get is you get a dislocation between our investment and our return, and that's what you're seeing to some extent in our financial performance. Obviously, the investments being made. Our expectation is, over time, you will progressively see that return.

Now what you won't immediately see is a reversal of that because upper funnel investment is obviously going to continue, but it is measured, it is well thought through, and I think it has a very, very clear end in mind. The second area that we're investing in is obviously in technology. It is an ongoing daily topic of conversation across every business. I think we've made some good investments in technology. Some of it is in an exploratory way at this moment in time. So what we're trying to do is understand do we truly get a long-term sustainable return on investment from those investments.

That means you have to make some speculative investments and some of which will pay off hands on million, some of which were not. So you're seeing some elevated costs from that. And again, that will continue throughout the year, but we're very cognizant of the fact that we want to maintain our forecast in terms of our underlying SG&A. And I think the finance teams and our operators really do have that in mind. And in fact, there's an increased emphasis on that because it frees up some headroom for us to make some of these exploratory investments that we're making.

But overall, I think, and you can see it in our Q1, we're creating still a very, very credible balance of SG&A to gross. Tom, do you want to add anything?

Thomas Szlosek: No, you did well.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mike Ward from Citigroup.

Michael Ward: It seems like there's a I don't know if it's concerned effort or just a shift towards the more profitable parts of the businesses, F&I after sales financing, and it's almost like the new and used retail is just a feeder to enhance those businesses? Is that the way you're strategically thinking about it? How do you view that trend?

Michael Manley: I think you answered your own question there. I like that answer very much. I've got nothing to add to it.

Michael Ward: Okay. So that is a concern of effort. And Mike, when you look at the industry, it seems to me when we came out of Covet everybody was set that inventory going forward to be about 20% lower than it had been in the past. It seems to me the industry has gotten even more efficient. How much does that contribute? We've kind of seen a stabilization of the new and used variable grosses. And how much does inventory discipline contribute to that? And do you expect that to continue?

Michael Manley: Well, it's a bit of a -- I'm going to give you a bit of a broader answer. So apologies upfront for this because if I want to lean into this kind of discussion on affordability a little bit more because I think that it is what is going to shape the overall industry volume for the foreseeable quarters that are coming at us. We know that if I just take new, for example, average transaction prices are up roughly 40% on us since 2019. But the dynamics in that are quite interesting when you tease it apart. The vast majority of that was covered off by real wage inflation.

And in fact, the pass-on effects of average transaction prices have been speculated between 8% and 10%. And I think that, that was what was well, it's creating some of that affordability headwind when we came into this year. Obviously, it was compounded by tariffs, some of that pricing in some form or another being passed on. but we no longer had supply constraint on new vehicles driving up ATPs. That is largely with the exception maybe of 1 or 2 manufacturers completely dissipated now. But you're left with that affordability headwind, which initially was driven by transaction prices and then more recently, a combination of rate and transaction prices.

And that's what stays in the market today, and it really has been compounded by what I'm hoping is a relatively short-term shock to the economic environment that we're in at the moment. But notwithstanding that, the industry level, as I mentioned, I think, is still relatively large. So as we go forward, I think for us to release as an industry that pent-up demand, some of those dynamics have got to change. And I think part of that will be this affordability question, whether it's content, or whether it is supply chain changes or whether it is some margin mitigation with the OEMs or us.

I'm comfortable with margin mitigation because I think it will translate into volume because I do think that there is a large amount of pent-up demand now in new. It's also translated into us to some extent. I think used will supplier will still be constrained for a period to come as that hole that was created in COVID works its way through the system. But I do think that when some of those input dynamics begin to get released, which some of them hopefully will be happening sooner rather than later, you'll progressively see a release of volume and may see some accompanying margin compression as a result.

But as I said, that's a trade we'd be comfortable to make so long as it's done in a disciplined way, and we actually see the volume growth. Does that answer your question?

Michael Ward: Yes, it does. And it just seems like the industry becomes more profitable if we stay in this million, $16.5 million range instead of like getting these big peaks and valleys, so lower highs and higher loads. And it seems like it feeds into the more profitable part of the business for AutoNation.

Michael Manley: Yes, absolutely. I mean we like very, very much our aftersales capacity because as you said, it is -- it is anticyclical to some extent, but it's stable, it's durable, and it's much, much more predictable. Because the other thing that's happening, of course, is the vehicle park is still continuing to age and an aging vehicle park particularly when new and used vehicle volumes deferred an aging vehicle park just represents an opportunity for us that we are constantly looking to try and try and unlock. So that dynamic is 1 of the great things about a balanced business that we run.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Alex Perry from Bank of America

Unknown Analyst: Congrats on all the progress. I wanted to drill in a bit more on the used vehicle side. How should we be thinking about sort of used vehicle comps and GPUs as we move forward? Inventory seems pretty lean -- how should we think about your ability to sort of drive an improvement in GPUs and same-store sales on the used side?

Michael Manley: I think we've got upside on our volume side. I was pleased with our GPUs for Q1. I talked in the past that I think -- and our internal view is that we should be moving towards $2,000 a unit. That to me is something that we've set as a goal for our teams and to understand the different drivers of achieving that. The very first driver is obviously how you source your vehicles. So we're very focused on trying to make sure we source, obviously, from lower cost channels first, but to build up an inventory volume that is sufficient to drive incremental sales for us.

As Tom mentioned, we made some progress in Q1, the real forecast for us. The real initiative for us is to keep our progress moving -- and we think that will translate into higher volumes. I do not want that to come with a compression necessarily on the margin because I still think there's some inefficiencies in the used car business that will enable us, even if we reduce ATPs to maintain the margin, whether that is through cycle times, whether that is through a much, much more focused reconditioning or whether that is through hold times.

So even if you do see some mitigation in ATPs, I think some of that can be offset and mitigated by improved productivity as part of that value chain.

Unknown Analyst: Really helpful. And then just my second one, I wanted to go back to sort of the state of the union right now and how you're sort of thinking about things with all the uncertainty. Are you seeing any sort of change in trend line, any impact through April on consumer confidence related to the war? Just talk to us about how you're sort of seeing the demand trend as we move forward here?

Michael Manley: Yes. Well, there's no doubt that we are seeing an impact on it. I mentioned before that the affordability was a key industry issue for us right now. But I said that wage growth, to a large extent, increased has offset most of the -- well, a large portion really of the increases that we've seen. But there are other effects that sit underneath that. The first one is total cost of ownership is also being impacted by increased insurance costs, which were up roughly 50%. After sales maintenance costs are up as well.

But that the issue that I think we're going to face in the short term, that really is driving my outlook of the industry over the, say, coming 1 or 2 quarters is the fact that, that wage inflation that partially offset increases in transaction prices wasn't distributed evenly. I mean, if you were at the top and at the bottom, you got real wage increases. If you were set in the middle, you were largely stagnant treading water. And that middle cohort of the population really is the engine for us.

So the impact that we're seeing in the short term in terms of their household income and the dynamics there in terms of the needs, the must-haves, the staples actually taking a higher level of their disposable income. It will impact our industry and give us some headwind. We've seen that in Q1. It will continue, in my view, into Q2. But those deferred purchases will feed into our aftersales. But that's the dynamic really that we're seeing and where the impact is, in my view, is going to be felt. I do think that some of this. I'm hoping that some of this obviously is short term and can get relieved quickly.

But I'm still optimistic that when we look back on this year, the industry is still going to be a healthy one.

Unknown Analyst: Incredibly helpful. Best of luck going forward.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Lick from Stephens Inc.

Jeffrey Lick: I was wondering if you maybe drill down a little deeper on the used and Alex earlier question, Mike. Just in terms of your guys' strategy maybe looking at late model versus 6- to 8-year-old plus your cluster strategy, use of internal auctions. Obviously, one of the largest competitors is going through a little bit of a change and Carvana continues to ramp up. Just curious how you see the used car -- or used car business playing out, especially as it relates to sourcing and whatnot.

Michael Manley: Yes. Well, obviously, you saw in our results that are above $40,000 used car business improved, I think it was up over 7%. Tom, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was up over 7% and then our 20% to 40% and below $20 a drop. Some of that was inventory related. There's no doubt about that. But I do think that some of the drivers of that above 40,000 were maybe those marginal new car buyers that from affordability did, in fact, drop into the used car scene. So sourcing vehicles across all of those price band is important for us.

And by the way, even if those marginal new car buyers dropped into the used car industry, you can tell from the total used car industry even more deferred their purchases from used cars anyway. So the way that we think about sourcing is it is -- everyone talks about how competitive it is. I think it's been competitive really for the last 5 years and will continue to be competitive. But you've got to be focused on every single channel.

The very first channel that we're very focused on is clearly, those vehicles that come to us and trade new or used trade that we can with the right and appropriate amount of reconditioning generate a really excellent used car inventory piece. And that's what our focus is. I mentioned before brand. Brand is super important when you're sourcing vehicles directly from the market it helps cut through all of the noise out there. We have done well in many of our markets with our sourcing through our Web or car activities.

I think we can do better, but I do think we need to continue to reposition our brand to more of a top of mind perspective rather than a searched outcome, and that's some of the investment that we're making, but very comfortable also to dip into the auction market. They come at some people think an inflated price. But the reality is if you price them right, you can still get a good turn. So fundamentally, you've got to have the inventory because you can't sell fresh air. You've got to be able to buy it competitively hopefully with a mix that suits the business that you're trying to achieve.

But the industry is so broad, we want a balanced portfolio of vehicles between all of those 3 price bands. But as you've seen in our end with this, which is a repetition of how I started, our plus $40,000 sales benefited in the quarter, probably from some of that migration from new.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of John Saager from Evercore.

John Saager: On you're annualizing ANS at $36 million a year. The penetration increased from 14% to 7%, [indiscernible] scores are in a good place. Can you just reframe sort of the steady state and where do you think that heads -- if we look out to 2027, do you think that we can continue improving that penetration to higher and higher levels, is something like $50 million an achievable goal?

Thomas Szlosek: Yes. Thanks, John. Great question. When you look at where we have been on penetrations -- sorry, when you look at overall originations for AutoNation Finance. Going back to 2024, we're -- we underwrote about $1 billion in sort of our first full year of $1.1 billion, and that went up to $1.8 billion in 2025. We're on a run rate that we think is going to get us north of $2 billion to $2.1 billion in '26, which would be close to 20% growth. So we keep the key is the originations. And that would -- right now, as you said, penetration is 17%.

That's of all units that are financed -- if we get to the numbers I mentioned for 2026, I think we'll be pushing 20%. And I don't think we're really calling a limit on what the penetration can be. I mean it's been a steady climb following the originations. But at some point, there's some elasticity there. But right now, I think it's slow and steady growth for us in both penetration and originations.

John Saager: Okay. Great. And then on the SG&A efficiency, can you just quantify the impact of stock-based comp in the quarter?

Michael Manley: Over probably less than $1 million of incremental expense.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of John Babcock from Barclays.

John Babcock: Just first of all, did you guys quantify the impact of the weather on the quarter? Apologies if I missed

Michael Manley: Well, we both can answer this one. I don't -- I'm not really -- I don't really entertain discussions about the impact of weather on the business, in the business. I think it's something that tends to happen relatively frequently. So from a -- I know that Tom will have a much more well thought-through answer. I tend to believe that much of it may be just deferred for a short period of time. Some of it you lose as people say. But no doubt, Tom will be able to give you a better flavor than that. I'll try and focus on doing as much business as possible regardless of whether it's raining or windy.

Thomas Szlosek: I think Mike is saying that he doesn't allow us to make any excuses for our SG&A performance. When you look at the onetime events that we referred to, they were self-insured type claims activity, more than half of which was weather-related. I'd say the total, including those weather-related impact was roughly $5 million year-over-year, John.

John Babcock: Yes. Okay. That's Perfectly fine. And then just on the SG&A side. Obviously, there's been a fair bit of discussion on the call so far about the uncertainty in the market, affordability challenges, the other broader macro headwinds. In light of all that, how are you thinking about your SG&A spending levels? And part of the reason I ask is because over time, the dealers have generally tended to be pretty good about adjusting spending up and down based on how the market is looking.

So I want to get your thoughts on that and whether you're comfortable with current spending levels or if you think there might be a time at which maybe you decide to pull back in certain areas.

Thomas Szlosek: Yes. Great question. Thanks, John. I'll start it out and then let Mike jump in. The thing that's hidden inside those SG&A numbers that we talked about is some of the productivity that we are generating either through AI or other technology. And if you look, for example, at our compensation for sales personnel, we're up at close to 10 sales per associate in the first quarter of 2026. That number was probably 9 or so a year earlier. And we're doing that with better training better technology emphasis on performance-based incentives.

So -- and there are a number of other initiatives when it comes to AI and productivity that we think will continue to allow us to drive down our SG&A. We're deploying AI at scale in our servicing contact centers. and in our back office, we've generated meaningful savings in 2025, close to $5 million, and I expect that to continue into 2026 through digital applications and AI-type applications. So I don't want you to think that we're not focused on it. We do have to make some investments, some incremental investments. I do think they'll start to generate additional growth over time.

I also think those investments, some of them dissipate as we get through 2026, particularly the investments on some of the digital enhancements that Mike referred to. I don't -- at this point, we feel like we're on a good trajectory to bring our SG&A at a run rate it starts to approximate our targeted range. towards the first quarter of next year. I think in second quarter through the fourth quarter, we should probably expect us to bring it down 150 basis points from what we saw in the first quarter. If we can avoid some of the calamities that we don't necessarily control. So that's the way I would look at it.

Michael Manley: John, I just want to add a piece as well. Obviously, we see a much more detailed breakdown of our SG&A performance than others on the outside of the company are. So if we look at the underlying core SG&A performance of our dealerships, our collision centers and our auctions, and we take out or we give an allowance for the investments that we see as being incremental that will benefit us that's that dislocation between the investment and the revenue that you get that I discussed earlier. I'm comfortable with our SG&A levels. And I see a trajectory that I'm actually pleased with. It's not so apparent for me outside.

So the question is, are the investments that we are making that are incremental, truly going to give us a revenue stream in a reasonable time frame to have made them worth the trip. That's something that we are very, very careful to look at that we're really looking to see what benefits we see as a result of those investments. And if we believe they are, we continue to do it. And if we believe that they're not, for whatever reason, we're quick to shut them off.

So I think underneath the headline number that you're looking at, there is a good trend in our SG&A in line with discussions that Tom has had with all of you in recent quarters. And I do think that there is a mechanism for us to make sure that we're looking very closely at any incremental investment that we make that it will yield a benefit for the company at some point in the future.

Operator: And your final question comes from the line of David Whiston from Morningstar.

David Whiston: Just curious if you could give any kind of update on the status and mobile repair adoption? And what are the challenges in getting more consumers to use that service.

Michael Manley: Yes. Actually, what we've now done is we have been able to integrate our mobile repair service into our big markets. So we've now we moved their bases into our existing AN USA businesses, which gives them a base, which you need a hub. We found out that having a hub actually helps with our productivity quite significantly because it gives us a start and return point that's much, much more consistent. We slimmed down the number of technicians that we had in that area because the levels of productivity were very, very low because you have to build quite a large consistent base.

The integration of those into that business have helped tremendously with that. because there is a residual amount of business that enables us to layer in those more variable trips, those more unexpected trips in a good way, I'd expected to customers outside of the physical locations. We have learned a huge amount about dynamic booking and still learning about dynamic booking and now that I think we have a much more solid base. Our productivity has increased, I think, well.

We're now beginning to build layers of business on top of that, so that we can extend the products and services that are remote in a way that doesn't bring our utilization and productivity down to such a level that we're actually not covering our costs. So it is a much more complex business than we anticipated a few years ago when we acquired the business and began building it. I think our skill set has improved tremendously. And I think it now begins to add value, not just to customers who want remote work, but also add value to a number of our business partners as well.

Still a lot of work to do in that area, but I'm pleased with what I've seen so far.

Operator: And we have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Michael Manley: Yes, thank you, everybody. Thanks very much for your time on this call, and we look forward to talking to you more about the quarter and also next quarter, Q2. Thank you very much.

Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.