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Earnings Calls: 
AutoNation First Quarter Earnings Call
Author: Rozalina Destanova
123jump.com
Last Update: 5:24 AM EDT May 07 2008


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Earnings from continuing operations slipped to 31 cents a share from 39 cents a share. Results were hurt by lower gross profit for each vehicle sold, partially offset by continued share repurchases. New vehicle sales in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona declined 11%. The company expects to continue to see a challenging automotive retail market as long as the current economic difficulties persist.


Investors Question and Answers

 
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Source: Company filings    Q1:March  Q2:June  Q3:September  Q4:December
 
Mike Jackson: I do not think it is going to take too long in auto because we did not make the catastrophic behavioral decisions that happened in housing where there was a total collapse of any sort of credit standard. The credit standards were disciplined. The stress that is out there is related to the economy now. During cleanup mode of let''s get anything that is bad out of the way now, let''s get a running start on a clean portfolio, and I think later this year you are going be into a more normal operating environment.

Mark Wamsman (Calyon): Are you facing any challenges in retaining your top sales personnel at the point?

Mike Jackson: I am happy to say that all our retention initiatives that we implemented years ago are performing well. Every year we have high retention and lower turnover and that is still the case even starting in 2008. Our training, development, retention program, they are all working well. We did lose talent in ''04, ''05, ''06 to the housing industry where it was easy to make a lot of money and now they are all coming back to the real world.

Mark Wamsman (Calyon): Is it fair to say that there are two independent but interrelated trends with the economic stress and gasoline prices while the economy might improve gasoline prices would continue to be a problem?

Mike Jackson: You will not know what the mix impact has been until the economic storm has passed and let''s say gas prices remain high but the overall economy is stabilized, credits available and you are in a more normal operating environment except for gasoline prices. My personal view, if I look at the stress at the moment I say 80% the overall economy and 20% gasoline prices. I can guarantee that when the economy improves and housing resumes pickup truck sales will come back. At $3 a gallon you begin to get a change in behavior around the price of gasoline. At $3.50, looking at the prospect of $4 that accelerates to full long-term implication of that.

Jonathan Steinmetz (Morgan Stanley): The Company specific stuff seems to have been covered. Are you seeing with the decline in the used values the full-size pickup and large SUV side, are you seeing it more difficult for consumers to trade in a significant way?

Mike Maroone: I do not have any specific statistics, but I will tell you it is a challenge in valuing that product and we have watched our inventories in that product and it is not easy to trade customers out of that if they do not have equity and there is a lot of negative equity out there. I do not know if there is a lot more than there has been in the past. Valuation is a challenge on those two segments.

Dan Galatin (Deutsche Bank): The F&I per units have been impressive. Is there a ceiling to those?

Mike Maroone: We still have some upside. I do not know that is dramatic upside. We continue to focus on our third and fourth quartile stores. There is still a decent bandwidth from our best to our worst stores. That is where our focus is going forward. The other piece is that these numbers reflect higher charge-backs than we have seen over the last several years, so they probably if anything kept the margin down. I do think there is upside based on our working in the quartiles and over time a lessening of charge-backs, not necessarily in the near term.

Dan Galatin (Deutsche Bank): Do you see much activity with people coming into the dealership looking for a new vehicle and ending up with a used?

Mike Maroone: That is always an opportunity and I believe that is happening. There are a lot of payment buyers. Mike Jackson referenced the value conscious price buyer. That is the person that is coming into our dealerships and I do think they are looking at all opportunities both new and used and in different vehicles.
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