Sonic Automotive Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Sonic Automotive EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.51
• Consensus EPS: $1.46
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.05
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Sonic Automotive Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.58 billion
• Expected Revenue: $3.61 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$26.48 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Sonic Automotive Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/12/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

Sonic Automotive (NYSE:SAH) is an automotive retailer headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company operates franchised dealerships that sell new and pre-owned vehicles from a range of automobile manufacturers, along with replacement parts, vehicle maintenance and repair services, financing, insurance products and other related offerings.

Sonic also operates EchoPark Automotive, a retail platform focused primarily on high-quality pre-owned vehicles. Through its dealership and EchoPark operations, the company provides vehicle purchasing, trade-in, financing and service options to consumers.

Founded in 1997, Sonic Automotive serves customers through locations across the United States. The company was established by automotive executive O. Bruton Smith, who also founded Speedway Motorsports. David Bruton Smith has served as Sonic Automotive’s chief executive officer.

Sonic Automotive Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Record Revenue Growth: Q4 consolidated revenues reached an all-time quarterly record up 9% year over year, while adjusted EBITDA increased 5%.
• Franchise Segment Strength: Franchise dealership revenues hit a record $3.4 billion (+12% yoy), driven by a 13% rise in new retail volume, with fixed operations and F&I gross profit also setting quarterly records.
• EchoPark Misses EBITDA Guidance: EchoPark reported Q4 adjusted EBITDA of $4.2 million, below guidance of $7–8 million due to inventory build-up and lower used vehicle GPU, though full-year segment profitability was achieved.
• Fixed Operations Talent Expansion: The company added 335 net technicians in 2024, exceeding its goal and laying the groundwork for strong parts and service growth in 2025.
• Strong Balance Sheet & Dividend: Sonic ended 2024 with $862 million in liquidity (excluding unencumbered real estate) and announced a $0.35 quarterly cash dividend, maintaining strategic flexibility for acquisitions.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning and welcome to the Sonic Automotive Fourth Quarter 2024 earnings conference call. This conference call is being recorded today, Wednesday, February 12th, 2025. Presentation materials, which accompany management's discussions on the conference call, can be accessed at the company's website at ir.sonicautomotive.com. At this time, I'd like to refer to the Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. During this conference call, management may discuss financial projections, information, or expectations about the company's products or market, or otherwise make statements about the future. Such statements are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made.

[Operator]

These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, management may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation tables in the company's current report on Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today. I'd now like to introduce Mr. David Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Automotive. Mr. Smith, you may begin your conference.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Sonic Automotive Fourth Quarter 2024 earnings call. As you mentioned, I'm David Smith, the company's Chairman and CEO. Joining me on today's call is our President, Jeff Dyke, our CFO, Heath Byrd, our EchoPark Chief Operating Officer, Tim Keen, and our Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Danny Wieland. We would like to open the call by sincerely thanking our amazing teammates for continuing to deliver a world-class guest experience for our customers. Our EchoPark Automotive teammates have once again earned the top spot as the number one pre-owned automotive dealer in guest satisfaction ranked by Reputation.com, and our Sonic Automotive franchise teammates set a second consecutive annual record in customer satisfaction scores.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

Our teammates are truly living our Sonic purpose to deliver an experience for our guests and our teammates that fulfills dreams, enriches lives, and delivers happiness. We believe our strong relationships with our teammates, our manufacturer and lending partners, and our guests are key to our future success, and as always, I would like to thank them all for their support and loyalty to the Sonic Automotive team. I would also like to welcome our newest Sonic teammates from our fourth quarter acquisition of the remaining 50% joint venture of North Point Volvo in Greater Atlanta. In addition to acquiring Audi New Orleans and Motorcycles of Charlotte and Greensboro, collectively, we expect these acquisitions to add approximately $145 million in annualized revenues to our business. We would also like to announce that we are back in the market and actively pursuing major acquisitions of new vehicle franchises in 2025.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

Turning now to our fourth quarter results, our GAAP EPS was $1.67 per share, and excluding the effect of certain items, as detailed in our press release this morning, adjusted EPS was $1.51 per share, a 7% decrease year-over-year. Fourth quarter consolidated total revenues were an all-time quarterly record, up 9% year-over-year, while consolidated gross profit grew 6% and consolidated adjusted EBITDA increased 5%. Moving now to our franchise dealership segment results. In the fourth quarter, we generated all-time record quarterly franchise revenues of $3.4 billion, up 12% year-over-year. This revenue growth was driven by a 13% increase in new retail volume, a 5% increase in used retail volume, and a 10% increase in fixed operations revenues. Our fixed operations gross profit and F&I gross profit also set all-time quarterly records, up 12% and 14% year-over-year, respectively.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

With the acceleration in new vehicle sales volume in the fourth quarter, new vehicle day supply decreased to 46 days, down from 57 days at the end of the third quarter. Same-store new vehicle GPU was $3,241, up sequentially from the third quarter due to our luxury brand mix and in line with our previous guidance to exit the year in the low $3,000 range. On the used vehicle side of the franchise business, while we grew volume by 5% year-over-year, supply constraints and consumer affordability remain a challenge. Our used inventory day supply was in our target range at 31 days, and used GPU was stable sequentially at $1,396 per unit on a same-store basis, approaching normalized GPU levels in this supply environment.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

Our F&I performance continues to be a strength, with same-store franchised F&I GPU of $2,427 in the fourth quarter, up 4% sequentially and year-over-year. The continued stability in F&I at these levels supports our view that F&I per unit will remain structurally higher than pre-pandemic levels, even in a challenging consumer affordability environment. Our parts and service, or fixed operations business, remains very strong, with a 12% increase in same-store fixed operations gross profit in the fourth quarter. This strong growth was driven in part by higher levels of warranty repairs, combined with the effects of our initiative to increase technician headcount by 300 net technicians during 2024.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

We are very excited to announce that we exceeded this challenging goal, adding 335 net technicians during 2024, which we expect to set the stage for strong fixed operations growth in 2025 as we continue to focus on technician hiring and retention. Turning now to our EchoPark segment, fourth quarter Adjusted EBITDA was $4.2 million, below our previous guidance for $7-$8 million in EchoPark Adjusted EBITDA. This shortfall was driven primarily by a $200 sequential decline in used GPU from the third quarter as a result of building inventory a little bit too quickly exiting the third quarter, which led to aging inventory and depreciation risk amidst a seasonal slowdown in used demand. In response, we have taken steps to right-size our inventory at EchoPark, heading into the first quarter, and expect for used GPU to improve sequentially.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

For the fourth quarter, we reported EchoPark revenues of $506 million, down 9% from the prior year, and fourth quarter record EchoPark gross profit of $49 million, up 14% from the prior year. EchoPark segment retail unit sales volume for the quarter was approximately 16,700 units, down 5% year-over-year. On a same-store, on a same-market basis, which excludes closed doors, EchoPark revenue was flat. Gross profit was up 29%, and retail unit sales volume increased 4% year-over-year. EchoPark segment total gross profit per unit was $3,004 per unit, up $606 per unit year-over-year, despite lower-than-expected front-end used GPU. EchoPark used vehicle day supply finished the fourth quarter at 38 days compared to 33 days at the end of the third quarter.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

Our unwavering confidence in EchoPark's long-term potential has allowed us to weather the challenges in the used vehicle market in recent years, and we believe our performance in 2024 demonstrates the tremendous opportunity for this brand. Full year 2024 Adjusted EBITDA was $27.6 million, up from a loss of $83 million in 2023, and the EchoPark segment achieved profitability on a pre-tax basis in 2024. We believe these results validate the strategic adjustments we made over the past several quarters, and we look forward to resuming disciplined long-term growth for EchoPark as used vehicle market conditions continue to improve over the next several quarters. Turning now to our Powersports segment, for the fourth quarter, we generated revenues of $30.6 million, gross profit of $7.5 million, and a segment-Adjusted EBITDA loss of $1 million, which was in line with our expectations for a seasonally lighter fourth quarter.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

We continue to focus on identifying operational synergies within our current Powersports network while fine-tuning our operating playbooks. While we are taking a disciplined approach to expansion in this segment, we remain optimistic about the future growth opportunities in this adjacent retail sector when the time is right. Finally, turning to our balance sheet, we ended the year with $862 million in available liquidity, excluding unencumbered real estate, including $384 million in combined cash and floor plan deposits on hand. We continue to maintain a conservative balance sheet approach with the ability to deploy capital strategically as the market evolves. Additionally, I'm pleased to report today that our board of directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.35 per share, payable on April 15th, 2025, to all stockholders of record on March 14th, 2025.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

As you can see in the investor presentation we released this morning, we have once again provided certain limited financial guidance for 2025. Note that there are many variables that may affect our business in 2025, including the impact of potential tariffs, shifts in electric vehicle production and demand, and changes in the interest rate environment and consumer affordability, among others. In closing, our team remains focused on near-term execution and adapting to ongoing changes in the automotive retail environment and macroeconomic backdrop while making strategic decisions to maximize long-term returns. Furthermore, we continue to believe that our diversified business model provides significant earnings growth opportunities in our EchoPark and Powersports segments that may help to offset any industry-driven margin headwinds we may face in the franchise business.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

And as I mentioned earlier, we look forward to announcing some major new vehicle franchise acquisitions in 2025. We remain confident that we have the right strategy, the right people, and the right culture to continue to grow our business and create long-term value for our stakeholders. This concludes our opening remarks, and we look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. We're now conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to be placed in the question queue, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it will be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing star one. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question today is coming from John Murphy from Bank of America. Your line is now live.

[John Murphy, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Good morning, guys. David.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

Hey, John.

[John Murphy, Managing Director at Bank of America]

How are you doing? Just a first question on the acceleration in M&A. Lithia just mentioned that they thought multiples were a little bit high, valuations were a little bit high, so they were slowing down. We hear that from some folks. But like you, we hear some folks that are kind of leaning into this. So I'm just curious what you're seeing in the market, what you think of valuations, and there's many ways to play the game and regions and strategies to go after. So I'm just curious what you're seeing that might be somewhat different and what really the target is for your acquisitions.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Yeah, this is Jeff. David, you want to start?

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

Oh, go ahead.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

This is Jeff. At the end of the day, our background and our strength sits in luxury. We're seeing a lot of opportunities on the luxury side across the country. Multiples have actually gotten better from our perspective, not worse. We're seeing more deals come across. I've been with Sonic for 20 years. We're seeing more deals come across our desk now than we ever have. And we're in a great position. We're green to buy in just about every single manufacturer that we have, certainly across all the luxury import lines. And so we're set up for that. We've got a great balance sheet. We've been saving our dollars. We've got the liquidity to go out and do this without adding debt to our balance sheet. And so it's a great opportunity for us. We're ready for that. Our team's ready for that.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

We don't have to add any overhead. So it's just immediate addition of EBITDA and the lowering of your SG&A. And it's the right thing to do for us at this moment. We've got a lot of deals in the hopper and would expect us to be announcing deals here in the coming month or two.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

Yeah, and this is David. I just would mention just to piggyback on Jeff's comments about our teammates and the record customer satisfaction scores that I mentioned earlier have allowed us to have some opportunities on the table that our competitors don't have. So it creates a strategic advantage for us to have that performance. So we really appreciate our team's efforts there.

[John Murphy, Managing Director at Bank of America]

I'm sorry, just to follow up, other than luxury, is there a specific sort of region or strategy that you're going after? Size and scale, large dealerships, smaller dealerships? I mean, or is it sort of all comers on the luxury side?

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

I mean, I would tell you, it's Jeff again. I would tell you luxury and import. And there might be a domestic deal here or there. But from California, from sea to shining sea, there are deals across all markets on the East Coast, Alabama, Florida, California, Texas. We're looking at multiple deals, have multiple deals in the hopper in each of our big markets. And it rounds out where we might not have a luxury brand in a particular market, allows us sort of round out our package for that market for our consumers. So there's a lot of opportunity out there, John, and we're going to take advantage of that here in 2025.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

And we particularly love growth markets. And when we're taking a look at some markets we've looked at recently, are not in growth areas, and we decided to pass on some deals there. But so it's something to keep in mind. And Jeff is from Texas, so he always tries to bring us some deals from Texas.

[John Murphy, Managing Director at Bank of America]

There's nothing wrong with Texas. On new GPUs, which is the hottest topic of when they're going to normalize and where they're going, I appreciate the outlook that you gave in the slide deck. But maybe could you give us sort of some color of how big a weight or drag EVs have been on GPUs? And hopefully, as we get through clearing out some of that inventory here and you don't get restocked or restuffed, to put it politely, with more EVs, what kind of relief that can create on new GPUs?

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

First of all, sure as hell hope that's the case. We don't want to get restuffed with all the EVs. You're exactly right. They need to do a much better job of managing their day supply across the board. Now, day supplies came down in the fourth quarter. It's because volumes went way up. Let's see what happens in the first two quarters of this year, and particularly against the domestics. I think it's about a $400 drag for us. That needs to go away. That will heavily offset the reduction in new GPU. It's really, I mean, a big drag on the West Coast, and in particular on the luxury brands. We got to do a better job as an industry.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

The manufacturers got to do a better job of managing their electric vehicle output along with what the consumer is willing to buy. That's something that's just really incredibly important. It's going to become even more important as we go through this year. Hopefully, the new government and their focus will give us a little relief there.

[Danny Wieland, VP of Investor Relations at Sonic Automotive]

John, this is Danny. One more point on that. That's part of that wide range, the $2,500-$3,000 of new GPU we guided to for 2025 is the variability in the EV. The good news is that we finished Q4 with about 10% of our inventory mix being electric vehicles on 11% sales. Again, we're a little higher sales penetration than the industry because of the luxury and California exposure. But that was down from 14% of our inventory mix at electric vehicles at the end of the third quarter. So while we didn't get the benefit of an improving headwind in EV GPU, we've at least right-sized and aligned the inventory levels as of now or as of the end of the year with what our sales rate is. So that's a big step in the right direction.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

And don't forget, the manufacturers are heavily incentivizing EVs right now. So you probably have a little false positive in terms of the amount of volume that we're doing in the country right now.

[John Murphy, Managing Director at Bank of America]

I think you're being polite calling a false positive there.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Murphy, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Just real quick, lastly, on EchoPark, things are turning the corner here. What are the KPIs or the things that you need to see internally and potentially externally to turn the tap back on for store openings? Just want to understand where that goes.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Yeah. So I'll let Tim talk a little bit here in a second. But look, we want to get through this year. I think it's really important to watch affordability continue to drop. We're buying cars in the auction lanes in the $23,000-$23,500 range. We're buying more of a percentage of our cars off the street. We're testing some things to see if we can buy even more off the street. And as prices come down and affordability comes back, we're going to start opening stores. It is our intention to begin opening stores first quarter, second quarter of 2026. That's how things are going right now. Should that get better from an affordability perspective, maybe we could pull that up a little bit. As you know, we already own real estate. We already have facilities.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

So it's not going to be that big of a deal for us to go out and start opening stores. It is a big deal, though, to wait and make sure we're very mature on how and when we open those based on what's going on in the marketplace. And we got a little bit out of hand in the third quarter with the level of inventory that we had going into the fourth quarter. Our system did what it's supposed to do. It right-sized things. Cost us $200 a copy. Or we would have been in the 7-8 million range in EBITDA. So we've got that all corrected, and margins have returned to normal here in the first quarter. Tim, anything you'd add to that?

[Tim Keen, COO of EchoPark Automotive at Sonic Automotive]

No. I mean, certainly, we had to make the adjustment in the fourth quarter. We know what it cost us, but we're going to benefit from that in the first quarter because our inventories were right-sized going into the first quarter.

[Heath Byrd, CFO at Sonic Automotive]

And John, just to add, the external factors are obvious that we've all been talking about. The used car supply is going to hit the bottom, in theory, in 2025. So we think the second half of 2025 and going into 2026, we'll be back on the upswing. And that'll set us up perfect for expansion of EchoPark.

[John Murphy, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Totally.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

I mean, John, we opened a store in Houston. We closed a smaller store and opened a bigger store in Stafford and Houston, Texas, and it just shot out of the gates. It had a great opening. It's just rolling this month. It should do 350-400 cars and maybe close to 400, which would put it in there as our second or third largest store automatically, so big markets, the big store, all that's working as we had hoped for. Just want to see the pricing continue to drop a little bit here. Lease returns come back. Those things, it's all going to help and benefit EchoPark. If the manufacturers continue to not be able to help themselves on the new car day supply, EchoPark's just going to win and win in a big way.

[John Murphy, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Thank you very much, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question is coming from Rajat Gupta from JPMorgan. Your line is now live.

[Rajat Gupta, VP at JPMorgan]

Hey, thanks for taking the question. Just a quick follow-up on EchoPark for the fourth quarter. And I appreciate the comments around the inventory, some liquidation happening there, hurting the grosses. But I was surprised to see volumes not do better. I mean, some of your peers like CarMax, Carvana, just more independent used car dealers have put up pretty good numbers for November, December. I'm curious why we did not see that strength at EchoPark. Was it just due to just lack of younger car supply? Anything else that you can point to? And I have a quick follow-up. Thanks.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

I mean, look, on a same-store basis, we grew at 4% or 5%, somewhere in that ballpark, kind of right along with where our franchise stores were. Look, I think there's an opportunity for us to grow more than that, Rajat. The overaged inventory took a little bit of focus from us. There's some marketing things that we could have done a little bit differently. And I think you'll see that happen in the first quarter. Wasn't a bad fourth quarter.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

We projected at the beginning of the year that first and third would be very similar and second and fourth would be very similar from a volume perspective. They were. So we'll see. It wasn't a bad quarter, but at the end of the day, that aged inventory or the potential for aging inventory, which is what we had, caused a little bit of a slowdown for us. We focused on that, got that cleaned up. As we said a minute ago, as Tim said, we're rolling in the first quarter and should be a really nice first quarter.

[Rajat Gupta, VP at JPMorgan]

Got it. Got it. No, that's helpful clarification. And then just to follow up on parts and services, you've done a great job increasing technician count to 2024. I would have expected you'd get the full benefit of that in 2025, at least the hiring that took place in the second half of 2024. Looks like you're going to add more technicians again in 2025. You have some easy comparisons from CDK in Q2, Q3. I was curious, is the mid-single-digit growth guide just some conservatism on your part? I would have expected that to be much higher just given all these dynamics around technicians and just CDK comps. Thanks.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

I'm not going to give you everything right off the bat there, Rajat. I mean, yeah. Look, at the end of the day, mid-single digits is kind of what we're guiding to. But there's upside. There's no question when you look at the number of technicians that we've hired. We're very excited about that. Got to keep them all, but we've got plans in place to do that. And as you can see, that's really paying off. The kind of growth that we saw in the fourth quarter, we had an amazing January in fixed operations.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

If that carries through, what you just said is going to be accurate, and we're going to have a little better fixed year than probably what we're projecting. But it does get tougher as the year goes on. So it'll get tougher in the fourth quarter because we were a little bit at full strength in the fourth quarter of 2024. But first quarter, second quarter, maybe first half of third quarter, you should see some really nice growth from a fixed operations perspective.

[Heath Byrd, CFO at Sonic Automotive]

And Rajat, this is Heath. I just want to add that we do believe we're going to get $100 million in annualized fixed operations gross profit from those technicians. But they're not all going to be up to the level. It's going to take through the year. So you should see that getting better and better, helping offset some of the difficulties in the third and fourth quarter from a comp perspective. But that $100 million is a number once they're fully mature and in place.

[Rajat Gupta, VP at JPMorgan]

Got it. Got it. That's helpful. Thank you and good luck.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question is coming from Bret Jordan from Jefferies. Your line is now live.

[Bret Jordan, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Hey, good morning, guys.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Good morning.

[Bret Jordan, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Good morning. Did you talk about, I guess, the Powersports segment and sort of what you see as the plan there? I mean, how big could it be? And given how tough the cycle is in that space right now, is now a good time to be buying there? Wouldn't you be piling it on here because they would be cheaper, or is that not really the case?

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Now that we're kind of dipping our toe in the water, people think their deals are worth more. So I think that one of the things that's important to us is to get really good at what we're doing. And our team is maturing around that. And I really would like to see another quarter or two of great playbook execution, or even this year, of great playbook execution. We've got a chart of accounts now. These are really wild, wild west stores that are doing things a million different ways. And to bring them in under the umbrella and get them all operating in the same direction is a bit of a lift. But we're learning how to do that and do that better. We made a small acquisition in the fourth quarter. Probably some opportunities. We got an add point in Sturgis.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

We got a Harley-Davidson add point in Sturgis for the show this year, which is going to be great. That's going to add some extra revenue for us. Typically, we're doing 5,600 motorcycles during that Sturgis rally, and that's going to go up significantly for this year. We'll see. We're hopeful that the demand we think the demand's greater. We hope. We're hopeful that we can grow this business. But we're being very cautious and not getting in over our heads and being very prudent with the dollars that we have to spend on acquisitions.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

Yeah, and today it is important to keep in mind that our list of priorities, right? We've got our core business, our franchise business, and our EchoPark business. And the focus and dollars that it takes to grow those is a big one where we've gotten into Powersports, which we think there's a great opportunity there, but we don't want anybody to think we're getting distracted with something else.

[Bret Jordan, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Okay. And then a question on EchoPark. I mean, the inventory mix is this year is a trough year in lease returns. Do you need to take the average age of the vehicle mix up this year just to have available supply? And I guess could you talk about sort of how much is being sourced internally? You talked about more direct buy versus picking up those $23,000 cars at auction. Where do you see EchoPark's average vehicle being this year?

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Yeah. So we've moved from about 12% of our overall mix to 20-plus% of our overall mix, which is great. And Tim, you want to add into that?

[Tim Keen, COO of EchoPark Automotive at Sonic Automotive]

Yeah. I mean, I think the average in 2025 is going to continue to get better as the year goes on. But I think it's going to fall in that 24,000 range. We'd like to see it go lower. We don't know what the post-COVID normal looked like. We know it was 21 at our peak. So somewhere between 21 and 24 is a sweet spot, and that's where we're looking for it to go.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

I don't think we have to change our mix in terms of year age, though. We did that in 2023 and 2024, but I don't think we need to do that in 2025. We've got enough. There's plenty of inventory out there to support 17 stores that we have. That's not an issue as we proved that at the end of the third quarter by having too much inventory and being a little bit aggressive there. So we're not really concerned about being able to buy and handle and support, in particular, in the zero to one or one to five-year-old category throughout this year. And that's only going to get better as affordability gets better. Lease returns start to come back next year. All these things really play into our hand as we move forward.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

If we're patient, and that's the thing, I just think if you look at 2025 at EchoPark, it's very similar to 2024 with operational improvements in stores that weren't making money. We're going to make a little more money. I think we got it to 30-33, somewhere in that ballpark in EBITDA. Do a little more volume, continue to execute really well, and really prep ourselves for beginning to open stores in 2026.

[Bret Jordan, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Okay. Great. Thank you.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

You bet.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question is coming from Jeff Lick from Stephens. Your line is now live.

[Jeff Lick, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

Good morning. Thanks for taking our question. I wanted to ask a question that maybe kind of bridges or brings together your franchise business and EchoPark. First part is I was wondering how much of the Q4, Q5 franchise, the new business, do you think was due to kind of pent-up demand from 2Q and 3Q? Just curious how sustainable do you think that's going through? And then as it relates to EchoPark, I mean, I guess I was a little surprised to hear you could have too much inventory given availability and affordability was an issue.

[Jeff Lick, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

And as I guess if I look at 4Q for the new business, the new environment, it seems like this was the first quarter where availability and affordability might have been a little better. So I'm just wondering if there's maybe some relationship there where there's some substitutes. So, just if you could comment on how unique do you think 4Q was and what that means for 2025 on the new side, then just the relationship as it relates to EchoPark.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Probably some pent-up demand on BMW from the stop sales coming out of Q3 going into Q4. We always have big Q4s. I mean, just because of our luxury mix, and it all comes down to December, and then it all comes down to the last 10 days of December, and we just go berserk. I don't know if I would draw a correlation between that and what's going on on the EchoPark side. It's a different mix. A lot of trades. We mostly sell trades on the franchise side. We're buying cars, some off the street, like 20% of our overall mix, mostly from the auction, 80% of the mix. I don't think there's a correlation there. The correlation is as new car inventory day supply increases, which it's doing. Prices come down, which we're seeing on Nissan.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

We're seeing it on Stellantis, two brands that have just been unable to manage their inventory. And we can buy those vehicles back now, pre-COVID type pricing. But there's still further to go. Affordability needs to come back down. But there's plenty of inventory. Like I said, I probably couldn't go out and buy enough inventory to supply 50 or 60 stores right now, but we can darn well do it for 17-25 stores. That's something that's in our bailiwick. And we want to just watch what happens here over the next six to nine to 12 months before we pull the trigger and open our first location for EchoPark.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

This is David. I also think that being an election year, I think, played into people making decisions about their transportation.

[Jeff Lick, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

Great. And then maybe just a quick follow-up given the whole senior team on one of the things that's fascinating is when you if you put a blindfold on people and didn't give everyone the ticker symbols and just showed the results, your results look as good or better than some of the other public peers. And a lot of times that is the case throughout the years. But you seem to always trade at a little bit of a discounted multiple. I'm curious how you guys think about that. What do you think maybe you could do to close that gap? Because it seems like it's just maybe at this point an unwarranted gap.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Yeah, well, I think. Go ahead.

[David Smith, Chairman and CEO at Sonic Automotive]

I was going to say, well, you certainly have written a nice report on us, so we appreciate the confidence.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

I mean, you scratch your head, right? I mean, if you look at the performance numbers, and I know EchoPark plays a big weight in everybody's thought process, but when you look at the mothership and our new business, I mean, we had a strong fourth quarter, and we continue to have strong quarters. The new volume increase year-over-year, our pre-owned increase year-over-year sort of leads the segments, and fixed operations certainly does. It was a great fourth quarter. We scratch our heads all the time saying, "What the heck are we missing that the street sees?" We're just going to keep plugging away, keep executing at a really high level.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

We have never been better at our CSI, our customer satisfaction scores. We have never been more green. We're so green, you can see us from the moon, I've heard, in terms of our KPIs with our manufacturers. We are agreeing to go out and buy dealerships. We're going to do that. We're in so many good positions for really the first time in this company's history. We're just sitting in a great seat, and look, our stock price has grown. There's no question. We had a great year of growth in our stock price, of one of the best, I think, out there, and we expect it to continue to grow, and we expect everybody else to catch on at some point in time to see exactly what you just said because that's what we see too.

[Heath Byrd, CFO at Sonic Automotive]

Jeff, I'll just add one more point on it. Jeff, you know this as well as anybody is obviously from a technical standpoint, the float is going to impact some investors. So I think that plays in a lot to how our stock trades as well.

[Jeff Lick, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

Great. Well, listen, just keep chopping wood and controlling what you can control. Best of luck in 2025.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

You know that's exactly what we say every day. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, that's star one to be placed into the question queue. Our next question is coming from Chris Pierce from Needham & Company. Your line is now live.

[Chris Pierce, Senior Research Analyst at Needham & Company]

Hey, good morning, everyone.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Hey, Chris.

[Chris Pierce, Senior Research Analyst at Needham & Company]

On the aged inventory you cite at EchoPark, is it across the board, or is that you kind of bit off more you can chew at some of your newer stores, and that's kind of where you had to cut bait?

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

It's a little bit of both, but mainly driven from my perspective, kind of overforecasting the demand in the third quarter that fell a little short at the end and carrying that into the fourth quarter, and that's having to make the adjustment to make up in the first quarter the way we wanted.

[Chris Pierce, Senior Research Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay. Okay. And then what would you say in your oldest markets like Denver, are you seeing anything? I think it was referred to earlier, the third-party data on Carvana and CarMax as they grow units. Are you seeing anything in your older markets that's of concern or it's business as usual? How would you frame that in your older markets?

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

No. I mean, especially Denver, we're still number one. Some other Carvana's of the world have made some progress, but they're taking it from people other than us.

[Danny Wieland, VP of Investor Relations at Sonic Automotive]

Yeah. Our oldest markets are real, real stable. And that Denver market, we're the largest pre-owned dealer in the state, I think. And it's wildly profitable. And that's the rinse and repeat that we're looking for.

[Chris Pierce, Senior Research Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay. And just lastly, how would you frame? I just want to get a sense of if you look at EchoPark SG&A, it's up about $5 million versus the second quarter. But units were the same versus the second quarter. What's kind of going on under the hood as far as staffing that's driving the increased SG&A? And how should we think about that in 2025?

[Danny Wieland, VP of Investor Relations at Sonic Automotive]

I think we're up about $2 million. This is Danny. We're up about $2 million from the second quarter.

[Chris Pierce, Senior Research Analyst at Needham & Company]

From 3Q, yes.

[Danny Wieland, VP of Investor Relations at Sonic Automotive]

And down a little bit versus the third quarter sequentially on an adjusted basis. So there was some noise related to gains on property sales in prior periods too. So you got to look at the adjusted numbers when you're looking at that trend. And I think that may be the delta.

[Chris Pierce, Senior Research Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay. Perfect. Thanks, everyone.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Thank you.

[Danny Wieland, VP of Investor Relations at Sonic Automotive]

Really, maybe just to close out that thought, Chris, the SG&A to gross ratio, that expansion up into the 85.5% range in the fourth quarter is primarily driven by the $200 headwind on the front-end gross, less about the expense side, more about the lost gross.

[Jeff Lick, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

Exactly.

[Operator]

Thank you. We've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further closing comments.

[Jeff Dyke, President at Sonic Automotive]

Great. Thank you very much, everyone. And we will talk to you next quarter.

[Danny Wieland, VP of Investor Relations at Sonic Automotive]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.

Participants

Executives

• Heath Byrd, CFO
• Jeff Dyke, President
• Danny Wieland, VP of Investor Relations
• Tim Keen, COO of EchoPark Automotive
• David Smith, Chairman and CEO

Analysts

• Rajat Gupta, VP at JPMorgan
• Jeff Lick, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens
• John Murphy, Managing Director at Bank of America
• Bret Jordan, Managing Director at Jefferies
• Chris Pierce, Senior Research Analyst at Needham & Company