Good morning. My name is Colin, I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the AutoCanada Q4 2022 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there'll be a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question at that time, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. I would like to remind everyone that certain statements in this presentation and on our call are forward-looking in nature, including, among other things, a future performance. These include statements involving known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors outside of management's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statement.
AutoCanada does not assume any responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of the forward-looking statements and does not undertake any obligation to publicly advise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. For additional information about possible risks, please refer to our AIF, which is available on SEDAR and on our website within the investor documentation and filing section. I would now like to turn the call over to Casey Charleson, Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's Q4 results conference call. For today's call, I'm joined by Paul Antony, our Executive Chair, and Peter Hong, our Chief Strategy Officer. We released our Q 4 results after the market closed yesterday. A copy of our results is available for download on our website. For today's call, we will be discussing the current state of the business, discussing the financial results, and providing an update on both our Canadian and U.S. segments. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Paul.
Thanks a lot, Casey. Good morning, everyone. AutoCanada delivered a strong finish to the year with our highest-ever Q4 revenue figure of CAD 1.4 billion. This reflects an unwavering focus on our strategy objectives, not only in the quarter but over the full year. I'm very proud of the results this team has achieved in support of our complete business model, particularly in F&I, parts, service, and collision repair business operations. Contribution from acquisitions also supported our performance and have exceeded expectations. This record revenue performance was underpinned by several important highlights in the quarter, which include total retail vehicles sold increased by 12%, with used retail vehicles sold increasing by 21%. This more than offset a decline in new retail vehicle sales of 1%, which is important as we continue to navigate unpredictable new vehicle supply.
We also saw strong unit and profitability growth in both our Canadian and US segments, both of which I'm going to come back to. Same-store performance was also strong across the board with the exception of new vehicles. This includes a same-store used retail vehicle increase of 7.6%, a same-store F&I gross profit per retail unit increase of 16%, reaching $3,844 in the quarter, which is a record which even stated in US dollars far outpaces our peers. A same-store F&I gross profit increase of 15.8%, a same-store parts, service, collision, and repair gross profit increase of 7%, and a same-store gross profit margin increase to 57.7% as compared to 56% just a year ago.
All of these improving operating metrics support our confidence that fundamentally, our business model continues to perform and remains inherently durable. Despite this strong performance, however, continued fluctuations in used vehicle pricing led us to take an incremental write-down provision of CAD 12.4 million in the quarter. I'm going to come back to this later. We do believe this properly positions us heading into the spring selling season. Unfortunately, we're also impacted by rising interest rates, which, while anticipated heading into the quarter, resulted in increased floor plan costs of CAD 13.3 million year-over-year. These two hits to profitability impacted what was otherwise a historic quarter for AutoCanada and led to adjusted EBITDA coming in at CAD 50.7 million compared to CAD 65.9 million last year.
The story was much the same on margin, with adjusted EBITDA margins in the quarter of 3.6% compared to 5.5% in the prior year. As outlined last quarter, we're also actively looking for cost opportunities in the business and continue to be focused on moving in line with our peers to an effective OPEX level as a percentage of growth. These efforts continue. Our recent acquisitions are also not yet at full run rate, and we expect to further reduce expenses as a percentage of growth with ongoing integration work. While we remain disciplined in our approach to capital allocation and cost. We'll also continue to be opportunistic with M&A, as evidenced with the recent acquisitions of Kavia Auto Body, Excellence Auto, Sterling Honda, and DCC Hail.
We're pleased to have added a fourth Honda dealership as part of our objective of increasing our presence in Ontario and further expanding our dealership network and our national collision center footprint across Canada. Consolidated performance aside, let me also spend a few minutes on performance in our Canadian and U.S. geographies. Our Canadian operations delivered strong growth in Q4. Our used segment, which has remained a priority given our new car supply constraints, saw continued strength as used retail units were up 20% over the prior year. The ratio of used to new retail units also increased to 1.64 from 1.45 in the quarter, and to 1.67 from 1.43 over the last 12 months.
I'll come back to this point in my remarks at the end of the call. F&I gross profit increased by CAD 14 million or 28% to CAD 66 million. Parts, service, and collision repair gross profit increased by 23% to CAD 82 million, continuing a trend of growth driven by our collision shop acquisition strategy and the need to service customers' vehicles, the average age of which has increased due to lack of new vehicle production in recent years. AutoCanada's adjusted EBITDA of CAD 46 million decreased by 17% from the prior year, adjusted EBITDA of CAD 55 million. These results included the incremental used vehicle write-down provision of CAD 9 million.
Notably, adjusted EBITDA on a full year basis was $232 million compared to $220 million in the prior period, despite the headwinds from rates and the inventory write-down. The U.S. has also shown continued success with total retail unit sales increasing 2%, this includes our increase in used retail vehicles sold up 26% over the prior year. This also drove an increase in used to new from 2.76 to 1.46. F&I gross profit increased by $3 million or 22% to $15 million. Parts, service, and collision repair gross profit increased by 49% to $14 million. We reported Q4 U.S. adjusted EBITDA of $5 million, that's a decrease of $5.7 million over the prior year.
These results include an incremental used vehicle write-down provision of CAD 3 million and the impact of increased floor plan costs. We've seen a significant transformation in the U.S. business over the past year. Trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA is now CAD 33 million. That compares to a loss in 2019, a break-even in 2020, and it's an increase in 2021. The U.S. team, led by Jim Douvas, continues to perform. Two last points on the market before I turn it over to Casey. First, the used vehicle market. The market's experiencing continued volatility, which has led to margin compression across the industry. While recent data suggests some positive news on inflation, interest rates, and the risk of recession, I've never found uncertainty helpful in this industry, and this time is no different.
However, as I've stated for the last several quarters, our business model is designed to meet the customer where they are in all markets, and our strength in used and F&I, for example, demonstrates this. With regard to the write-down we've taken in Q4, this is not unlike the CAD 10 million incremental charge we took in Q2 on our Canadian used vehicle inventory, which allowed us to address mark-to-market issues on older inventory and drive retail sales in Q3, enabling us to generate parts and service work and further utilize our best-in-class F&I department. Going forward, we've implemented additional procedures over our used vehicle inventory to reflect the current market environment coming out of the pandemic, which will allow us to proactively address changes in used vehicle pricing.
The used vehicle write-down charge we have taken in Q4, combined with these efforts, sets us up well for 2023. We're also mindful of the impact that interest rate hikes have on inventory carrying costs and are working to right-size our inventory in order to minimize costs while maximizing sales. Accordingly, current inventory levels are at approximately three months supply. Second, the new vehicle market. While the OEMs still have a ways to go, we now have approximately three months supply in stock as production slowly returns based on recent sales pacing. For comparison, a year ago, this was two months supply. As always, we continue to work closely with our OEM partners to source inventory for our dealerships. Our employees in Canada and the US have once again delivered excellent performance, and we can't thank them enough for their efforts, which are driving our results.
Thanks so much to our whole team, our OEM partners, and our customers. I'm gonna come back to more to speak about our outlook and strategy in my concluding remarks. For now, I'll turn it over to Casey.
Thanks, Paul. At the consolidated level, revenue came in at CAD 1.4 billion, an increase of CAD 192 million or 16%. Gross profit came in at CAD 242.6 million, an increase of CAD 14.1 million or 6%. Net income was CAD 14.8 million, versus CAD 69.4 million in the prior year. The decrease in net income is primarily driven by non-cash items, including the change in the recovery of non-financial assets and the unrealized fair value gain on embedded derivative in the prior year, which are listed in Section 4 of our MD&A. Adjusted EBITDA came in at CAD 50.7 million, which was a decrease of CAD 15.2 million, 23% behind adjusted EBITDA in the prior year.
In our Canadian operations, total retail vehicles sold came in at 18,801, an increase of 2,354 units or 14%. The Canadian operations generated revenue of CAD 1.2 billion, an increase of 17% versus the prior year. Gross profit was CAD 208.3 million, an increase of 10%. Net income was CAD 15 million versus net income of CAD 62.3 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 45.7 million, a decrease of CAD 9.5 million or 17% behind adjusted EBITDA in the prior year. New vehicle gross profit increased by CAD 3.8 million, and new vehicle gross profit percentage decreased by 0.4 percentage points to 9.2%.
Used vehicle revenue increased by 17%, while used vehicle gross profit decreased by 42.4%. The increased volume of used vehicles sold drove our back-end grosses, enhancing our overall profitability. In our US operations, revenue was $215 million, an increase from Q4 2021 of 9%. Gross profit was $34.3 million, a decrease of 12%. Net loss was $0.2 million, a decrease of $7.4 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $5 million, a decrease of $5.7 million from adjusted EBITDA in the prior year. New vehicle gross profit decreased by $6.2 million, and new vehicle gross profit percentage decreased by 4.9 percentage points to 11.9%. Used vehicle revenue increased by 33%, while used vehicle gross profit decreased by 147%.
As much as in Canada, the increased volume of used vehicles sold drove our back-end grosses, enhancing our overall profitability. The number of used retail vehicles sold increased by 26% to 2,729 units. Two other items I'll speak to here. We were pleased to recently announce the amendment to our credit facility, increasing the revolving credit, the revolving facility from CAD 275 million to CAD 375 million. We also maintained a three-year tenure by extending the maturity date to April 15th, 2026. In December of 2022, we had exercised a CAD 50 million accordion to increase the revolver from CAD 225 million to CAD 275 million.
The amended facility also increases the wholesale floor plan financing facility from CAD 1.06 billion to CAD 1.22 billion and maintains a CAD 15 million wholesale leasing facility, for total aggregate bank facilities of CAD 1.6 billion. These amendments to our credit facility provide additional flexibility, allowing us to execute on our growth strategies and maintain our balanced approach to capital allocation. Coinciding with the facility amendment and upsizing, S&P, our rating agency, issued an update on our issuer rating, affirming our B+ rating. In the Q4, we completed a substantial issuer bid, purchasing and canceling 1.85 million shares for an aggregate purchase price of CAD 50 million, which represents approximately 7% of the total issued and outstanding shares of the company before giving effect to the SIB.
For the year ended December 31, 2022, a total of 4.7 million common shares were purchased and canceled for total consideration of CAD 139 million, representing approximately 17% of our shares outstanding at the start of 2022. I'll now turn the call back over to Paul to discuss our outlook and strategy.
Thanks, Casey. Our results continue to demonstrate the ongoing strengths of our business model. We remain well-positioned to execute on our strategic pillars to deliver industry-leading performance and enhance shareholder returns. The fundamentals of our business remain strong. Our complete business model continues to perform. It is worth reiterating what I've said here in the past. This team has been battle-tested over the last four years. We have learnings to ensure that we continue to manage the coming quarters appropriately. We have also recruited seasoned operators who have spent careers navigating complex and changing markets. It's with that in mind that I'd like to share some perspective on a metric we've consistently focused on since the start, namely the used-to-new ratio.
This metric, as you recall, was originally a focus of our Go Forward Plan, where among the highest priorities was a goal to move AutoCanada beyond a traditional focus of new vehicle sales toward a variety of complementary sources of revenue across the customer life cycle, positioning the business for resiliency and growth as markets evolve. One of those priorities was used vehicles, a focus which has been instrumental in driving our success through the pandemic and chip shortage. Our chosen metric to measure ourselves, as you know, was the used-to-new ratio, which was 0.66 to 1 in 2018 on an annual basis in Canada. That's when this management team arrived.
We believed a 1-to-1 ratio was more appropriate at that time, and through a focus on this initiative, achieved 0.78 to 1 in 2019, and 0.95 to 1 in 2020. That metric today stands at 1.67 to 1 for the year. While we want our franchise dealers focused on selling both used and new, we also see our continued success within the used market outside of franchise dealers, including RightRide, as an indication that the upside for this metric is fundamentally unconstrained, unlike our volumes of allocation for new cars at our new car stores.
I'll come back to these themes in the coming quarters, but would encourage those following our business to increasingly view used and new as less correlated than they have been in the past in a way that makes me incredibly excited about our future, not only as a result of our ability to sell more used vehicles, but for the F&I service and repair revenue that this brings to the AutoCanada ecosystem. Against the backdrop of our well-performing business model and free cash flow generation, we will also continue to evaluate our capital allocation priorities and remain disciplined in the management of our balance sheet and debt levels. In addition to share buybacks, which Casey highlighted, this includes opportunistic M&A.
As of Q4 2022, we have completed CAD 366 million of acquisitions over the past two years and CAD 179 million in 2022 alone. The current M&A pipeline we have underway remains strong. We're well positioned to continue to execute in the coming quarters with a number of dealerships and collision centers representing an excess of CAD 395 million in annual revenue being evaluated currently. We expect to remain disciplined in our approach here, as we have over the past few years, and in particular, given the broader macro questions. That said, we also think this type of market will lead sellers who may have been reluctant in the last few years or where we couldn't make the math work to come to the table.
We may also have an opportunity in this market environment to pursue strategic assets which may have been unavailable or unattainable in a different climate. Finally, we're pleased to welcome our new CFO, Azim Lalani, who officially joins us later this month. Azim has extensive financial experience and has held senior management roles in several public and private real estate and operating companies with responsibility for financial reporting, treasury, corporate finance, taxation, investor relations, and risk management. His expertise and proven track record make him a valuable addition to our team as we continue to optimize our platform and pursue our strategic objectives. I remain incredibly excited about what the future holds for AutoCanada and the opportunity to drive value for our shareholders and stakeholders through our many growth opportunities. Now I'll turn it over to the operator for any questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1. Your first question comes from Tamy Chen from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for the question. Paul, just wanted to go back to the used vehicle side. I'm trying to understand the composition of your used inventory now, because when I look on a days supply, it is high versus historical and versus U.S. peers. It begs the question of could there be more provisions. Could you talk a bit about your inventory now, whether it's by age or price point, what does that look like versus what consumers want with respect to used vehicles?
There's a lot to unpack there, Tammy, so thanks for the question. I'll say, let me take a step back, because I think a lot of people are gonna be asking questions about used vehicle inventory and pricing and write-downs. I'll try and be as thorough as I can. When we first got here, as we said, it was a real priority for us to increase that used-to-new and really get the numbers up, selling more used cars so we can untether from the constraint that we had on new car sales. In doing that, and in our drive to 1.67 used cars for every new car we sell, there was a lot of wood to chop, and frankly, there were a lot of learnings.
I would say one of the learnings that we have since Jeff and his management team have been here is that it took us 42 days, roughly, to get a car from in the door to available for sale to the front line. Just for context, in our US stores, that takes 13 days to do the same thing, and industry standard is 14 days. While we were selling a lot more used cars, we actually had to have way more in the pipeline because we were not efficient at throughput and actually getting them ready, available for sale. That number has gone from 42 into the 30s right now, and our drive is to be best in class and get it to 14-16 days.
We think that efficiency is gonna allow us to actually stock far fewer cars, but turn them a lot faster. Does that answer that question, Tammy?
Yeah, that's helpful there. I guess, does that suggest it's a work in progress? Does that suggest, with respect to provisions, I mean, how can we, I guess, get a sense of confidence or comfort that the one you took in Q2 and Q4 were it? Maybe this question touches a bit more on the trend in used vehicle pricing that's happening in Canada now. I mean, we all look at the Black Book data, for example. There seems to be moving parts where it's obviously normalizing from the last two years of elevated pricing. New vehicle supply is still not recovered, and there's probably a gap of lightly used vehicles now because of last two years of new shortage. It suggests that maybe pricing at some point does normalize, which would help you with respect to inventory.
Could you talk a little bit about that dynamic? Thank you.
Yeah. I think you've hit it right on the head. Look, when we went into COVID, prior to going into COVID, we had, when we first got here, there was really no aging policy or strategy on our used vehicles. The first thing that we did as a management team, we actually implemented an aging policy or an aging strategy on our used vehicles. What that meant was that after a certain number of days in inventory, if those vehicles were unsold, we would start depreciating them, which would actually go against the dealership's P&L. That would happen on a monthly basis until they sold the car.
In other words, after a certain number of days, that car would become radioactive, and the dealer would then try and sell that vehicle, before, you know, before the price, you know, kind of fell to zero. As COVID hit, and I actually remember having these conversations with people. For the first time in the history that I can remember of used cars, they actually started going up in price because there was a shortage of new cars, there was a shortage of used cars. We ended up with cars that were going up in price, yet we were telling our dealers that they need to depreciate them on a, you know, after a certain number of days in inventory. That was just driving behavior that we didn't want.
It was causing dealers to actually get rid of cars that were actually going up in value. We suspended kind of the strategy that we had for our aging policy during the midst of COVID while cars were going up in price. Fast-forward to what happened in Q2. You know, when Jeff and the team got here, we had a different lens to look at, you know, the way the vehicles were mark to market. We looked at the inventory that we had, and frankly, a lot of our used vehicles and used vehicles in the market started depreciating again because the tap of new cars started coming on. I don't know if you remember, this last summer, you know, we started seeing shifts down in the value of used cars.
You saw, you know, Carvana getting off of vehicles. You saw different publics selling used vehicles and trying to mark to market. We thought in the absence of our aging strategy or policy, or call it whatever you want, we wanted to mark to market those vehicles to actually put them for what they were actually worth on our books as of that date. If you remember also, we took a CAD 10 million write-down roughly for that Q2, and we ended up far exceeding that in by outselling that write-down. We made that up with F&I, with gross profit, and it turned out to be the right thing to do. Much so that in Q3, there was no need to do anything.
Again, fast-forward to Q4, and you saw, I think, what would happen with Tesla, you know, marking their new vehicles down. Everybody was throwing the kitchen sink at the price of new cars and used cars. What we found ourselves was we found ourselves with vehicles that, again, weren't mark to marketed properly. Effective January first, we put on our own, you know, we put on our own aging policy/strategy on our vehicles back again like it was pre-COVID. We said, you know, one time with feeling, let's mark to market these vehicles, and let's put them on the money. That said, by the way, this all happened before. We just never called it out, right? Like, this would have happened within a dealer's P&L.
These cars would have been depreciated on a monthly basis, aged vehicles, and it would have just shown up in the, in the dealer's profit or loss. It's just that we're calling it out, and we're trying to be really forthright about it. Hopefully that's helpful.
Yeah, that is. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Chris Murray from ATB Capital Markets. Chris, please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks, folks. Maybe going back to some of the comments about the level of inventory you guys are gonna keep and floor plan. I guess, maybe a couple of questions on this one. First of all, you know, historically, we've seen at least the OEMs on new be somewhat supportive with incentives around floor plan, with floor plan credits and other and other incentives. Just wondering, you know, now that you're. You made the comment that you're almost at 3 months of a new inventory. Just wondering if how the behavior of the OEMs right now is around supporting you guys, especially in light of some of the comments that we've heard about they wanna be basically taking orders to spec at the dealership and not really wanting to have inventory.
I know we've had some discussions about, you know, the behavior, but any thoughts around their support for your inventory would be helpful.
Chris, a couple things. First of all, it's not all OEMs that are at 3 months supply. It's just some of them. I would tell you that nothing has changed right now. It's still early days, early innings. There's still a pent-up demand for vehicles. We will see what happens when things normalize. I think if you go back and listen to previous earnings calls from last year at this time, we said that there's gonna be a shortage of roughly $6 million-$8 million cars total for Canada and the U.S. because the backlog, it takes new cars to make used cars. There is still so much pent-up demand in the system that still needs to be made up for, that nothing has really changed at this point in time.
I would say that on the used car side, we are very, very conscious of what it would take for us to go to 2 to 1 or even 2 to 5 to 1 used to new. W ith the benefit of our operators that have joined us in the last year, like Jeff and his team, we've kinda mapped that out against what interest rates are and where we need to be at for proper inventory levels. That's where we had an understanding from them and their experience of what it takes to actually get a car to the front line and available for retail sale. We're gonna focus on those efficiencies in order to drive less of a need for inventory.
Okay. The other question, just maybe delving into your M&A pipeline for a couple seconds. It sounds like you've got call it a conventional pipeline of dealerships, but you also made the comment about wanting to look at some larger strategic opportunities. Would that be more in another adjacent market, or are we thinking about, you know, multi-store dealers? Just if you wanna elaborate on exactly, you know, where your thought process is on that and how the new financing package might help you achieve some of that.
I would just say I'm not gonna say too much about that. I think in time it will kind of reveal itself. We've got a ton of opportunities. You know, our goal is to flip the script a little bit on how we do business, where we have a full intention of really driving a lot of long-term shareholder value. T hat we do that with our strategic plan that we have in place. I'm looking at legal shaking their heads, saying, "Don't answer that." I'll just leave it at that and say, you know, TBD, we've got a lot of exciting stuff on the horizon.
All right. Thanks, folks.
Your next question comes from Michael Doumet from Scotiabank. Michael, please go ahead.
Hey, Michael.
First question, just a clarification. I think it was pretty clear, but I just want to make sure it's 100%. The reinstating of the aging policy, that means no more write-downs, at least not the way you guys disclose them. It's gonna be normal course, it's gonna be a little bit smoother. It's gonna be kinda going back to the old days?
Exactly. You know, with that said, like, again, we don't measure our company on a month to month or day to day basis. At least we go to the market quarterly. If we had this conversation now, like used car prices are going up what do you do? I think we've talked about this over and over, and that is that we're in unprecedented times. There's a shortage of vehicles. There is really a shortage of, like 3, 4, 5-year-old vehicles available for sale. I t's really, really challenging. I t's really, really challenging. The market's getting whipsawed. Yes, to your point, that is the right answer.
This is, everything should smooth out with the new strategy we have in place. It's going to be more disciplined and more like the way it was.
Got it. No, I totally appreciate the fact that there is a lot more volatility to handle. I guess this goes just to some of the growth comments around used. Y ou talked, I think, previously about bumping up that ratio used to new to upward of 3 times, and kinda sounds to me at least that you're strapping on kinda like a Canadian CarMax onto AutoCanada, if you're able to kinda build to those numbers. Obviously, lots of upside, like you said, to F&I and parts and service if that's the case. But I think today maybe some investors will think that there's some risks associated with that, as you build the inventory or at least if you wanna build the channel. Maybe just speak to that a little bit.
W hat do you think are the major drivers, to growing that business from, you know, where the business is today, the capabilities that you need to kind of improve on, and also manage price risk?
Look, I think that is exactly, I mean, what we talked about at our board meeting, and I think that, I would say that that's. We see ourselves as being a hybrid of, call it auto, you know, a lot of the largest auto retailers in the U.S. and CarMax. That's kinda what we want, is we want a bunch of new car dealerships. A bunch of used car dealerships that sell both online and in store. Frankly, I really appreciate you saying that, Michael, because frankly, the way we think about it, and I said this in my script, when we got here, we were 0.6 whatever to 1 used-to-new.
When you think about the value of AutoCanada and how much we're gonna make next year, you multiply how many new cars we get, which are typically constrained, right? If you're a Honda store or a GM store and you sell 1,000 cars a year we might get 1,050 cars, we might get 912 cars, but it's gonna be rough justice in and around that 1,000. Then you then multiply that by our ratio of 0.66 or currently 1.6 whatever to 1, and you say, that's how many used cars, that's how many new cars. You then multiply our front-end gross, and then you go and see what we make in F&I.
You say, "Okay, you're gonna make this much next year." We continually hear over and over again that you're gonna make this much next year based on these numbers. What I don't think anybody has really given us credit, and that we actually kind of look around the room and congratulate ourselves, is we went from 0.6 whatever to 1 to 1.67 to 1. Frankly, it hasn't stopped, and we're not going to stop. While we're talking about a constrained number, which is the number of new cars that we're going to get from our OEM partners, which plus or minus because of our turn and earn, is gonna be a certain number. The unconstrained portion of that is used cars, and we really intend to flip the script on that.
What we have done is built the muscle internally to do that. Your question, you know, part of the table stakes of that, with the help of this new management team, is actually driving the cars through the shop, getting them reconditioned, getting them into the front line, getting them available to sale so they actually turn quicker. That's how we do more with less. Frankly, we have a path, and I think, you know, I'm excited about talking about this every quarter, just that I talk too much. I'm excited to talk about what our used-to-new ratio is. Maybe one day we'll wake up and somebody will say, "You know, we were basing this on their old used-to-new ratio, and it seems to be unconstrained on the top end.
That's great, Kelvin.
Thanks, Michael.
We're definitely progressing to that phase.
Thanks for letting me get on the soapbox.
No, I enjoyed listening to that. I mean, look, I appreciate the vision. You've made progress to it. I mean, just maybe just a one last quick one. To get to that higher ratio, I'm just wondering on the capital intensity, specifically M&A versus organic, if you can comment?
Why don't we have this conversation next quarter?
Fine by me. All right. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, buddy.
Your next question comes from David Ocampo from Cormark Securities. David, please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my questions, everyone. Paul, just to circle back on the last comments on the used to new, I know it's probably a long ways away in terms of normalization, but is your expectation that as new cars come back, there isn't any cannibalization of your used car volumes?
Our used car volumes are going to go up. They are not going down.
Right. you're not thinking of it as a.
That said, think about this, though. As there's more new cars, right, we're gonna have to really run to keep up with the new car volume in order to keep that ratio up, but we're gonna do it.
That makes a lot of sense, especially with RightRide ramping up as well. Going back to Chris's question on capital allocation. I know you don't wanna talk about any large M&A. How are you guys balancing that now with repurchasing more stock, just given your valuation and maybe where private dealerships are trading at today?
I think that sellers still have this expectation that we're going back to 2021, you know, 2021 and a half, 2022. I don't think reality has met expectations. Again, as I said before, we're gonna be opportunistic. I think that being prudent, capital allocators, I've learned it's actually important for us to really consider buying our own stock back if we feel it's severely undervalued. As part of capital allocation, we intend to put our capital where it's best served for the long-term benefit of our shareholders. If that means that we get a better return for our shareholders by buying our stock back, then we have the mechanism to do that, and we also have the firepower to do that.
Got it. Then last one for me, it's always been surprising every quarter when I take a look at F&I, it keeps grinding higher. As, you know, consumer wallets get tighter, is there any concern that that starts to fall off, or you're not seeing any indication of that yet?
You know, it's so interesting. We kinda say the same thing, but then you start thinking about it, and as you sell more used cars. The actual the age of the used cars are going up, right? What does that mean? It means people want more warranties, right? It means people actually in uncertain times need more insurance, like gap insurance or, you know, accident insurance. There are more things to actually attach to as the economy gets shakier and as the cars get older. Every kind of month and quarter, we keep on, you know, revisiting it and looking. I will say, our hats off to Mikael Pestrak and his team. They are true professionals and are driving value to our customers through that F&I process.
It's unbelievable what they have done with our organization.
That's perfect. Thanks, Paul. I'll hop back in the queue.
Your next question comes from Luke Hannan from Canaccord Genuity. Luke, please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Paul, I wanted to go back to one thing you said earlier in the call. I think you said it takes 42 days to get a car from in the door to available for sale on the front line. It used to take 42 days, now it takes 30. What have you guys done to close the gap from 42 to 30, and what is it that's gonna take you from 30 to 13? Is that just reconditioning or is there other elements to the process of getting a car available for sale?
It's a lot, right? Like, there's a lot of transporting a vehicle. Like, there's a lot of inefficiencies that we didn't know prior to this management team getting here, where they actually pointed out, like, there's all this slop in the system. I didn't say we're at 30 days, I said we are in the 30s. So when I tell you there's opportunity, like, there's a ton of opportunity. Are we gonna get to 14 overnight? No. Are we gonna get to 14? Like, yes, for sure. It's just gonna take work. By the way, Luke, I know you didn't ask this question. One of the things I would tell you is that the opportunity in our expense structure is there.
This is not as low-hanging the fruit that when we got here, but it is fruit, and we will get it. It's the hard part. This is the hard stuff. Just be patient with us, and we are going to get to our peers.
Got it. Okay. That's a nice segue into my next question here. I'm trying to get a sense of what does the distribution look like for your dealerships on an SG&A to growth basis? Are they all relatively close to that consolidated average? Just curious to know what the disparity looks like there. If there's any learnings that you can apply for those more efficient dealerships that you can apply to those that are maybe further away from that target.
Listen, for sure, we have some dealerships that perform closer to that number. There's head office expense in there. There's a lot of expense in there that we've got to just get more efficient on. Again, we. You know, when we got to this group, we basically picked off the low-hanging fruit. You know, we increased our used to new. We drove throughput through the parts and service space. We got collision up and running. We sold more new cars. We. You know, all those things. Now it's time for the grindy stuff. Again, that's gonna take work. So there are stores that we have. Like, I will tell you know, we bought AutoPoint, and there are learnings that we can learn from AutoPoint for the rest of our group.
Like, I gotta say, AutoPoint, they are unbelievable in the fixed operations department. There's a lot of things that we can take from them to the rest of our organization. There are things that we do in F&I that AutoPoint might be able to learn from. There are things all over the group that we're able to cross-functionally learn from, and I would say we're just trying to take the best parts of our organization and kind of germinate throughout the whole company.
Got it. Okay, last one, and then I'll pass the line. We've seen some OEMs, like Ford, come out with programs trying to get dealers on board when it comes to selling EVs. Does the decision to get into these programs, does that rest entirely with your GMs, or are there other parties involved in that decision? Then how onerous are these programs from a, from a capital intensity perspective?
We could talk all day about this, but I don't think we want to. That decision is made at the corporate level. I think, and Luke, you and I have talked about this. Every single OEM wants to sell directly to consumer when you're an order taker for a car. When you're just filling orders and you're not in the car sales business, everybody wants to sell direct to consumer and disintermediate the dealership. The second that there are too many vehicles in inventory and OEMs need to have a shock absorber to get rid of those cars, they would beg for a dealer network. You're seeing the effects of it with Tesla when they needed to, you know, sell aged vehicles at the end of the year, and they're dropping price, et cetera.
W hat you're seeing is a reaction to the market being in flux and trying to figure out how to distribute EVs, how to distribute with a network, without a network. I actually don't think it's rational. I think it's just reactionary. I don't think that anybody, frankly, has figured out how to do it properly. You know, are we gonna be in the EV business? For sure. What does it look like? I don't have an idea, and I don't think any OEM does either. I think that, you know, we learn as we go, we'll continue to monitor and watch, you know, how every OEM feels about the distribution of their vehicles as inventory builds.
Got it. Makes sense. Thanks, Paul.
Okay.
Your next question comes from Krista Friesen from CIBC Capital Markets. Krista, please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I was just wondering, we're hearing at a high level there's still a mixed issue with new vehicles given OEMs have been prioritizing the higher trim packages or prioritizing pickups and SUVs. Are you seeing that mix issue in your own new inventory?
sorry, just to be clear, are we seeing a mix of higher valued vehicles in our inventory versus the, Because they're higher value to the OEM, is that what you're saying?
Yeah, just because they've been prioritizing those higher margin vehicles given there's a shortage.
You know, I would just say. It's very, very OEM-specific. I wouldn't say that there is any OEM that is prioritizing one thing over another. You might have one OEM prioritizing, you know, high-end SUVs while you have another one prioritizing, you know, pickup trucks. I don't know that that's necessarily. I'm just trying to think and be thoughtful about this. I don't think that there's really the right answer to give you on this other than it's very OEM-specific and some OEMs are prioritizing pickup trucks, you know, fully loaded versus, you know, full-size SUVs fully loaded versus, you know, whatever they have the capacity to build.
Okay, great. I was just wondering on the acquisition side, given how well parts and services is performing, have there been discussions around accelerating more M&A in the collision division versus used or new, for example?
Look, we debate it all the time. We just did DCC Hail, which we think is going to be a tremendous opportunity for us, as far as returns go. We examine, you know, every single acquisition, whether it be new cars, used cars, or collision. We kind of examine every opportunity, and it needs to stand on its own. We put that against the backdrop of buying our own shares back as well. Any opportunity to outlay capital has to kind of check the box on a number of different fronts. I wouldn't say that one specifically over another. We're just, you know, we're here to allocate capital properly.
Okay, great. Thanks. I'll jump back in the queue.
Thank you.
That's all the time we have for questions today. I'll turn it back to Paul for closing remarks.
Listen, we really appreciate everybody's patience. We know that we knew coming into this call that everybody's gonna, you know, freak out about the big inventory write down and we wanted to make sure that everybody had an understanding that that is very, very normal course once we actually implement the aging policy on our vehicles. It's just that we called it out, where it's not been called out. I would even turn everybody to really question when they are examining stocks by our peers, like who else really does mark to market their vehicles on a quarterly basis like this. This is a real, you know, we've really taken the water out of our inventory and, you know, allows us to go and out earn and make that back.
Thanks everybody for your patience. Thanks for being a shareholder and thanks for listening. We really appreciate you and we'll talk to you next quarter, hopefully with some good news.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.