Well, if everybody could get settled, we're gonna get going with the next session here. We're very happy to have Group 1 Automotive. For Group 1 Automotive we have from left to right, we've got Jason Babbitt, Vice President and Treasurer, Pete DeLongchamps, Senior Vice President, Manufacturer Relations, Financial Services, and Public Affairs, and he wears a lot of other hats. It seems like a lot of hats at Group 1 Automotive. And to my left, Daniel McHenry, Senior Vice President and CFO. Thanks so much, everybody, for joining us. We're continuing the dealer theme here this morning. Group 1 Automotive's a slightly, you know, different strategy than we've heard from certainly from Penske and from other dealers. It's expanded into the U.K.
Big operations obviously here in the U.S. It's retrenching a little bit or retrenching completely from its efforts in Brazil. It's starting to pick up the pace a little bit on acquisitions and going into sort of a little bit more of the growth mode. There's a lot going on here. Thank you very much for joining us. There's a lot to talk about. I'm gonna you know, kick off with the obligatory, you know, question about the overall earnings to make sure that we get everybody's answer on this.
You know, your take on, you know, your potential over earnings and how things will shape up, maybe sort of not with guidance, but like, you know, over the next, you know, couple of years is, you know, where are the risks and where are the opportunities for earnings to continue to remain strong?
Okay. I think if you think about Group 1, and if we roll back to 2019 and where we are today, the company is a very different company versus where it was in 2019. We have grown significantly through acquisition over the last 18 months. We've added $3 billion to our revenues in that period. We did the biggest acquisition in the company's history in November of 2021, acquiring the Prime Group, which was 28 dealerships in the Northeast of the U.S., adding $1.8 billion of revenues to the company.
In addition to that, I think one of the things that we have achieved successfully is restructuring our SG&A and the fact that, you know, we have reduced the headcount in the company on a same-store basis by 20% over that period. What we have effectively guided to is that we would expect, should margins return to 2019 levels, we've taken at least 400 basis points out of our cost structure. What John said is correct. You know, we've looked at our geographic regions and decided that we would move away and sell our Brazilian operation. When we went down there in 2014, the exchange rate was very different than what it was today.
It was 2 -to- 1 in terms of exchange rate, when today it's closer to 5 -to- 1. We just couldn't really get the traction that we wanted in terms of our profitability. The legislative environment down there made it difficult to grow, so we've decided to divest of that operation and, you know, reinvest the proceeds in our core business in both the U.K. and the U.S.
If we think about that decision, I mean, what was the I mean, you mentioned currency is a driving factor for Brazil, but was there anything else going on with your manufacturer partners like Ford, you know, backing away from South America or anything like that influenced you? Or was it really sort of a macro decision on capital, both human and dollars, that you thought would have better returns?
Our OEM relations.
-elsewhere?
Our OEM relations in Brazil were really good. We had Land Rover, Jaguar, BMW, Toyota, and Honda were our key brands. When we went there, you know, the plan was to continue to grow the platform out, but, you know, the environment down there, political unrest and exchange rate just made that more difficult to do. And that's why we've decided to re-deploy the capital, you know, elsewhere in the company.
Okay. Then getting into the new vehicle business, sort of somewhat repetitive questions on the GPU side. But I mean, there's this constant fear that GPUs are going to crater. I mean, just wondering what your response is there. You know, how do you manage that? How do you offset that? You know, how are you thinking about that, you know, normalizing over time? What the hell does normal mean, actually? At that level.
I think, you know, clearly the margins are a function of supply, and we don't see supply coming back in the near term. You know, our forecast is that when supplies do return to some level of normalization, whether that's a 30-day supply, that there will be certainly some moderation of margins and, you know, maybe somewhere between Pre-COVID and where we are today. The positive of that is additional volume. You know, we're fully forecast some moderation, but believe it'll be offset by volume.
Part of that moderation in inventory not going back to where it was Pre-COVID is your business partners, meaning the automakers, making decisions on production. You know, you're very close to those partners. I mean, what is your view on their discipline and the idea that they won't overproduce and drive us back into an oversupply?
Well, I think the financials speak for themselves right now for the OEMs and for the dealers. When you hear Jim Farley and Bob Carter talk about, you know, keeping it at a reasonable level, and I think Bob talked about a third, 25- to 30-day supply at the show yesterday. I mean, and Toyota's been very good at that over the years. You think about with where they've kept Lexus. They know how to do it. You know, we feel that with the empirical data they have today, you know, this may have some legs. If that happens, then I think it's a long runway for the OEMs and for us from a profitability standpoint.
The other thing we're hearing on the new vehicle side and actually on the used vehicle side is that, you know, the consumer may not be as strong as we're all thinking at the moment. I mean, you have certainly some different regions and, you know, in the oil patch, I would imagine, you know, hopefully people are jumping up and down and buying big trucks like crazy, but, you know, and very healthy. But, I mean, what's your view sort of on the consumer in general? And then if you think sort of regionally, particularly now you're big in the Northeast now with the Prime acquisition. You're big in Texas. You're big in the Sun Belt.
I don't know, I mean, maybe general consumer health and then maybe regionally, 'cause you got a pretty good view on some different regions.
Well, you know, thinking back to 2009, you know, what asset class performed the best? It was car loans because in this country, people have to drive cars. When we look at the sequential leads, showroom ups through our digital applications, it's been very, very consistent. We have not seen a drop in overall demand. The pipeline, both in the U.K. and the U.S. are, let's say, 95% of the cars have been allocated or are pre-sold. Our company, we keep a 30-day supply of used, so we turn our used car inventory 12 times a year, and that's been very consistent. You know, we've been very disciplined in how we acquire our used cars. You know, from our standpoint, demand has been very, very consistent.
To your point, in Oklahoma and Texas, where we're the largest seller of retail automotive business is fantastic. You know, clearly, high oil prices is a tailwind for us. The businesses that we acquired in New England have exceeded our expectations.
When you think about what you just mentioned on a large majority of your vehicles being pre-sold before they're hitting the grounds, you know, that's a significant change. I mean, in Europe, U.K., that's kinda a little bit more standard than what we have here in the U.S., but everybody kinda thinks about the U.S. consumer as being overly gluttonous and impatient, and they want their damn vehicle right now. They don't wanna wait, you know, for three months. Then all of a sudden, it seems like they are, you know, and it's working pretty well. You know, does that last and persist from a consumer behavior standpoint? We can argue about what the automakers may or may not do. But does, again, the consumer starting to be conditioned, being like, "This is a great product.
I'm picking exactly what I want. Sure, I'm paying a, you know, a good price for it, but, you know, but I'm getting exactly what I want." Is that mindset shifting? Do you feel anything like, you know, in your dealerships and when you're talking to consumers, that they're okay with this?
I think in terms of luxury vehicles, the consumer's always been more okay with that than others. I think if inventory was on the ground and availability was larger, I think the consumer will revert to type. I think for the mass market, they'll want to get their vehicle as quickly as possible.
Okay. You think that little has changed with the American consumer on their desires for
Certainly in terms of volume.
Okay.
You know, also it goes back to the want versus the need. You know, people want a, you know, a new Suburban with all the equipment. They're gonna have to order it, and it's gonna take five or six months. If somebody needs a car today, then they're, you know, hopefully gonna find something on the lot, even though, you know, I think we closed the Q4 at nine-day supply and not much changed in the first. You know, they're gonna have to look at a used vehicle 'cause they need the transportation. I guess the good news in all that, and I had a personal experience this week where somebody needed a car, so they're buying a used car.
because prices are holding, they're gonna order the new, buy the used, and then six months trade in the one they're buying this week. You know, we sold two.
That's a good deal.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Then you get that used back for inventory. That's fantastic. That's a great way to source, right? It's called the boomerang effect. You're switching gears then. Right? You just gave us an example of somebody saying, "I just need a car. I'll buy used for the moment." But this whole notion of somebody saying, "Listen, there's not enough new cars. It's not what I want. Listen, you got this used car that I really want, same specs." How much transition is there from somebody who's coming in to buy new to used? I mean, we hear about that all the time. Like everybody's tripping over. You know, I say it, maybe I'm wrong.
I mean, you know, it's a nice clean story, but is it actually really happening when that person wants a new car? Are they just like, "All right, I'll buy a three-year-old car 'cause that's all, I mean, that's all I can get, and I want it now." or do they wait?
It goes back to that they need the car. They're gonna buy what they need today, and then maybe order what they want.
I mean, how many people absolutely need a car? I mean, if somebody who's increasing their fleet or buying a vehicle on a primary basis as opposed to trading one in, 'cause if you got a used car and it's working, you don't need a car. I can't imagine that that's too large. Or, I mean, I don't know.
You know, John, you think of just the math. I mean, the industry is 16.5 million. We sold 14 last year. There's 2.5 million people that would've bought a car, and we're seeing that same trend this year. Pent-up demand is.
Normal
...significant.
Yeah.
As people come in, they need to buy a new car because their car is old. What's the average car on there, 12 years old?
12, yeah.
You've got an aged fleet. In this country, you've got mass transit in New York City, and that's about it. People need cars, and we're seeing that demand, and it's continuing. I think any commentary that you see about the demand is waning. We don't see it in our business today.
John, I think one of the things that we've got much better at doing is mining our database for lease returns. You know, when someone's lease is six months out, you know, we're trying to get them to order their new vehicle now to ensure that we get the lease return in, to ensure that they have a vehicle whenever their lease is expiring. I think that's just been much better for us as an organization. We're getting the new vehicle sale. We're getting reassurance that we're gonna get the lease returned by, and, you know, be able to go with that as a used vehicle. I think some of the dynamics of how we operate has changed as well.
Okay. Also thinking about on the used side sourcing. I mean, I think Daryl Kenningham has got a great line that, you know, there's no manufacturing facility for used vehicles. That's a very kitschy and smart way to think about it. You know, you guys have. I think in the last quarter we're saying that your used inventory was back to largely normal. You're doing a good job of acquiring vehicles and at the right price to get good grosses for them. How is that working?
You know, it's all.
Because we're hearing from other people. They're not able to do it. CarMax yesterday kind of puked their same store sales because of it or at least that's our view. You know, I mean, the other people aren't able to do it. I mean, how are you doing that?
I think one of the key advantages, you know, the OEM franchise model is that, you know, you get trades, so, you know, 70% in quarter four of our vehicles, you know, they came from trades. One thing that, you know, that we've changed and, you know, we've worked hard on is sourcing vehicles from consumers, you know, directly. Be that through the service drive, be that going on, you know, social media channels such as Craigslist and Facebook selling pages, et cetera, acquiring vehicles at the stores. What we find is that we've managed to acquire about 15% of our vehicles through those kind of channels.
That's a big step away from where we would have been before going to the auction, acquiring you know, at least 20% of our vehicles from you know, the open auction. In quarter four, we acquired about 7% of our vehicles from open auction because the competition is just too high out there for vehicles at the open auction. You've got all of the used car players. You've got the rental companies at the moment trying to acquire vehicles from auction. What we've just find is the margins that we get on the vehicles that we acquire through the way that we're sourcing vehicles is much higher than the margins if we acquired through the auction.
Something's just changed in the auctions, right? You know, Carvana could be considered a competitor or, you know, maybe something else you might have, you know, other words for them, you know, is out there, and they just bought ADESA Auctions, physical auctions. What does that mean for your sourcing strategy? Is that the kind of thing where, you know, you were buying from ADESA, and now you're no longer gonna buy it from them? Has anything changed in the flow of vehicles? I mean, I think there's got to be a little bit of that, right? I mean, because Carvana is certainly a competitor on the used vehicle side. Do you think that dynamic changes much in the industry?
I mean, you say, "Hey, listen, I'm gonna stick with Car because I can do it, you know, in the digital lanes and actually do it pretty effectively, maybe at much lower cost than I was in the physical lanes." I mean, just what do you think of that transaction? What does it mean for your sourcing?
I don't think it means anything for us. I think it's interesting that they're going to brick-and-mortar.
Yeah. It's very fun.
We buy 8% of our used cars from the auction. You know, in the past, it was 20%, but we've pivoted on where we procure our cars from. It's such a small percentage of our used car procurement, it will have no impact on our company.
Okay. On used vehicle pricing, we heard from Smoke yesterday that, you know, pricing is, you know, back up and doing seasonal bounce after a little bit of fade from all-time highs, but we're still, you know, near all-time highs. What does the used vehicle pricing environment mean for you? I mean, is it, you know, simply turn and earn, and you just got to be careful about, you know, spikes up and down, you know, in used vehicle pricing? Or is the strength of used vehicle pricing just a really good thing for the used vehicle business for you at the moment? I mean, how much does that matter?
I'll tell you, I think there's two sides to that. One is, you know, having valuable used cars in the marketplace is certainly good for the consumer. We hear about inflation. Well, inflation works both ways. The consumer who, you know, we use the example of a car they may have been paying $35,000 for a year ago may be paying $39,000 today. There's some inflation there. The trade, which 60% of our customers trade a car in, that trade has also benefited from inflation as well. Maybe that car was worth $20,000 a year ago, now it's worth $28,000. From the consumer standpoint, in many instances, we're finding a net positive because the trade's worth more than the increase on the new car.
Nice.
On an operational side, we turn our used cars 12 times a year. We've got a 30-day supply of cars, which effectively means we've got 23 days on the ground. The risk profile for us, because we're turning so fast, if there is a significant downturn in pricing, our risk is very low because we turn the cars so fast. We're buying those cars at market price. You know, the one thing that we made the conscious decision of, you know, if we're gonna pay too much for a car, we'd rather do it with our customers. We'd much rather not go to the auction and pay transportation fees and auction fees. If we're gonna overpay, we wanna do it with the customers within our community. That strategy has paid off very well for us.
The other piece of that strategy that has been a lot of discussion is. You know, we're not charging our consumers over MSRP. We think it's our responsibility to be fair with our customers within our community. We give them a fair trade for their a fair price for their trade, and we think the long play on that is in three to four years when things do normalize, we're gonna have great used cars coming back that customers do not have negative equity in because, you know, you tack on $10,000 to a Camry, I can promise you in three to four years you're gonna be $10,000 upside down. You know, take it now or take it later. We're in a position now where we think that that's the proper way to do business.
There's another, you know, shift that's going on in the industry, with, like, CarBravo from GM, where the automakers seem to wanna help manage the business or get involved in the business and just, you know. We've talked to them a lot about CarBravo, and it seems like a little bit of a work in progress. Like, things are, you know, the offering or the product itself is being somewhat morphed, and I think you guys, and other dealers are having some impact on how it'll develop over time. But what do you think that means? How does that interface with AcceleRide? You know, is it complementary? Competitive? Does it change much, you know, in your used business or help out a lot?
I mean, how do you think about CarBravo?
I think that for us as a business, it's not gonna make a big difference. I think that the direction that GM have given so far is that, you know, the deals will still come to our store. When I look at the AcceleRide platform and, you know, compare it to the other platforms that are out there, I think that our AcceleRide platform is equally good, if not better than any of our competitors. I think there'll be perfect interaction with both the AcceleRide platform and the CarBravo platform.
Basically those systems can largely dovetail, talk to each other, and if there's any benefit for CarBravo, you'll realize it through AcceleRide.
Absolutely.
It'll work well. The other thing you guys have been doing on the used car side is going deeper in the age spectrum, and it's Val-U-Line. What's the-
Val-U-Line.[crosstalk]
Val-U-Line, right. Yeah. I was gonna call it Val-U-Line, but it's Val-U-Line. You know, how successful has that been? How deep are you going in the age spectrum, and how, you know. I mean, how much deeper could you theoretically go over time, and what does that mean for, you know, the real estate? I mean, we always hear, you know, used. New car dealers don't wanna sell used cars that are 10, 15 years old because it's a different customer, and you don't want those customers commingling, and it's not the, you know, the greatest experience, and you need different kinds of salespeople. I mean, is that, you know, still the mantra or can you go older and utilize similar assets, you know, real estate assets to, you know, to go deeper in the age spectrum?
I'll talk a little bit about the kind of real estate and the spectrum. Effectively what we used Val-U-Line for was to dispose of used vehicles that traditionally would've been going to the auction. It was an outlet for us to dispose of those and give us an extra profit element to our business. It's traditionally older vehicles, higher mileage vehicles over seven years old. It tends to be kind of where we look at that spectrum. It's about 11% of our sales. We don't go out and actively acquire those vehicles. It tends to be just a source to dispose of our vehicles that we take in in trades that would normally have gone to the auction.
We don't see that as a growth plan for us because effectively it's just an outlet to dispose of those vehicles. Pete, do you wanna talk a little about the customer base and the financing?
Sure. You know, as Daniel mentioned, AcceleRide was kind of a paradigm shift, where traditionally an 80- or 100,000-mile car would just go to the auction. You know, cars have gotten so good over the years. There's a good 100,000-mile car that's been reconditioned, it's a terrific unit. We were a little bit ahead of our time, you know. Because we started this five-six years ago, and the dealerships embraced it. You know, with that, you know, we have terrific lending partners that we work with to make sure that those cars can get financed to that customer. You know, when we first started, it was $8,000-$10,000 cars. Now it's probably $9,000-$12,000 cars.
It's been a really nice addition to our used car business. You know, John, as a company, we've always focused on the high margin piece of the business, which is parts and service. When building standalone used car buildings became fashionable, we stayed away from it. We didn't think it was a good return for shareholders' money. I think as we sit here today, we're more right than ever because we've got plenty of opportunities at our current dealerships to grow our used car business. You know, when you take a look at, normally our company would have 30,000 new cars on the ground. Today we have three, which means there's plenty of parking places to grow our used car business without having to grow a standalone brick-and-mortar.
We've, you know, we've always been very cognizant of the high margin piece of the business, and I think when you dig into our parts and service growth, you know, we kind of lead the sector just about every quarter. I think we grew our parts and service business 17% in the Q4 , with well over 20% of that was in customer pay, which is pretty remarkable. We put a lot of work in that. I say that because as the parts and service business grows, that's more throughput through the service drive. You know, we have sales representatives on the drive talking to customers every day about kinda where they are with their car and we're equity mining, and we know exactly where the equity is.
Some customers have, you know, additional cars that they could sell to us, and we've been very successful in buying those cars. You know, the heart of this model is the parts and service, and it's helping to feed our used car business.
Sort of one thing that just came up is Honda's willingness to go. I think they're 10 years on CPOing vehicles, right? I mean, what does that mean for your used vehicle business? Because that does start to get into Val-U-Line somewhat with territory, but then you're getting a CPO vehicle, right, which has got warranty. He's gonna have a much higher parts and service attach rate. Do you think that might start occurring in other automakers, or is it just because Honda's quality is so much higher, they're willing to do that? Like you just said, a 10-year-old, 100,000-mile car now is a very different asset than it was 10, 20 years ago. It's totally different. It's a great asset. It's a great vehicle.
Well, it you know it keeps the car within the ecosystem for Honda.
Yeah.
you know, for us, it's about retention. If I can have a customer who's got a CPO warranty coming back to us for, you know, 10 years, that's a serious benefit from us.
Yeah.
You know, Honda in particular is really working on customer loyalty. You know, we embrace that opportunity with Honda.
Yeah. Just seems like a huge opportunity. Yeah, Pete. I'll say this nicely. You've been lying to us for a long time on F&I, right? I mean, you keep telling us you can't go higher, and you keep on finding opportunities to go higher. I mean that in a polite way because F&I going higher is a good thing, right? That's a, you know what I mean. What are the key drivers here? I'll ask you again. I mean, can it go higher? I mean, it just seems like there's products, there's offerings, there's things that make sense for the consumer. The consumer wins. It's not like it's a taboo.
It's not like you're doing glass etching, you know, to push things. You know, there's real good product there. I mean, where is this gonna go? What are rates rising, you know, mean for it? A lot in there, but.
Yeah. I don't want to lie to you anymore, honey. The F&I business, first of all, we're very compliant. You know, we've got one of our great partners, Mr. Smith, right in front of us here. We've been very careful to make sure that the money we make on our customers is, you know, we're at 1% spread. A third of the money we make in F&I comes from originating a loan. We think that's a fair amount. We're not making two, we're not making three points, we're not making four points. We're making one point. Then I've got a terrific field team. I got nine field representatives that work with our dealers, and for us, it's all about product.
I took a very simple approach to this business, and it was the products we sell have to be good for the customer and good for the car. You know, what does that mean? You know, if you have a. You know, I'm a big believer in paint insurance. It's paint protection. People, you know, call it mop and glow, but if your paint goes bad, the insurance pays for it. I'm a big believer in selling dents. There's nothing worse than coming out and seeing your new car's got a big dent in the side of them, a door dent. Big believer in selling service contracts and maintenance. Those are the main things that we sell.
Where it works is that when you come to trade your car in in four years, and you've had a maintenance agreement, your car's in good mechanical shape. If you have the dent insurance, you don't have any dents. If you have paint, then you're going to have good paint. What does that mean? That you're gonna get more for your trade. It's good for the customer, good for us. We get great trade. We've been focusing on that. In some cases, we've doubled and tripled our penetrations over the last 10 years with some of these products. We've been very specific with who our partners are, and we've been loyal to them. They've been loyal to us. You know, as we've grown this business, it just keeps getting better.
Our processes in the F&I at the actual dealerships are all very consistent. Our training is consistent. We just have one process how we do it, and it just continues to get better. Every quarter, I'll tell you, I'd go, "Wow, this has been wow. You know, terrific job, everybody." Headwinds, you know, clearly interest rates could be a headwind because at the end of the day, it's about monthly payments. If your monthly payment gets too high, maybe you're not going to buy that extra product. So that could be a headwind. You know, the psyche of the retail person is that they never want to go backwards because their pay plans are based on performance, and they've reached a level now where, you know, I just, I can't see us going backwards.
How much we grow it, I don't want to lie to you anymore, John, but it's been a big part of our company and our business, and we've had you know terrific. We've had the same banking partners for years and years. We've focused on the big banks, and we've got certain banks that do the business for us in different FICO bands, and we've been loyal to those banks and we haven't strayed away from it. Having those partnerships has made a big difference along with the compliance and audit fees. You know, I pride ourselves that when you look at our performance with the banks, our loss ratios are below average. It's because we give the banks good information. It's all straight-up business. The risk-based pricing works beautifully.
When you have that relationship, it makes it pretty easy to do business. You know, whenever there's a jump ball or a tie, we usually win them all just because of the loss ratio situation.
One thing I'd add to what Pete has to say is our AcceleRide platform, which is our omni-channel selling platform. We have built a lot of F&I resources into that platform, and what we find is about 50% of our credit applications are now filled out online on the AcceleRide platform, where that would've been traditionally done with an F&I writer in an F&I office. We're getting a you know a decent chunk of savings in terms of SG&A with things going through the AcceleRide platform because we needed less you know F&I writers. In addition to that what we're finding is the attachment rate through people buying through the AcceleRide platform is actually higher than under the traditional model.
With that, you know, something that I would never have expected would be that our per unit F&I income on the AcceleRide platform is, you know, equal if not better than what it is under the traditional platform. I think that's something that will help us going forward as well.
Then on these service contracts kinda leading into parts and service. I mean, you know, when you get a service, your service contract, I mean, how does that feed into the revenue and profit in the parts and service? I mean, that's right. I mean, how does that I mean, that obviously that person is much more likely to come back to your service bay than hopefully almost 100%, but I'm sure it's not 100%, right? How do those economics work? They show up, they've got a 10,000-mile checkup and service. I mean, you know, that would be part of the service contract. How does that math work?
We've got maintenance and service contracts. The maintenance plan will cover, you know, any maintenance that is due on the car, but then the service contract can go, you know, two, three, four years above the factory warranty. Customer comes in, you're right, it's big retention. We use for the most part the OEM, 100% OEM maintenance programs, and I'd say about 70% of our stores, about 70% OEM service contracts. But those customers come back in and it's from an accounting standpoint, it's customer pay.
Got it. You've made the money on the parts, on the F&I side, and then you're making money on the parts and service side, and that's running out of their.
Right.
Bucket of reserves over in the other company. Got it. Okay. Maybe just lastly, we're running up against time here, you know, on strategy. You know, obviously, you know, you're backed away from Brazil, you're pushing AcceleRide, you're making acquisitions a little bit more aggressively than you have in the past. I mean, how should we think about, you know, your strategy, you know, going forward, morphing, pressing the same, you know, the same avenues? I mean, you know, did you seem like you're starting to shift a little bit into getting a little bit more aggressive on acquisitions, is that true? I mean, just, you know, how should we think about your strategy going forward? 'Cause it's starting to shift a little bit.
Well, I think about 18 months ago, we openly declared that we wanted to grow the company through acquisition. In 2021, the company threw off about $650 million of free operating cash flow. The question is what you do with that free operating cash flow. The number one priority for the company still remains growing the company through acquisition. So far this year in 2022, we've acquired over $500 million of revenues. We've bought two large Toyota stores so far this year. The plan is that we will continue to grow through acquisition. When you look at you know the valuation of our stock currently, we think as a company that we're massively undervalued currently.
We have openly declared that we've been in buybacks in Q1 of this year. Over the last Q2 we've bought back about 10% of our company float. We'll continue to be balanced and growing the company through both acquisition in both the U.S. and the U.K., you know, as and when strategic opportunities arise. You know, we'll continue to evaluate where our stock price sits and evaluate buybacks going forward.
It's fair to say that the toggle is between acquisitions and buybacks. As far as the strategy, it's pulling back from or exiting Brazil. At this point, it's the acquisition in U.S., U.K. and buybacks. That's the kinda three main areas where you're gonna see incremental capital push.
Dividends.
Dividend. I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Dividends. That would be more of a steady as it gets as opposed to.
Correct.
massive increases, right, on.
Correct.
The toggle is really the buybacks and acquisitions.
John, I just have one quick
Sure.
Kind of follow on. The balance sheet's been great. As a credit guy, I have to bring up the balance sheet. Bond investors have been, you know, happy partners. In this strategy, how do you guys envision keeping the balance sheet? You have a lot of flexibility on it. Just wanna ask a quick question on that.
We ended the year at 2x levered. When we look at leverage, we use our syndicated credit facility calculation. It's rent-adjusted debt over EBITDA. Our max is 5.75x under our facility. We do recession case planning, and we're comfortable going up to 4x, if you know, we needed to do a large acquisition temporarily. Certainly our desire is to keep that at or below 3x levered in a normalized state. That's
Perfect.
We got plenty of
Flexibility.
Plenty of flexibility from where we are now up to our, you know, normalized cap, where we can deploy additional capital, raise additional debt for M&A.
Perfect. Thank you.
Great. Well, with that to stay on time, we're gonna wrap up. We really appreciate you guys making the trip and seeing you in person. It's always.
Thank you.
Always a lot of fun hanging out. Thank you so much for coming, guys.
Always a pleasure, John.
Thank you.
Thank you.