Good morning. My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the LKQ Corporation's Q4 and Full year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press the star one. Thank you. Joseph Boutross, Vice President of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to LKQ's Q4 and full year 2022 earnings conference call. With us today are Nick Zarcone, LKQ's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Rick Galloway, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please refer to the LKQ website at lkqcorp.com for our earnings release issued this morning, as well as the accompanying slide presentation for this call. Now, let me quickly cover the safe harbour. Some of the statements that we make today may be considered forward-looking. These include statements regarding our expectations, beliefs, hopes, intentions, or strategies. Actual events or results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in our Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed with the SEC. During this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release and slide presentation. Hopefully, everyone has had a chance to look at our 8-K, which we filed with the SEC earlier today. As normal, we are planning to file our 10-K in the coming days. With that, I am happy to turn the call over to our CEO, Nick Zarcone.
Thank you, Joe, and good morning to everybody on the call. This morning, I will provide some high-level comments related to our performance in the quarter and full year 2022, and then Rick will dive into the financial details and discuss our 2023 outlook before I come back with a few closing remarks. This month, we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of our company's founding in February 1998. What started with a few salvage facilities in the U.S. has grown to a Fortune 300 business with operations in 28 countries and over 45,000 employees, providing a wide array of aftermarket and recycled parts used to repair, maintain, and accessorize vehicles. Our operations are leaders in their respective markets and are well-positioned to continued their success in the future.
Getting to this point has been the result of the dedication of our past and present teams, and I want to express my sincere appreciation for all of these efforts. I am excited to see what this team can deliver in the future as the LKQ team is never satisfied, never rests on its laurels, and is always pushing to be the best. When LKQ was founded, ESG was not the hot topic that it is today, but ESG has always been a vital part of our strategy. Through our recycling operations, we are enabling the circular economy in doing our part to reduce waste. I am proud of our contributions to date, and I can assure you that our emphasis on sustainability will continue to be an integral part of our mission. Our success in ESG is being recognized by external parties.
On December 5th of 2022, MSCI upgraded LKQ to their highest ESG rating of AAA, placing LKQ in the top 5% of all companies that they rate globally. On January 31st of this year, LKQ was included in Sustainalytics 2023 top-rated ESG companies list. The Q4 of 2022 closed a year where the resilience of our businesses shined through a myriad of uncontrollable headwinds, ranging from economic softness, inflation, supply chain disruptions, labour shortages, energy cost spikes, and a war in Europe. From an operating perspective, the Q4 was a very strong set of results. I could not be more proud of our team.
The continuation of exceptional organic revenue growth and strong margins in our North American wholesale segment, when combined with solid organic revenue growth and the highest Q4 EBITDA margins in the history of our European segment, offset the impact of the continued headwinds experienced in our specialty and self-service segments. The January revenue trends are similar to the levels generated in the Q4. While the operations were collectively right on target with the guidance that we provided back in October, the annual tax provision was higher than anticipated, which drove a full year catch-up in the Q4 and resulted in quarterly EPS at the low end of the guidance range. Rick will provide more detail on the tax provision in a few minutes. On to the strong quarterly results.
Revenue for the Q4 of 2022 was $3 billion, a decrease of 5.8% as compared to $3.2 billion in the Q4 of 2021, driven by FX translation and the divestiture of PGW. Parts and Services organic revenue increased 4.5% on a reported basis and 5.9% on a per-day basis. The net impact of acquisitions and divestitures decreased revenue by 3.1%. Foreign exchange rates decreased revenue by 6.1%. For total parts and services, revenue decreased of 4.8%. Other revenue fell 20.1%, primarily due to weaker commodity prices relative to the same period in 2021.
Net income in the Q4 was $193 million as compared to $235 million for the same period in 2021. Diluted earnings per share for the Q4 were $0.72 as compared to $0.81 for the same period last year, a decrease of 11%. During the quarter, we had an unfavourable $0.15 year-over-year impact related to the higher than anticipated tax rates. The tax rate was also higher than anticipated during our third quarter call, which generated an unfavourable $0.05 effect on adjusted diluted EPS relative to our guidance. On an adjusted basis, net income in the Q4 was $209 million as compared to $254 million for the same period of 2021, a decrease of 17.5%.
Adjusted diluted earnings per share in the Q4 was $0.78 as compared to $0.87 for the same period of last year, a decrease of 10.3%. Net income for the full year of 2022 was $1.14 billion as compared to $1.09 billion for the same period last year. Diluted earnings per share for the full year of 2022 was $4.11 as compared to $3.66 for the same period of 2021, an increase of 12.3%. Please note the 2022 results include the gain on sale of PGW.
On an adjusted basis, net income for the full year of 2022 was $1.1 billion as compared to $1.2 billion for the same period of 2021, a decrease of 9.4%. Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the full year was $3.85 as compared to $3.96 for the same period of last year, a decrease of 2.8%. Adjusted earnings exclude the gain of the PGW sale, but include the impact of the higher tax rate. Let's turn to some of the quarterly segment highlights.
You will note from slide 12, organic revenue for parts and services in the Q4 for our North American segment increased 10.3% on a reported basis and 12% on a per-day basis compared to the Q4 of 2021. We continue to perform well in North America, especially when you consider that according to CCC, collision liability-related auto claims were down 0.9% year-over-year in the Q4. Looking back at our performance through the financial crisis from 2008 to 2010, our North American business grew organically at an average of 7.5%, which drove the alternative part usage rate or APU rate above its historical annual growth rates.
As we enter 2023 and face the reality of a global recession, our alternative parts offerings clearly become more attractive during these challenging economic periods. We are also encouraged by the trend in parts per repair, which reached an all-time high in 2022. Important to note is that our sweet spot has expanded and today stands at model years four to 15 years of age. All these items combined positions North America well for continued organic growth in 2023. The upward trend in our aftermarket sales volumes and the ongoing improvement in our fill rates continued in the Q4, with fill rates reaching their highest percentage levels in 2022 and today stands at close to the pre-pandemic level of 93%.
Importantly, as the supply chain recovered and fill rates increased, the entire industry realized a 220 basis point improvement in the aftermarket percentage of APU, taking share back from the OEs as we progress throughout the year. The supply chain has stabilized, and our inventory is generally where we want it to be. The main issue we are confronting today are continued delays at some of the rail heads due to congestion. As many of you know, on December 7th of last year, State Farm announced that they are rolling out expanded non-OEM collision repair parts to use in most of the United States. We are excited State Farm is embracing the aftermarket value proposition that the industry offers, which will ultimately benefit the end consumer.
We continue to actively analyze this opportunity, and we are well-positioned to compete for our fair share of this opportunity and have built our inventory appropriately to do so. Our salvage inventory is also healthy, and we saw some relief on our cost per vehicle during the quarter. The salvage business had solid organic growth, largely driven by price, but as we entered December, we witnessed an upward trend in our salvage volumes.
T otal loss rates increased a bit in the Q4, which were largely seasonal. As you can see, it had no impact on our organic growth. These slightly higher loss rates played a role in our ability to source the right level of inventory at auction at attractive prices. As we have stated before, fluctuations in loss rates are largely net neutral events for LKQ. Moving on to our European segment.
Europe organic revenue growth of parts and services in the quarter increased 4.6% on a reported basis and 5.8% on a per day basis, which represents the best Q4 per day organic revenue growth since 2016. I'd also like to highlight that Europe segment EBITDA margin was the highest Q4 level since entering the European market in 2011. On a full year basis, Europe's performance is another year of double-digit segment EBITDA margins, which is consistent with our One LKQ Europe initiatives and strategy. Rick will cover more margin details in his prepared remarks. Throughout the quarter, our European team was laser focused on the cost structure, including rationalizing headcount to create a more nimble and agile team and focusing our team on a narrow and actionable list of key projects.
These projects represent the highest return opportunities that the team can execute in the near term, further cementing the long-term resiliency and market leadership of our European segment. On February first, LKQ Europe announced that it expanded its European salvage network with the acquisition of Dutch-based Rhenoy Group. Founded in 1991, Rhenoy is a leading supplier of remanufactured engines and recycled OEM car parts. Rhenoy operates a salvage dismantling facility in the Netherlands and remanufacturing plants in both the Netherlands and Poland.
As you know, the roots of our company lie in the dismantling of salvage vehicles to recycle OEM parts. As part of our European strategic plan, we intend to capitalize on that history and knowledge, coupled with our remanufacturing capabilities to grow our salvage network across our European footprint. With this tuck-in acquisition, we take one small incremental step towards that objective.
I want to congratulate our STAHLGRUBER team on their 100th anniversary and commend them for building a resilient and market-leading business that continues to demonstrate an ability to adapt to the ever-changing independent aftermarket. A century since the founding brothers, Otto and Willy Gruber, started the business. Today, the STAHLGRUBER business continues its history of embracing change, which positions them well to capture further opportunity as the car park shifts towards EVs and other forms of mobility. We can't wait to see what the next 100 years brings for STAHLGRUBER. Let's move on to our Specialty segment. During the Q4, Specialty reported a decrease in organic revenue of 10.6%. Throughout 2022, Specialty was up against tough 2021 comparisons in the midst of decreased demand for certain key RV parts and a slower than expected recovery in U.S.
light vehicle sales. Looking at the Specialty segment on a multi-year basis, since 2019, Specialty has generated approximately a 4% compound annual growth rate for organic revenue, outperforming the industry growth of SEMA and RV related products. A few Specialty operational highlights would include that Specialty continued to realize the full benefits of the SeaWide synergies, which exceeded our expectations in dollars and operational execution. Specialty won O'Reilly's 2022 Top Supply Line Award for the third year in a row. On to our self-service segment. Organic revenue for parts and services for our self-service segment increased 4.8% in the Q4. Self-service was again challenged by commodity pricing, as seen in the material decline of other revenue which impacted our expectations for the quarter. On the corporate development front, the Q4 was fairly quiet.
While we did not complete any material transactions during the quarter, our corporate development team is actively assessing various opportunities that exist across our operating segments. As the global economies continue to soften, that may lead to multiple compression, and we are well-positioned to execute on synergistic acquisitions that fit our strategic objectives. Outside of Q4 corporate development efforts, I am pleased to announce that this past January, we entered into a memorandum of understanding with Korea Zinc Company, Ltd., a world-class general non-ferrous metal smelting company.
Under the memorandum of understanding, we will work towards a potential large-scale joint venture related to the recycling of lithium-ion EV batteries in the United States. This is again evidence that we will continue to strategically position the company to adapt to and seize the longer-term opportunities that exist in the ever-changing car park.
Turning to ESG, during the Q4, we continued to build out our ESG program by focusing on our people efforts and various social initiatives. Here are a few worth noting. Every colleague employed by LKQ ELIT Ukraine for at least six months received a one-time hardship payment to support paying for energy and the general increase in the cost of living owing to the Russian invasion. Our U.K. and German operations also implemented one-time hardship payments to support our employees in those markets, given the state of the overall European economy. We initiated a voluntary daily pay benefit in the U.S. that allows our employees to access a portion of their earned pay on demand. The company implemented this benefit with the financial wellness of our people in mind.
We launched our first employee inclusion group, the LKQ Veterans Network, a program that embraces our proud community of employee veterans and veteran allies who support and encourage each other through shared experiences, veteran recruitment, career development, outward engagement, professional growth, and retention. In 2022, our North American salvage operations continued our leadership as the largest recycler of vehicles by processing over 753,000 vehicles, resulting in, among other things, the recycling of approximately 3.6 million gallons of fuel, 2.2 million gallons of waste oil, 2 million tires, 700,000 batteries, and approximately 955,000 tons of scrap metal. The end result of these efforts resulted in nearly 13 million recycled and repurposed parts being sold into the collision and mechanical repair shop industry that otherwise would have ended up in landfills.
Let's turn to the inflationary environment. Again, a key item of interest for most listeners on this call. As I discussed this time last year, we expected inflation to be a headwind throughout 2022, and that expectation became a harsh reality all year across each of our segments. Fortunately, we are beginning to see some moderation with inflation in the U.S., and recently we witnessed the rate of inflation drop for the last three months in a row across the Eurozone. Eurozone inflation stood at approximately 8.5% in January, down from October, where it was almost 11%. Despite this drop, many of our key operating markets continue to face high inflation rates, with certain countries running in the high single to low double digits.
In the U.S., the labour markets continue to be strained and unpredictable in the midst of higher interest rates and mounting fears of a recession. Daily, we read about high-profile layoffs, yet new claims for unemployment benefits remain at a historic low. As of late, wage inflation is beginning to slow, and certain areas of our business are seeing reductions in turnover. These reductions are not material, and we are far from out of the woods, but it is validation that our retention and employee engagement programs are gaining traction. Our engagement efforts aren't simply an HR mandate. They are programs that stretch across all levels of the organization and are a key component of our culture. Our global engagement score of 74 is significantly above the average for companies of our size.
Studies have shown that employees who are engaged are 14% more productive, and that companies with engaged employees are 23% more profitable than those with disengaged employees. From a business perspective, positive employee engagement is critical, but importantly, it's the right thing to do for our most important asset, our people. Lastly, before I turn the discussion over to Rick, who will run through the details of the segment results and discuss our outlook for 2023, I am pleased to announce that on February 21, our board of directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.275 per share of common stock, payable on March 30th, 2023 to stockholders of record at the close of business on March 16th, 2023.
Thank you, Nick. Good morning to everyone joining us today. Before I go into details of the Q4, I'd like to reflect on what LKQ accomplished in the last year. We entered 2022 with a strong position based on the success of our operational excellence initiatives and solid balance sheet after reporting the highest profitability in the company's history in 2021. We expected there to be headwinds in 2022 from the areas Nick mentioned. As you can see on the bridge on slide five, these headwinds did set us back, but the LKQ team drove operational improvements to produce roughly $0.40 of operating increases relative to 2021. We also sustained the positive momentum around cash flow generation with free cash flow of just over $1 billion in 2022 and a healthy conversion ratio of 60% of EBITDA.
Our work on free cash flow in recent years supported some noteworthy accomplishments in the last year. LKQ achieved investment grade ratings from all three major rating agencies, returned $284 million to shareholders through quarterly dividends and increased the quarterly amount by 10% in October. Repurchased roughly 20 million shares of LKQ stock for just over $1 billion, which combined with the carryover benefit from 2021 purchases, added $0.23 of EPS compared to 2021, and all while maintaining a net leverage ratio at less than 1.5x EBITDA. In early January 2023, we replaced our prior credit facility, which included a $3.15 billion revolver with a new unsecured facility, including a $500 million term loan and a $2.0 billion revolver.
Our confidence in the balance sheet and ability to generate robust cash flow factored into the decision to reduce the size of the facility. We were pleased to complete this new facility ahead of the prior facility becoming current and lock in funding over the next five years at a competitive rate structure. Generating these successful outcomes despite challenging conditions is a credit to the entire LKQ team, and I want to thank all of them for their contributions. Turning to the Q4 results, starting with segment performance. Going to slide 14. Wholesale North America continued its strong performance, posting a record Q4 segment EBITDA margin of 18.5%, a 330 basis point improvement over last year.
We saw gross margin improvement of 150 basis points, driven by favourable mix and the sale of the lower margin PGW business, as well as pricing and productivity initiatives. Overhead expenses were favourable by 180 basis points, primarily related to non-recurring expenses incurred in 2021. Strong organic revenue growth, aided by the rebound in aftermarket parts volume, offset inflationary cost increases and benefited operating leverage. As mentioned in prior quarters, we believe there will likely be some moderation in segment EBITDA margin in upcoming quarters as the benefits of the 2022 price increases fall away, with the resultant EBITDA margin expected to be in the high 17s, low 18% range for 2023. Europe also delivered its highest ever Q4 margin at 10.0%, up 110 basis points from the prior year period.
As seen on slide 15, gross margin improved by 10 basis points as we work to offset inflation with pricing and procurement initiatives. Overhead expenses decreased by 70 basis points with an emphasis on cost structure and improved leverage due to the 5.8% per day organic revenue growth. Inflation related to personnel, freight, and fuel costs remains a critical concern across the European markets. The team is actively addressing the pressures through productivity initiatives. Europe produced a segment EBITDA margin of 10.2% for the full year, the second consecutive year of double-digit margins. I want to commend the Europe team for achieving this result despite the onset of the war on the Ukraine and significant macroeconomic headwinds. We are optimistic about incremental margin expansion of 20 to 30 basis points in 2023. Moving to slide 16.
Specialties EBITDA margin of 6.2% declined 130 basis points compared to the prior year, coming from a decrease in overhead expense leverage driven by an organic revenue decline of 9.1% per day as they anniversary a tough comp from the prior year when the business delivered a 6% organic revenue growth in the Q4 on top of the 17% growth in Q4 2020. Inflationary pressures also pushed overhead expenses as a percentage of revenue higher, including personnel, freight, and fuel expenses. The overhead expense increase were partially offset by lower incentive compensation and benefits from operating expense synergies largely generated from the SeaWide acquisition.
As you can see on slide 17, self-service profitability improved sequentially from the low point in Q3, but remained on the low end of our historical range at 5.2% for the Q4 and below our expectations. Metals prices continued to have a negative effect on results with the unfavorable lag effect and reduced operating leverage caused by the lower metals revenue dollars. When we broke out self-service as a separate segment in Q1 2022, we highlighted that this business would have cycles, mostly driven by commodity price volatility.
We are working through a down cycle now, and the team is focused on buying the right quantity of cars at the best price to drive margin dollars higher. With the uncontrollable commodity dynamic in this business, we will emphasize generating margin dollars and free cash flow rather than targeting a specific margin percentage.
On to the consolidated results. We reported diluted earnings per share of $0.72 and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.78, which was a $0.09 reduction relative to Q4 last year. As previously mentioned, our operational performance showed year-over-year improvement and was in line with our expectations. This solid operational performance was more than offset by unfavourable year-over-year effects of $0.04 from volatility in metals prices and $0.03 from the foreign currency exchange effects caused by the stronger dollar. We had a negative effect of $0.03 from higher interest rates as benchmark rates were markedly higher in Q4 2022. As Nick mentioned, taxes were the most significant unfavourable variance for the quarter, reflecting a $0.15 year-over-year impact and a $0.05 negative variance relative to the guidance provided back in October.
As a reminder, in the Q4 last year, we recognized almost $0.10 in tax provision benefits from discrete items and the reduction in our full year effective rate. We experienced the opposite effect in Q4 2022 as we recorded a negative provision effect of approximately $0.05 from increasing our full year effective rate and unfavourable discrete items. The effective rate increase primarily related to shifts in the geographic distribution of income. We mitigated about $0.07 of the decline with our lower share count resulting from our share repurchase program. During the Q4, we incurred $11 million in restructuring expenses, the majority of which relate to a new program we kicked off late in the year. We initiated the 2022 global restructuring program in recognition of the ongoing macroeconomic concerns heading into 2023.
All of the segments have submitted plans to improve operational efficiencies by streamlining functions, closing underperforming locations, and halting non-essential projects. The total cost of the 2022 program are estimated to be in the range of $30 million to 40 million to be incurred over the next few years. Projected cost savings of $20 million related to the program are included in our 2023 guidance, we expect annual run rate benefits of approximately $30 million by 2025. Shifting to cash flows and the balance sheet. We produced $166 million in free cash flow during the quarter, bringing the year-to-date total to $1.028 billion, the third consecutive year we have exceeded $1 billion. With the supply chain issues abating, we made good progress in rebuilding our inventory levels in wholesale North America and Europe.
As shown on slide 35, we increased our inventory values in these segments, though note that the dollar increase doesn't directly equate to a quantity change given the higher input costs. We are comfortable with our current inventory holdings and are pleased with improvements in aftermarket fill rates. We will continue to evaluate our inventory holdings and may increase our balances in 2023, but not to the extent seen in 2022.
The supply chain finance program contributed to an increase in days payable outstanding in Europe in 2022. With the signing of the new credit facility, certain restrictions around the program were eliminated. We view further program expansion to be an opportunity in the next few years. For the year, the cash conversion is 60% conversion of EBITDA to free cash flow, in line with our targeted range of 55% to 60%.
We finished at the high end of the range and our guidance partially due to the lower than projected CapEx. For the year, CapEx were 1.7% of revenue, which is below our targeted 2.0% to 2.25% range. We have experienced delays in receiving capital assets, such as trucks, as a result of supply chain delays. As a result, some of our 2022 orders will be delivered in 2023 and reflected in CapEx in the 2023 financials. As of December 31st, we had total debt of $2.7 billion with a total leverage ratio of 1.5x EBITDA, which is comfortably inside our target range of below 2x.
Please note that going forward, I will reference total leverage statistics rather than net leverage as the new credit facility changed the metric to total leverage. Our effective borrowing rate rose to 4% for the quarter due to the market rate hikes in the U.S. and Europe. We have $1.8 billion in variable rate debt, a 100 basis point rise in interest rates would increase annual interest expense by $18 million. In the Q4, we repurchased 3 million shares for $152 million and paid a quarterly dividend totalling $74 million. I will conclude our thoughts on projected 2023 results as shown on slide six through eight.
Our guidance is based on current market conditions and recent trends and assumes that scrap and precious metals prices hold near December prices and the Ukraine-Russia conflict continues without further escalation or major additional impact on the European economy and miles driven. On foreign exchange, our guidance includes recent European rates with balance of the year rates for the euro of $1.08 and the pound sterling at $1.22. We expect organic parts and service revenue growth of between 6% and 8%. Please note that we have one fewer selling day in 2023 and have included associated with the expansion of aftermarket parts volume resulting from State Farm writing claims on CAPA-certified parts in three product lines: headlights, taillights, and bumper covers.
We are projecting full year adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $3.90 to $4.20 with a midpoint of $4.05. This is an increase of $0.20 or 5% at the midpoint relative to the 2022 actual figure. Looking at slide seven in the presentation, you can see how we get from the 2022 actual EPS to our 2023 guidance. Operating performance is expected to generate growth of $0.24 relative to the 2022 results, mostly related to wholesale North America from volume growth and Europe due to margin improvement. We do expect a continuation of challenging conditions for specialty from softening demand for RV-related products and self-service related to commodity prices and input cost inflation.
Share count benefits are projected to add $0.10 to the full year 2023 EPS over and above the share count benefit associated with the deployment of our PGW proceeds. Note that there are no share repurchases assumed for 2023 in this figure. This amount reflects the carryover benefit from 2022 purchases. We're expecting very solid improvement on the operations side in 2023, which will drive year-over-year growth despite some non-operational challenges. The exchange rate benefit is nominal and is offset by softening in metals prices. The PGW divestiture creates a $0.02 headwind reflecting the net reduction caused by lost profits, partly offset by the share count benefit generated from the redeployment of proceeds into share repurchases.
Interest is projected to be a significant cost increase with our weighted average borrowing rate on variable rate debt having already risen from close to 1% in 2022 to about 4% by year-end. We anticipate an additional $0.13 in an interest expense in 2023 on a year-over-year basis due to higher average market rates. We have included an effective tax rate of 26.3% in the 2023 guidance, roughly in line with the final 2022 rate. We expect to deliver approximately $975 million of free cash flow for the year, achieving 55% EBITDA conversion to free cash flow despite a few key headwinds. As seen on slide eight, we expect to produce incremental cash flows relative to 2022 from operations, including increased profitability and trade working capital improvements to counteract the following uses of cash.
First, as mentioned previously, we underspent on capital expenditures in 2022, including equipment delays, and expect to see an increase of approximately $78 million relative to the prior year. Second, the higher interest rates will require increased cash payments for interest expense, which we are currently projected at roughly $50 million. Third and final, we anticipate increased tax payments of $60 million due to profitability increases and the timing of payments. Thanks for your time this morning. With that, I'll turn the call back to Nick for his closing comments.
Thank you, Rick, for that financial overview. In closing, 2022 was another banner year for our company and again validated the strength of our strategy, our business model, and most importantly, our people. Let me restate our key strategic pillars, which continue to be central to our culture and objectives as we've entered the new year. First, we will continue to integrate our businesses and simplify our operating model. Second, we will continue to focus on profitable revenue growth and sustainable margin expansion. Third, we will continue to drive high levels of cash flow, which in turn gives us the flexibility to maintain a balanced capital allocation strategy. Fourth, we will continue to invest in our future.
With these pillars in place, coupled with our industry leading teams, we are well-positioned to both face the challenges the new year presents and to continue to deliver positive year-over-year operating results for our shareholders. As always, I want to thank the over 45,000 people who work at LKQ for all they do to advance our business each day and for driving our mission forward regardless of the challenges. Time and time again, our teams have shown that these challenges are opportunities for growth, both for themselves and for the overall organization. With that, operator, we are now ready to open the call for questions.
At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Your first question comes from the line of Craig Kennison from Baird. Your line is open.
Hey, thanks, good morning. I wanted to ask about your recycling business in Europe after you've acquired Rhenoy. I mean, I know it's not large in the scheme of things, you know, perhaps you could just update us on the recycling footprint you have today in Europe and whether the time is right to maybe make a bigger push, build something like your North American auto recycling business now in Europe?
Yep. Good morning, Craig, and thanks for the question. For many years, we've had an operation in Scandinavia, in Sweden. We call it Atracco. It's been operating quite well for quite some time. It's not a huge business, but it is a nicely profitable business. We started in Scandinavia, and particularly Sweden, because that recycling market looks the most like the U.S. market when you think about how the insurance companies participate in the industry and the utilization of recycled parts. That was our beachhead, if you will, and it's proven to be a very nice investment. Obviously Rhenoy is our maiden voyage onto the continent, and we anticipate that there will be incremental opportunities to expand the footprint.
The recycling business in Europe is, generally speaking, different than in the U.S. It is largely driven by the commodities as opposed to parts sales. As you know, as a distributor of parts, we're more focused on the parts side than the commodity side. It's going to take some time for the European market to shift. There are some regulatory changes going on in Europe as it relates to the circular economy and utilization of green parts. We think this is going to be a good time to slowly kind of build up our presence. You know, we've got a bowl of intellectual capital here in the U.S. We think it's going to be a good time to extend that to the other side of the Atlantic. It's gonna be a slow process, Craig.
You should not expect any major shifts over the next year or two or three. We think we're incredibly well-positioned, to expand our footprint, on the recycling side in Europe. It's all a matter of finding the right businesses to acquire, the right management teams, the right values, the right environmental practices. We're optimistic that there will be more tuck-ins like Rhenoy, as time unfolds.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from a line of Scott Stember from Roth MKM. Your line is open.
Good morning, guys, and thanks for taking my questions as well.
Good morning, Scott.
Can you talk about State Farm, what you're seeing, early experiences, how fast it's ramping up? And then also, are you hearing anything about State Farm potentially expanding past the two or three SKUs that they're currently using right now?
You know, State Farm made their announcement just in December. It's not like going over to the wall and flipping the switch, right? You have, you know, a couple of decades of history of repair shops, you know, being kind of driven into their head that State Farm did not use aftermarket parts. It's gonna be a slow transition. Our volumes of those three part types on State Farm claims is moving up. We think that it's on track to hit the overall opportunity for 2023. I think we quantified that in our last call as being under $100 million. You know, we've had one month, right, January under our belt.
You know, if you kinda extrapolate that out, we think that they're going to continue to push their new policy throughout the marketplace, but it's gonna take a little bit of time to get up to kind of full speed.
Got it. [crosstalk] Just a follow-up.
There is no indication at this point in time, but again, we're not but 45 days after the announcement, that they're going to extend the program to new product types. That's certainly our hope. We think that is the logical thing to do, but we thought that was the logical thing to do for the last 20 years.
Got it. Well, clearly in a better spot than we were 10 years ago, so.
Absolutely.
Just if I could just slip one last question in Europe. I don't know if you gave granular detail by market, but what are you seeing, the countercyclical benefits of the aftermarket or the mechanical parts aftermarket starting to kick in? Maybe just give us a little colour there.
Yeah. As Rick, and I both indicated, organic growth in Europe in the Q4, was a little bit over 5% on a per day basis, on a same day basis, which was terrific. Every single one of our markets was up nicely and either, you know, in and around that mid-single digit range with the exception of one business, which is we call it components, business. On a year-over-year basis, that was still negative because that's the business that used to sell into Russia. If you recall, we shut every single, element of that down the day that Putin rolled tanks over the border. So, on a year-over-year basis, that volume is just gone. All the geographic platforms showed really good organic growth in the Q4.
Got it. Thanks, guys.
Your next question comes from a line of Bret Jordan from Jefferies. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, guys.
Morning, Bret.
Morning.
You called out strength in alternative parts utilization in North America. Is that a tailwind from OE certification programs or what they're doing in collision on the OE side, driving prices up to the point where it forces more alternative parts utilization? Or what do you see as the tailwind in that mix?
We believe that in the Q4, the biggest part of that tailwind is that the aftermarket, including ourselves, is by far the largest player. We actually had inventory to sell. As you recall, we had supply chain challenges coming out of 2021 into 2022, and our fulfilment rates because of that were down. I mean, historically, we've been in this, you know, the mid-90% range. As we indicated in prior quarters, we were down into the low to mid-80s, right?
The fact that we actually have the inventory we need to be responsive to customer demand is the primary reason the whole aftermarket industry was able to grab over 2% points of share back from the OEs. We think that and we're very proud of that. Obviously, we're the largest player in the aftermarket parts space. You know, we're charging hard to take share, not just from the OEs, but from our smaller competitors as well.
Okay. Great. On the recycling of batteries in North America, the partnership you talked about, can you give us a little more detail? Sort of is that something that uses your just existing infrastructure and, you know, obviously not a lot of batteries in the vehicle park yet, but where do you see that being a contributor?
Yeah. This is, this is not a play for 2023 or even 2025, Bret. This is a, this is a 10-15-year play, right? What ultimately, we believe is, it's pretty well documented that there's not enough lithium being mined to produce all these batteries that can go on the EVs that folks are anticipating are gonna be on the road. So recycling, the key elements out of existing EV batteries is gonna become critical. We don't have the technology to do that. We recycle parts, but we don't know how to recycle chemical elements, right? That's where Korea Zinc comes in. I mean, they are truly a world-class organization when it comes to reclaiming and recycling all sorts of various non-ferrous metals.
We believe that the combination of their ability in process technology on the one hand, with our ability to source cores and batteries on the other hand, could be a great partnership. Now, it's a memorandum of understanding, right? It's not a joint venture yet. The goal is over the next couple of years to work together to develop a plan that could be profitable for both companies.
Great.
You know, it's moving us into the, you know, into the next generation of mobility. We're very excited about it. We think Korea Zinc will be a terrific partner for us.
Great. Thank you.
Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Brian Butler from Stifel. Your line is open.
Good morning, guys. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
Good morning.
Good morning, Brian.
Just on the first one on the guidance. When you think about the $975 million in cash flow, I mean, it sounds like that's kind of the minimum. If you were gonna try to back up into an EBITDA number using the conversion of the 55% to 60%, you know, that kinda puts you at $1.77 billion, just under 13% margins. Is that kind of the right way to think of the low end of EBITDA?
You know, the way we're looking at it. Thanks for the question. The way we're looking at it is 55% is the minimum of where we're sort of guiding on the conversion piece of it. You know, as we're driving into this thing, the mix between what happened year-over-year in the earnings, you know, with the interest payments, the tax payments coming down, and the capital expenditures, you know, I think we've got a gap, you know, call it 50 plus or minus. You know, we kinda gear right in, right in that range. That's where I would kind of look on the free cash flow piece. Backing into that, you know, we've guided 55% to 60%. We think that's a pretty reasonable approach, where we hit the $60 in the prior year, 2022. Bringing that down a little bit with the CapEx expenditures in 2023 is how we end up getting to that $975.
Yeah. [Inaudible]
Okay. I mean, again, just kind of backing it into trying to guess at the EBITDA, I mean, as that gets to the 60%, you would expect the EBITDA to also be higher as well. Is that a fair way to look at it?
Yeah, [crosstalk] absolutely.
Yeah, that's a fair way. Yep.
Okay. On a follow-up question. When you think about the CapEx, the additional spend that kinda moved from 2022 to 2023, I mean, if you kinda even that out over the two years, you kinda were at $1 billion based on your guidance.
That's. [crosstalk]
You know, be at about $1 billion guide.
Yeah, that's exactly-. [Inaudible]
Okay, great. Can you give a little colour just kind of on what drove that and then maybe kinda what's the right way to think about CapEx on a longer term basis?
Yeah. we look at 2% of revenue. 2% to 2.25% of revenue is usually the kind of guide that we've given. We hit 1.75, I think it was, 1.77, something like that, in 2022 as things pushed out. Primarily trucks, equipment pushed out with the supply chain issues. When you think year-over-year, we're right in that 2% range, that we've been kind of guiding to. There may be ebbs and flows back and forth between different years, but that 2% to 2.25% is the right way to look at it.
Okay, perfect. Then just last one. Is there any risk on the inventory build that's Specialty if cars, kinda that market, that demand remains soft? Is that something we should be watching?
No, I don't think so. We have a traditional build throughout the year, and we ended up decreasing that a little bit and then driving that down to the end of the year, to end up virtually flat year-over-year on overall inventories. It's something that we're watching very closely with the demand. Nothing to be concerned about in that, in that area.
Okay, great. Thank you for taking my questions.
Yeah.
Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Imbro from Stephens. Your line is open.
Yeah. Hey, good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking the questions.
Good morning, Daniel.
Nick, I want to start on the European side. I think at the end of your prepared remarks, you talked about Europe having some specific projects they're working on. Can you provide some more colour just around what those are? Is that just the growth into collision parts? Are there other cost projects that Varun and the team are working on? Any kind of quantification as we think about potential margin impacts from those initiatives?
The answer, Daniel, not to be snide, but the answer is yes, right? We've got a number of different projects over in Europe. Rick mentioned restructuring, the 2022 restructuring plan. That hits all of the segments, including the European segment. Folks should think about restructuring at LKQ as part of our continuous improvement plan, that every year we're looking to find ways to optimize our business and to get, you know, access cost or better throughput and efficiency from each of our operations. Yes, there are some restructuring plans over in Europe, just like North America and Specialty. We're looking at programs to continue to drive organic revenue growth, particularly volume growth. And Varun and team are focused on some key programs there.
You know, they pulled in headcount a little bit, particularly at the kinda the, at the head office levels, not just in Zug, but across the operating platforms as well, just to make sure that our administrative costs are aligned with the realities of 2023 and the and the economic climate. It's a number of different initiatives, Daniel, none of which we're gonna put a pinpoint as to what it means from a euro or dollar perspective, but it's all with the goal of continuing to drive organic revenue growth and better margins. As I think Rick indicated in his prepared comments, we're anticipating that the margins in Europe will-
20 to 30.
will go up by 20 to 30 basis points in 2023, and that's been included in the guidance that Rick set out.
That's great. Gary, the temple colour, and then I wanted to just circle back on the potential battery remanufacturing JV. If you take a step back and just think about how State Farm handled the aftermarket after one accident 20 years ago, have you guys talked to the insurance companies? Do you think that they're actually gonna reinsure remanufactured EV batteries? Or if there's one accident, does that become a category that insurance companies just won't touch because of the liability? Just trying to think through what the actual end market.
Yeah
could be there. Okay. Yeah. Can insurance companies actually do that?
Daniel, you need to separate the collision business from the mechanical repair business. The EV batteries, what we're doing right now with Bumblebee and Green Bean, the two companies that we bought over the last year or so that remanufacture batteries, that has nothing to do with the collision business. That just has to do with the failure of the batteries and the life batteries to extend the life of the vehicle. Okay. The memorandum of understanding on recycling with Korea Zinc, again, has nothing to do with remanufacturing. That is truly a recycling to get to the core elements that are inside that EV. You need to keep them. There's a big difference between remanufacturing and recycling. Recycling, there's not a, there's not a battery left to go back into a another vehicle, right?
Remanufacturing is where we truly look at the battery. We replace certain cells. That is not an insurance-driven product. If you, if you have a nine-year-old EV and your battery is failing, you are not going to get reimbursed a nickel from your insurance company to go replace that battery. That's gonna be an out-of-pocket expense.
Got it. It's on the mineral extraction or kind of recycling side.
Correct.
The potential.
Yeah.
Okay. That's helpful. Thanks, guys.
Yep.
There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Nick Zarcone, I turn the call back over to you for some final closing remarks.
Well, as always, we greatly appreciate everyone's time and attention, on this call. We know it's a busy, reporting period, and we appreciate you spending the hour, with LKQ. Again, I couldn't be more proud of our team and the results that we posted up, not only in the Q4 of 2022, but the full year as a whole. We're looking forward to being back online with you in about, I don't know, 60 days or so in, late April, when we announce our Q1 results. Thank you for your time, and we'll be talking to you soon.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.