Lithia Motors, Inc. (NYSE:LAD) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call August 1, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jardon Jaramillo – Senior Director, Investor Relations
Bryan DeBoer – President and Chief Executive Officer
Tina Miller – Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Adam Chamberlain – Chief Operating Officer

Conference Call Participants

Ryan Sigdahl – Craig-Hallum
Rajat Gupta – JPMorgan
Bret Jordan – Jefferies
John Murphy – Bank of America
Douglas Dutton – Evercore
Colin Langan – Wells Fargo

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Lithia Motors Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Jardon Jaramillo, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Jardon Jaramillo

Good morning. Thank you for joining us for our second quarter earnings call. With me today are Bryan DeBoer, President and CEO; Chris Holzshu, Executive Vice President; Tina Miller, Senior Vice President and CFO; Chuck Lietz, Senior Vice President of Driveway Finance; and finally, Adam Chamberlain, Chief Operating Officer.

Today's discussion may include statements about future events, financial projections and expectations about the company's products, markets and growth. Such statements are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from the statements made. We disclose those risks and uncertainties we deem to be material in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We urge you to carefully consider these disclosures and not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. We undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements, which are made as of the date of this release. Our results discussed today include references to non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the text of today's press release for reconciliation of comparable GAAP measures. We have also posted an updated investor presentation on our website, investors.lithiadriveway.com, highlighting our second quarter results.

With that I would like to turn the call over to Bryan DeBoer, President and CEO.

Bryan DeBoer

Thanks, Jordan. Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter earnings call. Our Lithia and Driveway teams continue to drive results as we mature our unique and profitable mobility ecosystem. Our associates met the operational challenge we faced in the quarter and delivered much improved operating results and execution of our strategy with an adjusted diluted earnings per share of $7.87, a 30% improvement sequentially despite the CDK outage. We achieved our highest ever quarterly revenue, our first quarter of profitability in financing operations and laid the foundation for continued growth in our ecosystem as we serve customers wherever, whenever and however they desire. We have strategically used the higher profits and capital of recent years to grow, scale revenue and earnings by nearly three times since COVID began plus built, acquired and funded all our crucial differentiating strategic adjacencies, Driveway, green cars, DFC, PVM, and now Wheels. These important design and scale advantages, built and assembled during a period of low cost capital have paved the highway to higher margin and a lower cost business with unlimited potential to capture market share.