Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (NYSE:AAP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Steven Zaccone: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Seth Sigman of Barclays. Seth, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Seth Sigman: Great. Thanks for taking the question and nice to talk to everybody. Tom, congrats to you. Some of these are follow-ups, but I just wanted to clarify, when we think about that 8% operating margin for ’23, I guess, on an apples-to-apples basis, how does that compare to what your prior expectations were for 2023 and maybe what some of those big differences could be?

Jeff Shepherd: Yeah. I mean, again, the big drivers between GAAP and non-GAAP are the things that we talked about, the transformation, the LIFO obviously being the biggest one. We had $300 million – over $300 million of LIFO. So those you have to factor back in, but the initiatives that we have in place don’t change. So our ability to drive margins through own brand expansion doesn’t change our ability to take costs out through our My Day through My Delivery don’t change. So those – we really don’t see it any different. We really think the timing to go from non-GAAP to GAAP is appropriate, given that we’re seeing the non-GAAP items beginning to moderate eventually go away. So for all those reasons, that’s why we wanted to make the change. And there are no change in the underlying assumptions in terms of our margin growth outside of going from non-GAAP to GAAP.

Seth Sigman: Got you. Okay. That’s helpful. And then just two quick follow-ups on the different channels. On the DIY business, did you actually say whether the momentum that you saw in the fourth quarter had continued into Q1? And then just quickly on the Pro business, I’m just curious as you sort of step back and look at the underperformance of that business, how broad based is that underperformance? Or maybe you could speak to like different customer types, different sizes, regions, et cetera? I’m just trying to understand where the GAAP may be within that? Thank you.

Tom Greco: Sure. Well, first of all, in DIY, we do believe we can sustain the momentum that we have on DIY in 2023. Once again, based on all the things I talked about at DieHard, Speed, Parts, et cetera and again, the e-commerce business. We believe that our digital business can grow nicely this year. We’ve sort of dealt with the discount we used to have and effectively got that business in a very good spot from a profitability standpoint. So now we’re building that business the right way. On the professional side, we’re very clear on where our opportunities are. We did make some decisions, as we said last year, to reduce unprofitable discounts. In some cases, that was a large account. In some cases, that were smaller accounts.

But as we start to lap those decisions, we’ll see some accelerated growth at Pro. And once again, we want to do it the right way. We want to do it in a way that is sustainable over the long-term, which is through inventory availability and making sure we got the right part in the right place. So that’s kind of the tail of the take there.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question for today comes from Seth Basham of Wedbush. Seth, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Seth Basham: Thanks a lot. Good morning, and best wishes, Tom. My question is a follow-up just to make sure I understand the guidance on a GAAP basis in terms of margin improvement in 2023. It seems like there’s a small piece from lower start-up costs in the Cali stores. But the biggest piece of that step-up is going to be from LIFO. Is that the right way to think about it?