Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

David Whiston: And I know you said demand still strong. But just curious how worried are you, maybe back end of the year, high interest rates become an issue at that point?

David Hult: I can only answer it this way. If the Fed raises one or two more times at 25 basis points, we think we’ll be just fine. I think something catastrophic would have to happen in the marketplace for us to alter our belief in what’s going on. If there was another war out there or something significantly got worse, if COVID came back to extreme levels like it did when it launched, that would dramatically change things. But as we sit here today with all the things we’ve already discussed, age of the car park, the job market, we believe it’s — not that retail, automotive won’t be affected like other industries, we think we’ll fare better than most throughout the year.

David Whiston: And just one more, if you don’t mind on acquisitions, you referred to that deal that fell through as significant in size. And just generally speaking, I know you can’t comment on a specific deal. But when you tell us something like we’re pursuing a large acquisition or a significant acquisition, should we still assume that it’s significantly smaller than Larry Miller’s size?

David Hult: I’ll try and navigate this one at the best I can. Most opportunities aren’t the size of LHM, they’re extremely rare. So you have everything between one rooftop and 60 rooftops. This probably would’ve been somewhere in the middle of the two. It was a very healthy size acquisition, but not the size of Miller.

David Whiston: Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you.

David Hult: Okay. This concludes today’s discussion. We appreciate your participation and look forward to speaking with you after the first quarter. Have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.