Earnings Labs

LKQ Corporation (LKQ)

Q2 2017 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 27, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Liandra, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to LKQ Second Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. Mr. Joe Boutross, LKQ's Director of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Joseph P. Boutross - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to LKQ's second quarter 2017 earnings conference call. With us today are Nick Zarcone, LKQ's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Michael Clark, LKQ's Vice President of Finance and Controller. Please refer to the LKQ website at lkqcorp.com. Our earnings release issued this morning as well as the accompanying slide deck presentation for this call. Now, let me quickly cover the Safe Harbor. 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. And with that, I'm happy to turn the call over to Nick Zarcone.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thank you, Joe, and good morning to everybody on the call. I am delighted to share the results for our most recent quarter with you. I will begin with a few high-level financial metrics before providing an update on our operating segments and discussing a few of the macro trends we witnessed during the quarter. I will then turn the call over to Michael Clark, who will provide some segment-level financial detail, and then I will come back to comment on our updated guidance and make a few final remarks before taking your questions. All-in-all, we believe Q2 was a strong quarter for our company and we are pleased with the results. As noted on slide 3, consolidated revenue was $2.458 billion, a 6.7% increase over the $2.3 billion recorded in the second quarter of last year. Total revenue growth from parts and services was 6.4%. Importantly, organic growth in parts and services was 3.8% on a reported basis. After taking into account the fewer selling days in Europe related to the timing of the Easter holiday, organic growth was a solid 4.9% on a same-day basis. It's nice to see the organic growth begin to pick up from the levels we experienced in the first quarter. Income from continuing operations for the second quarter of 2017 was $151 million, an increase of 9.5% over the comparable quarter of last year, resulting in diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of $0.49 as compared to $0.45 for the comparable period of 2016. On an adjusted basis, diluted earnings per share from continuing operations was $0.53 compared to $0.52 for the same period last year. Let's turn to the operating highlights. As you'll note from slide 6, parts and services revenue for our North American segment grew 5.5% in the second…

Michael S. Clark - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thanks, Nick, and good morning to everyone on the call today. While I've been working behind the scenes on our quarterly calls for quite a while, this is my first time speaking to the group, and I'm excited for the opportunity. Nick touched on a few of the key financial statistics, and I will take you through the more detailed review of the consolidated and segment margins for the quarter. Nick described the trends behind our reported revenue of $2.46 billion, so I'll start with our consolidated gross margin. As noted on slide 13 of the presentation, the consolidated gross margin percentage was flat quarter-over-quarter at 39.3%. The result reflects improved margins in North America, mostly on the salvage side, offset by roughly equal decreases in our Europe and Specialty segments. We saw about a 40 basis point increase in our operating expenses, largely due to our Europe segment. We continue to experience negative impact from costs associated with the Andrew Page acquisition. Until we receive clearance from the CMA, we are unable to implement a full integration, which has left us with some cost inefficiencies. Segment EBITDA totaled $306 million for the second quarter, reflecting a $6 million or 2.1% increase over the comparable quarter of 2016. As mentioned, there were fewer selling days in Europe in the second quarter of 2017 compared to last year, which would negatively impact our segment EBITDA dollars this period. As a percentage of revenue, segment EBITDA was 12.4%, a 60 basis point decrease over the 13% recorded last year. During the second quarter of 2017, we experienced a $7 million decrease in restructuring costs compared to the prior year, but a $1 million increase in depreciation and amortization expense, largely due to recent acquisitions. With that, operating income for the second quarter…

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thanks, Michael. With respect to our guidance for 2017, we've made some updates based on where we are sitting at the halfway mark of the year. Organic growth for parts and services has been narrowed to 4% at the low end and 5.25% on the high end, reflective of the fact that we're sitting at 4.1% for the first six months. Likewise, we have narrowed the range for our adjusted diluted earnings per share from $1.84 at the low end to $1.92 on the high end, increasing the midpoint to $1.88 per share. The corresponding adjusted income from continuing operations is $570 million to $595 million, while cash flow from operations has been revised up to $620 million to $650 million. Capital spending has remained constant at the $200 million to $225 million range. The updated guidance reflects an effective tax rate of 35.15% and exchange rates in the back half of the year of $1.30 for the pound sterling, $1.15 for the euro and scrap at $150 per ton. As it relates to our effort to bring on a new Chief Financial Officer, the response to our search process was terrific and we have had the opportunity to meet with some incredibly talented professionals over the past few months. Whittling down the talent has been hard, but we are in the final phase of the process, and I expect we will have a final decision in the near future. In summary, Q2 was a solid all-around quarter accentuated by an uptick in organic growth across all of our segments. The overall results reflect the collective efforts of our more than 40,000 employees around the globe, who are working hard to serve our customers each and every day. I would like to thank each of them for their dedication. Finally, I would like to thank Rob Wagman for his efforts during his 19 years at LKQ. As you know, Rob stepped down on June 1, and is now serving as Executive Advisor with a focus on corporate development activities. Rob's contributions during his tenure were countless, and I look forward to his continued insights as we move forward. And operator, we are now ready to open the call for questions.

Operator

Operator

And your first question comes from the line of James Albertine with Consumer Edge. Your line is open.

James J. Albertine - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · Consumer Edge. Your line is open

Great. Thank you, and good morning, gentlemen.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Jamie.

James J. Albertine - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · Consumer Edge. Your line is open

And I want to add as well, thanks to Rob, if he's listening, and really have enjoyed working him over the past many years, and wish him the best. If I may, organic growth, North America, first. It seems, when we look at the broader units in operation sort of in this cycle that we're finally getting to a point where you're getting a bigger supply of that sort of three- to four-year-old segment that off-lease vehicle, if you will, as a proxy. I would imagine that that should continue for the remainder of this year and into next year. But wanted to hear from you guys, as you are seeing parts orders coming in and you're serving customers, are you getting a sense that there is growing number of orders for those sort of younger vehicles? And so, even though, compares are easier in the back half that maybe there is an additional tailwind from that units in operation sort of flurry?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Sure. So, a couple of questions you got built in there, Jamie. But all-in-all, we are expecting that the car park and the age of the car park will be a gentle tailwind as we move forward. In our standard information that we provide the investment community, our standard investor relations deck, we include a slide, as you know, that is what we call our collision sweet spot of 3 to 10 years. And for the first time in many years, the number of cars that fall into that age bracket in 2017 is actually ticking up a little bit. Now, it's not significant, so we don't anticipate any major movements here in 2017, but at least it's movement in the right direction, I believe, from about 101 million units to 103 million units. Then we get another more substantial uptick in 2018 and 2019. So, there is no doubt that we've sold the better part of 52 million vehicles in this country over the – new vehicles over the last three years, as those vehicles begin to come in to our 3- to 10-year sweet spot, there will be more cars that will need the types of parts that we sell. We do the best we can to track the vintage of parts that we're selling. We haven't seen a material shift, if you will, thus far. But again, we do believe that as the number of cars in a sweet spot grow that that will be a gentle tailwind to our business.

James J. Albertine - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · Consumer Edge. Your line is open

Okay. Great. And then my last one, if I may ask, on Europe sort of a similar question. I know the business over there is a little different. But can you help us frame kind of where the car park in Europe is within the cycle and how we should think about that? And then a point of clarification, I think I heard you say Rhiag was growing at a double-digit rate. Want to clarify if you were talking organically. And so, as we think about that coming into the organic base for the third quarter, if that's going to be a double-digit contributor and we should take that into account in our models? Thanks.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, with respect to the European organic, again, the business there is differently because we are adding branches, they get closer to the customer base. You have to remember that in the European business, we need to be within 30 to 60 minutes of delivery time between our branches and the customers in order to fulfill their expectations. Part of the way we do that is to add new branch operations to get close to the customer base. That's how we grow actually our market share, if you will. So, some of the growth in Europe comes from, what I'll call, the organic growth of the more mature branches. Some of the growth comes from having just more dots on the map, right. And so Rhiag – and this is all same day, to make it simple and take the calendar out of the mix, right? Rhiag was just north of 10%, on a same-day organic basis. About 55% to 60% of that was the contributions for what we would call the more mature stores. And then the balance of it was the impact of those 40 new branches that we've added in Eastern Europe over the last 12 months. If you move back to the ECP, where organic growth was just shy of 6% on a same-day basis, about 85% of that came from the stores that we've had for more than a year and about 0.9% of growth came from those seven new stores that we added over the last 12 months. The car park in Europe, it's aging a little bit as well, but it's – you've got a couple different car parks in Europe right. You have Eastern Europe where the average age of a car is still 9.5, maybe 9.6 years old and then you've got Eastern Europe where the average age of car is over 14.5 years old. So there's some very different dynamics based on the geography. But the car park is continuing to grow. It's growing faster in Eastern Europe than it is in Western Europe. That's said, in 2016, the number of auto registrations in the UK hit an all-time high. So, there is a good backdrop for our businesses as we continue to move forward.

James J. Albertine - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · Consumer Edge. Your line is open

Well, thank you so much for that detail. I appreciate. The 55% to 60% of the mature stores in Rhiag, though, can you give us a number in terms of what they're growing at? I know the bend is above 10%...

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Well, yeah...

James J. Albertine - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · Consumer Edge. Your line is open

...in the mature stores?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

So, it's 5.6% to 6%.

James J. Albertine - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · Consumer Edge. Your line is open

Understood. Thank you again.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Hoffman with Stifel. Your line is open. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Thank you, Nick, for taking my questions. Can we dig a little bit into the collision business, and the parts and service numbers in the U.S. versus your relative position? So, if we think of the business as sort of 65%-35% collision versus mechanical, can you give us some flavor on what was happening in that mix given that there is two different sweet spots and collision is getting better, but mechanical probably gets a little worse?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Actually, no real shift, Michael, in our, kind of, if you want to think, product line revenue or growth. I mean, the reality is the core collision product, think about Keystone (41:43) in a box, if you will, the core aftermarket product grew higher than the 2.8% total. Our salvage mechanical parts, engines, transmissions and some of the other big mechanical pieces, right, they were above the 2.8% as well. Again, as has been the case now for several quarters, we do have some product lines that are soft. We talked about this in the past. Aluminum wheels, paint, cooling continue to be soft. But again, there has been no major shift in kind of the relative contribution of salvage versus aftermarket or mechanical versus collision. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: So, we dug into the sort of a hot items like bumpers, mirrors, doors, they're showing really good trends and that's clearly a sign of, you're still gaining share relative to the market?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. And again, the fact that our organic was at 2.8% and total repairable claims are only up 1.7%, that gives us confidence that we are continuing to, at a minimum, hold our own and likely gaining share... Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Absolutely. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: And then if I switch gears to Europe, if Andrew Page got closed December 31 and T2 comes on as planned, how do you think about what that margin – the favorable margin implication of that is in 2018?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. Well, so last year, in 2016, Andrew Page hit us for about $0.02 a share. As we've indicated this year, we think it's going to hit us for $0.03 a share. It's going to take some time. Once we get our – the ability to truly mange Andrew Page, it's not going to be an overnight flip, but ultimately we will be able to rationalize the way we believe all those losses and ultimately get it into a profitable situation. And so, yeah, I'd call, $0.02 to $0.03 of incremental value potentially next year. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Well, that's just getting to zero, right, I mean, as opposed to – take it from a loss of zero is $0.03?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Correct. Now, we anticipate we're going to be able to get it into profitability. But again, that doesn't happen overnight, Michael. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Got it. Got it. The leverage is greater than $0.03, because you'd start working towards your overall margins, which are prior to this sort of $0.10, $0.11. So that's, if I go from whatever the negative is, equated to $0.03 multi – three, five years plan, I head towards $0.11. That's what I'm playing with.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, the key is going to be, we're – we continue to be optimistic, we continue to feel strongly in our perspectives. At the end of the day, it's how many of the branches that we've acquired are we going to be able to keep. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Does your case get made stronger, because of Uni-Select's Parts Alliance acquisition, now that there is a well-capitalized bigger player, owns the 160 branches?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Probably not, because the competitors on the street corner are still the same competitors on the street corner. They're just owned by somebody else. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. And then I presume that the Benelux transactions are key component from going from three to two-step and how quickly can that happen?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, just as we did in the Netherlands, where we brought some of the larger distributors that we were selling to, we brought some of our larger customers, the flip from three-step to two-step, that's really what the acquisition of the four businesses in Belgium were all about. They have a good market share and that will allow us basically to get to the last mile for the garage which is what – we were missing that. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: And that integration to make that switch now that they're owned is relatively immediate, I mean, like within 90 days?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Well, again, nothing happens quite that fast, Michael. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Yeah, yeah.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

But over the next year, just like over the last year, as we've integrated the Netherlands tuck-in acquisitions, over a year, you begin to move it a little bit and, ultimately, it'll look like the one big seamless enterprise in Belgium. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Right. And then last question for me on opportunities to further consolidate market. So, you're not in Germany, France, Spain. There's big family businesses in Germany. There's two big businesses owned by private equity in France and lots of little companies in Spain. It appears that the bigger companies in France and Germany are being acquisitive too. So, couple of questions on this front. Are they being rational when they're being acquisitive and valuations are staying within reasonable ranges? And two, what's your opportunity, if they're showing a – they're being acquisitive, what's what your opportunity to penetrate those markets?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, again, we haven't bumped up against the big French companies in acquisitions kind of head-to-head, so I can't comment directly as to whether they're being rational or not. They're good companies, they're solid companies, they've got good capital structures, right. Whether they decide to sell is going to be up to their private equity owners. With respect to some of the other countries, Germany, Spain, if you will, we believe that given our presence in the marketplace, we will have an opportunity to at least look at those businesses if and when they come to market. And we think that with our base of operations, we have as much, if not more, ability to create synergies than anyone else in Europe. But we have to wait. Again, we can't force somebody to come to market. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. Thank you for taking my questions.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

No problem.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open

Hi. Good morning, guys.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Bret.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open

I think in the prepared remarks, you talked about the UK collision business gaining some traction as a cost saving initiative. Could you tell us what we are doing in collision revenues and maybe the growth rate over there?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, the collision business, relative to the ECP is still relatively small, right? It's running somewhere on the order of £50 million, £60 million. But it's growing nicely. Collision in the UK, I think, was up about 10% in Q2 over Q2 of last year. So, still outperformance from a growth perspective. The key there is, ultimately, the insurance companies in Europe are no different than the insurance companies in the U.S. And they've got the same pressure to try and get claims costs down. And part of the way they do that is through parts, and part of the way they do that is through cycle time. I mean, we have, as you know, ongoing pilots and programs with 18 of the larger insurance companies over in the UK, and a couple of them have told us that, as a result of our ability to get them parts and get them parts quickly, they're seeing their cycle times begin to move down. So, we think that, ultimately, that bodes well for our ability to create an ever meaningful business in collision parts over – not just in the UK where we are today, but ultimately to bring that on to Continent as well.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open

Okay. And then in the U.S., obviously, Specialty was a pretty solid and it looks like Stag and Coast deal have worked well on the RV side. Would you give us the mix of RV versus vehicle performance parts within Specialty?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

We don't disclose that, Bret. But if you backed into kind of what Coast was almost exclusively RV, and Stag was exclusively RV. So, you're – probably a little bit north of a third.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open

Okay. Great. And then, I guess, in a collision publication, not too long ago, there was mentioned that maybe you're getting into some distribution of OE parts, with Fiat Chrysler as a partner. Could you comment on that initiative at all?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

We don't comment on any particular customer and the like, because of agreements that we have with some of our customers, at all. But the reality is, is we're always looking to expand our distribution of parts. I think there is a lot of folks in the marketplace who recognize the power that we have as being the largest distributor of collision-related parts in North America and that there is opportunities for them to leverage our distribution background.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open

Okay. So you are doing some OE parts, I guess, is the answer?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

We are.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open

Okay. Great. And I guess one last question, I shouldn't even bother to ask the State Farm question, but anything going on with State Farm?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

No new news.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open

All right. Thank you.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Well, thank you, Bret.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Craig Kennison with Baird. Your line is open. Craig R. Kennison - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: Yeah. Good afternoon. Good morning. Michael, nice to hear you on the call as well. I wanted to follow up on a prior question, regarding T2 and sort of the redundant costs you're facing in 2017 and how that might look in 2018 when those redundant costs roll off?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Craig, this is Nick. Good morning. As we've stated now going back to the mid 2015, right, we are incurring costs at T2 even though – well, at least up until last Tuesday hadn't shipped a single product out of the facility because we've been paying rent and we're paying utilities, we're staffing up with labor and the like. And in the meantime, we're keeping the other two facilities that will ultimately get shut down, they're running full bore. So we're still paying the rents and the utilities and the labor and everything else there. Ultimately, once we know that T2 is operating exactly as it needs to be and there is little to no risk of any fulfillment issues as it relates to keeping our 200 plus branches stock full on a daily basis, we will shut down two of other facilities. And so, we will save the rent and the labor and the like. We quantified that the impact of T2 was $0.03 last year, another $0.02 this year, so $0.05 in total. We won't begin to rationalize the other two facilities until 2018. So, we won't get the entire nickel back next year, but we will get, we believe, some good portion of that back. And then by 2019, there should be the rest of the positive benefits.

Michael S. Clark - LKQ Corp.

Management

Craig, this is Michael. Just of note, the impact of T2 is transitioning from below gross margin to above gross margin as we move it into operation. So, you start to see the impact more on the gross margin than just on EBITDA. Craig R. Kennison - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: Yeah. Thanks. And then with respect to Europe, I'm guessing that some of your competitors there think of LKQ as their potential exit strategy given your M&A strategy. But I wonder to what extent you've got the scale necessary to attack some of those markets organically, at least where you have nearby operations?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Probably, we can go both ways. I mean if you think about what we've done with Rhiag, okay, we bought a really big business, and yet we've added more than 40 additional branches, which is a program that we brought to the table more than what they were doing on their own. I always believe that it's not just what you buy that's important, but what you do with what you buy, that's really important, and the ability to add branches is critical. We can go into some of those other locations and try and greenfield, if you will, and just add branches. Part of it is, though – creating a presence is hard and that would be a long road. So, it'd probably be a combination, Craig, of both acquired entities to get a base and then to continue to build the branch network, which we can do on our own once we have a base. Craig R. Kennison - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: Great. And then last question from me, just in terms of North American organic growth, what is embedded in your forecast for 2018?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, if you take a look at – we narrowed the range based on where we are. The reality is, at the low end of the range, at 4%, if North American organic isn't around where it was in Q2, that will cover us for the low-end. At the high end, North American organic would probably need to move close to 4% in the back half of the year. So, longer looking, we would anticipate that North American organic, obviously, would continue to move up, particularly if we get any sort of normal winter weather pattern in 2018. Craig R. Kennison - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: Hey, that helps. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ben Bienvenu with Stephens, Inc. Your line is open.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Ben Bienvenu with Stephens, Inc. Your line is open

Thanks. Good morning.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Ben.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Ben Bienvenu with Stephens, Inc. Your line is open

If I could follow up on the North American organic growth side, recognizing that you have one less selling day in 3Q, you saw a nice sequential acceleration from 1Q to 2Q. Is it your expectation that growth should be similar to 2Q on a headline basis, or is there the potential for sequential further acceleration on headline front (57:06)?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Let's talk on a same-day basis, because that takes the calendar out of the mix.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Ben Bienvenu with Stephens, Inc. Your line is open

Okay.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

On a same-day basis, we think that Q2 kind of serves as a baseline. We're cognizant of the fact that as we move though the back half of the year, we get slightly easier comps, because as you recall, the organic growth comps in the back half last year were still coming in. So, I would say, a baseline that's slightly moving north in the back half of the year from a North American organic perspective.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Ben Bienvenu with Stephens, Inc. Your line is open

Okay. Great. And then, similarly, in 2Q, is there any color you could provide around cadence within the quarter as well as geographic disparities in performance? I know you touched on that in prior quarters that there was quite a bit of geographic disparity.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, the Northeast and the kind of the Midwest, which are kind of key winter states, continue to be a little bit behind the curve on a relative basis to the overall LKQ footprint as a central region, and the West continue to be a bit stronger. Again, people got to remember, this is a big country. And what happens in the Northeast could be completely different than what's going on in the Southwest, right. And from a cadence perspective, we don't disclose results, Ben, as you know, but we're comfortable with where we're headed into Q3.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Ben Bienvenu with Stephens, Inc. Your line is open

That's great. And then just one last one for me, as it relates to your M&A strategy. You've steadily reduced leverage on the balance sheet as we've moved into the year. How much more do you think you need to delever the balance sheet before you feel comfortable making a major acquisition if the opportunity arises?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

If the opportunity arises, we're ready to go today.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Ben Bienvenu with Stephens, Inc. Your line is open

Great.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

The reality is, is we're going to pay off or continue to pay down our debt, because we generate a lot of cash. And it's not a question of waiting to do an acquisition to get our – because we want to get our leverage down, it's really waiting for those acquisitions to come to market. We don't control the timing there.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Ben Bienvenu with Stephens, Inc. Your line is open

Understood. Thanks, and good luck.

Operator

Operator

Your final question comes from the line of Samik Chatterjee with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Good morning. Hi, Nick. Just on...

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Samik.

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Morning. Just on the North America segment, just wanted to get your thoughts. I know the aftermarket here has been a bit more challenging than years past, but do you see an opportunity to maybe accelerate some of the cost optimization plans you had for maybe like – initially scheduled for next year and excluding those to sort of pull ahead the earnings growth, is there some plans regarding that?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, the reality is we're trying to continue to grow and optimize all of our businesses, whether it's on the salvage side or on the aftermarket side. Again, the core products on the collision space are actually performing quite well. As Michael indicated in his comments, the margins – gross margins in aftermarket were down just a tad. And part of that, quite frankly, has to do with – bigger customers get bigger discounts, and as the MSOs continue to get larger and larger and create a bigger piece of the pie, that's actually good for us, because they use a lot of the parts that we sell. On the operating side, again, we're trying to do the best we can to optimize our overall cost and whether it's things like the procurement initiatives, which were largely through Roadnet, which is – as I indicated in my comments, we think will continue to add benefits. Again Roadnet, it's not salvage versus aftermarket, it's our total parts, North America, but we will be able to get leverage there.

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Got it. Got it.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Is that helpful?

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Yeah. Yeah. Defiantly. And just thinking about Europe and how much of headroom you have there still in terms of store expansions. I know on slide 19, you sort of specify what your store count is for ECP and Rhiag, and that's grown considerably since last year. How should we think about sort of what the long-term target would be for store count for like ECP and Rhiag, just to get a sense of how much growth is left just in terms of store expansion?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah, the ECP question, Samik, is really going to depend on where we end up with Andrew Page and how many of those 106 branches that we've acquired we'll be able to keep, because assuming if we are able to keep most, all those, the need then to add incremental branches to be able to get closer to the customers goes down a bit. In Eastern Europe, where we've added those (1:02:55) branches over the last 12 months, we are in the early days there. That's a market where the car park is growing, the age of the cars is really old and so we sell – the demand for the types of parts we sell is really high. The organic growth there, we think, is going to be good for years to come and there's the ability to add, call it, 10 to 12 branches a quarter for a long time.

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Got it. And just finally, clarification, I know in the Specialty segment, you mentioned a negative mix this quarter. Can you just provide some more details on what was that?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Could you ask that again?

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

The negative mix in the Specialty segment which impacted gross margin this quarter, I believe that was part of the prepared remarks.

Michael S. Clark - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah, there's a negative mix related to the sales channels we use, a little bit more on the drop ship side which has lower margins.

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Okay. Got it. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions. I will turn the call back over to the presenters.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us on the call. We do appreciate the time that you spent with us. Hopefully, this was helpful to everybody, and we look forward to chatting again in about 90 days. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.