Earnings Labs

LKQ Corporation (LKQ)

Q2 2018 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 26, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for LKQ Corporation's Second Quarter 2018 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 Corporation's Vice President 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 2018 earnings conference call. With us today are Nick Zarcone, LKQ's President and Chief Executive Officer and Varun Laroyia, Executive 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 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 slide presentation. And, with that, I'm happy to turn the call over to Mr. Nick Zarcone.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thank you, Joe, and good morning to everybody on the call. We certainly appreciate your time and attention at this early hour as we adjusted the timing of our call. We are pleased to share both the results of our most recent quarter and the progress made on the various initiatives we've implemented since our first quarter call. I will provide some high-level comments and then Varun will dig in a bit further into the segments and related financial details before I come back to discuss our updated 2018 guidance and make a few closing remarks. Overall, we had an excellent second quarter, highlighted by exceptional revenue growth in each of our segments, progress on improving margins and a successful closing of the STAHLGRUBER acquisition. As noted on slide 4, consolidated revenue was a record $3.031 billion, reflecting a 23% increase over the $2.458 billion recorded in the second quarter of last year. This is the first time the company has crossed the $3 billion threshold in a quarter. Total revenue growth from parts and services was 22.8% during the second quarter, while organic revenue growth in parts and services on a global basis came in at a robust 7.2%. As mentioned over the past several quarters, very few companies in our sector are generating organic growth anywhere close to our level. Diluted earnings per share attributable to LKQ stockholders for the second quarter of 2018 was $0.50 as compared to $0.49 for the same period of 2017, an increase of 2%. On an adjusted basis, diluted earnings per share attributable to LKQ stockholders for the second quarter of 2018 was $0.61 a share, an increase of 15% as compared to the $0.53 for the same period of 2017. These EPS results were slightly above our expectations and due largely…

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thanks, Nick, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call. I will take you through our consolidated segment results for the quarter and cover our current liquidity before turning it back to Nick for an update on full year guidance. Overall, we are pleased with our results for the quarter. After a disappointing start to the year, we feel we're headed back in the right direction. While there is still a ways to go to get our margins back to the desired levels, the initiatives we've put in place are showing promise with some benefits reflected in the second quarter and others primed for the rest of the year. As Nick mentioned, we closed the STAHLGRUBER transaction in late May. So, we have one month of operating results in our Q2 figures. I'll highlight the impact of STAHLGRUBER in the quarter as relevant later in my remarks. As noted on slide 13 of the presentation, the consolidated gross margin percentage was down 100 basis points quarter-over-quarter to 38.3%. Roughly 70 basis points of the decrease is attributable to our Europe segment with the balance relating to our North America segment. Segment EBITDA totaled $342 million for the first quarter, reflecting a $36 million or a 12% increase over the comparable quarter of 2017. As a percentage of revenue, segment EBITDA was down 110 basis points to 11.3%. We saw a 30 basis points increase in our operating expenses, largely due to freight and vehicle expenses in our North America segment. And during the second quarter of 2018, we experienced a $13 million increase in restructuring and acquisition-related costs compared to the prior year and a $10 million increase in depreciation and amortization expense, both largely due to the STAHLGRUBER acquisition that we closed on May 30. With that,…

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thanks, Varun. In light of the results achieved in the second quarter and the closing of STAHLGRUBER, we have adjusted our annual guidance on a few of the key financial metrics. With respect to organic growth for parts and services, we anticipate all the segments will continue to report reasonably strong results, though not quite at very high levels achieved in the second quarter. Accordingly, we have adjusted the bottom end of the full year guidance range for global organic growth up from 4% to 4.5% and have kept the top end of the range steady at 5.5%. In terms of adjusted earnings per share, we have moved the range up to $2.25 to $2.33 a share, with a midpoint of $2.29. This reflects both the better-than-anticipated results for the second quarter, the anticipated accretion from the STAHLGRUBER transaction, offset by the weaker euro and sterling which are down 4% and 6% respectively from when we set guidance last quarter, and the slight uptick in the estimated effective tax rate as we continue to refine the impact of the tax law changes and the STAHLGRUBER acquisition. Currencies and taxes collectively account for approximately a negative $0.04 a share impact relative to our prior guidance. So, as to be clear, starting with the midpoint of our prior guidance which was $2.25 a share, we added $0.05 for STAHLGRUBER, $0.03 for the strong Q2, and then backed off the $0.04 for the negative currency and tax rate impacts to get to the new midpoint of $2.29 a share. Those adjustments yield a range for adjusted net income of $710 million to $735 million. We also anticipate that the higher earnings will have a positive impact on cash flow from operations and have revised the guidance range to $660 million on the low…

Operator

Operator

And your first question comes from the line of Craig Kennison with Baird. Your line is open. Craig R. Kennison - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Nick, I realize the trade dynamics are fluid, but a bigger picture, how would you frame your sourcing exposure geographically? I guess, I'm asking, for example, what percentage of European costs of goods sold would be sourced from Europe, the U.S.A. and China and maybe the same question for the U.S., just so we can put some context around these tariffs.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thanks, Craig, and good morning. Yeah. The tariff issue is trying to hit a moving target, right, because there's five different programs under two different trade statutes that are somewhere between 40 years old and 60 years old that are currently at play. The reality is in our North American business, the entirety of the salvage supply chain is from the U.S. So, there's no impact related to our salvage business. The vast majority of our aftermarket product comes from Taiwan. And Taiwan is not deemed to be China. So, it's not really impacted by the tariffs that are exclusively kind of focused on China. But the last of the five programs which has very little detail around it, Craig, relates to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 where the President is talking about putting a 20% or 25% tariff on all imported automobiles and auto parts. But that's on a country-by-country specific basis, and they haven't been clear as to what countries are included in that. So, that's probably potentially the biggest exposure. When you look at the original tariff item related to steel and aluminum under Section 232, there is really no impact on us because that really related to raw materials. Under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, there's three different rounds. Round one put the tariffs on 818, what they call, tariff headings. That went into effect actually on July 6, so that's real and live. We have about 60 products that fall under those 818 headings and so the tariff impact there will be less than $5 million. Round two, which was proposed on June 20, it put a 25% surcharge on another 284 tariff headings, and we think the impact there is rather minimal. The round three, which was just kind of introduced as a possibility a couple weeks ago, put another 10% surcharge on another 6,031 tariff headings. And that's probably going to have a bigger impact actually on our PGW business, because a lot of the windshields that we distribute on the aftermarket side come from China and our Specialty business, if you will. We don't see a lot of impact on our European business from the tariff structure and the trade issues that are in the press these days, because almost all of the inventory that we sell in Europe is procured either from European or Asian sources. We're not buying product from the U.S. and moving it over to Europe. So, hopefully that helps. Craig R. Kennison - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: It does. Thank you, Nick.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Ryan Merkel with William Blair. Your line is open. Ryan J. Merkel - William Blair & Co. LLC: Thanks. Good morning, and congratulations on the quarter B.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thanks, Ryan. Ryan J. Merkel - William Blair & Co. LLC: So, I have a question on North America aftermarket gross margins. I think – it sounds like you've made some progress on passing along product price increases that you've seen from your suppliers, along with passing on for higher freight. Did I hear that correctly? And then, the second part of that question is, by the end of the year, do you think you'll make more progress such that price/cost in that aftermarket piece can be neutralized?

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

Hey, Ryan, good morning. It's Varun Laroyia calling in. Yes, listen, to your question about aftermarket, the base business, which is our traditional crash parts, we have been able to offset some of the margin pressures. As we'd mentioned, our recovery plans are well underway. The North American management team has been working hard on these pieces and they continue to go through tiers of customers, as we had spoken about previously. So, yes, they've made good progress. But again, as we'd mentioned previously, given the size and scale of the activity, this element will keep ramping up through the second half also. So, while we were in a position to essentially get our aftermarket margins flat on a year-over-year basis in the second quarter versus where they were trending previously, so that's been stabilized. And, yes, we do expect that piece to continue to ramp up through the back end of the year. Ryan J. Merkel - William Blair & Co. LLC: Great. 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

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Ben.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

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

I want to ask about, in North America, the relationship between organic growth and margins. I suspect April was a challenge to the quarter as it relates to the disparity in demand across geographies that you saw in the first quarter. And I'm just curious as to how much of that sustained inclement weather into April lifted organic growth, but also suppressed gross margins. And then, as we think about the sequential move into the back half of the year, do you think you can show margins up year-over-year in the back half?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Ben, this is Nick. I'll start and I'll let Varun jump in afterwards. So, there's no doubt that the demand in our North American business, particularly on the collision side of the business, has been very strong. You saw some very good growth in Q1, some continued excellent growth in Q2 and that growth was really pretty consistent throughout the quarter. On the margin side, we were coming off of a soft Q1 and so the margins in the quarter actually got better as we marched through the three months of the quarter. That's why Varun indicated just a moment ago that we anticipate that we're going to continue to make good progress through the back half of the year. But, Varun, do you want to add?

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah, absolutely. Hey, Ben, good morning. Yes. Listen, I think to the second part of your question in terms of what we anticipate versus a year ago for North America margins and if you turn to slide 16 of the earnings deck, you'll see that the first half typically is a strong set of results for us from a margin perspective. And then, typically seasonality does tend to play its part with regards to mix. So, for example, in the first half of the year, we do tend to have more collision parts in the North America mix and that typically tends to tail off. But if you think about the dip that we have traditionally experienced first half to the second half, we don't expect that to be as significant to what we've seen in prior years. So, back to the point about a year ago 12.9% and 12.7% in Q3 and Q4 for North American margins, we would not see that, call it, 160, 170-point decline from the first half that we just reported for 2018.

Benjamin Bienvenu - Stephens, Inc.

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

Understood. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of James Albertine with Consumer Edge. Your line is open.

James J. Albertine - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · James Albertine with Consumer Edge. Your line is open

Great. Thank you. Good morning. Appreciate taking the question.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Jamie.

James J. Albertine - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · James Albertine with Consumer Edge. Your line is open

Good morning. Wanted to ask sort of more of a strategic question and congratulations on closing STAHLGRUBER. But wanted to look – kind of looking ahead and you traditionally take some time off after larger scale deals like STAHLGRUBER. But wanted to see kind of what your view was on sort of the growth strategy looking out over the longer term. Or are you at a size now where it makes more sense to sort of reinvest in sort of internally making sure the margin trajectories in North America, Europe and so forth sort of stabilize and start to grow again? And we can kind of think of this as about sort of optimizing the portfolio you have versus growing via acquisition and sort of via roll-up into the future.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. Jamie, this is Nick. And I'll just take everyone back to May 31 at our Investor Day at T2. And what we mentioned then is we've just come off the largest acquisition in the history of the company, the acquisition of STAHLGRUBER which, again, we are thrilled to have as part of our family of companies and we think there's huge benefits that will accrue in the years to come, but that's – there's a big integration to go on there. But the reality is we expect to do both. We'll continue to grow our business through acquisition over the next three to five years. Having said that, we also need to optimize – I think that's the word to use and I think it was a very good choice of words – we need to optimize what we currently owned. And so, it's not really an either/or. As I indicated back on May 31, no one should expect another blockbuster transaction, anything close to something like STAHLGRUBER in the near term, right, because we have a lot on our plate and we're going to be focused on making sure we get the integration right. But over time as our leverage comes down and the like, if and when the right opportunity arises, we would be willing to again do something on a slightly larger scale, but we need to get our – we need to get STAHLGRUBER integrated, we need to get our leverage down. But that doesn't in any way, shape or form take our eye off the ball of optimizing what we own, getting the margins up in not – in all of our businesses really. Again, we've been very clear about the goals in Europe. We absolutely want to drive higher margins in North America. There's a lot of blocking and tackling that goes into that. And so, we're focused on both.

James J. Albertine - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · James Albertine with Consumer Edge. Your line is open

Okay. Great. Thanks so much, Nick, and best of luck.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thanks.

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

Good morning, guys.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Bret.

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

Hey, good morning.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open

Could you give us an update where we are as far as sort of purchasing synergies in Europe? I think you said you picked up 30 bps on some supplier rebates. But maybe how much of our purchasing has been consolidated and you talked at Sator about the private label programs, how are we across the board in private label and maybe percentage mix, and where you see that going?

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

Hey, Bret, it's Varun. Good morning. Yeah. Listen, in terms of our overall European procurement program, continues to make great strides. We have a team that's been actively working with our key suppliers, and so that's how you've kind of seen that improvement come through on a year-over-year basis. We haven't given exact numbers in terms of what level has been covered at this point of time. But clearly, I can assure you, we'd call it 45 to 50 days into the STAHLGRUBER transaction, the teams have been spending a lot of quality time out there also to consolidate as to what the opportunity is with the STAHLGRUBER transaction, obviously net pricing analysis being done on several thousand SKUs at this point of time. And so, we remain optimistic not only about the STAHLGRUBER purchasing synergies, but the overall European procurement program. With regards to your second part of the question on Benelux and Sator, yes, absolutely. Listen, we've talked about this previously, the rise of private label brands. Certainly, Sator has been making great strides on that from that perspective. But really, I'll probably take you back in terms of one of our core critical businesses, ECP. They're the ones that have actually been going down the path of the private label brands. So, they've certainly shown the path to the European teams. Sator has picked up on that also. And then, obviously, we do know through our equity investment in Mekonomen in terms of the margin profile of private label brands. So, we do see that to be a key pillar for our European margins getting to that double-digit EBITDA margin rate by the end of the 36-month period that started January 2018.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. And, Bret, what I would add is, obviously, when you make a large acquisition, you don't get the procurement savings day one, right? So, if you go back to when we bought Rhiag back in 2016, we put out some broad guidance as to what we thought we could get from a procurement benefit across the European platform by combining purchasing, negotiating kind of common elements, common contracts with our suppliers, if you will. At the time, we thought we could get $10 million of procurement. And we're very well on the way of getting that. With respect to STAHLGRUBER, we really won't see the benefit of that really until very late in the first year of acquisition, which would put us into kind of mid-2019. One is you need to go and actually renegotiate some of the contracts, then you need to actually start buying at those new levels. But then you need to turn the inventory, right? And so, there's a little bit of a time lag, but we are very confident in our ability to really get our arms around all of the procurement savings that we've noted, both as it relates to the historical acquisitions and obviously as it relates to STAHLGRUBER.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open

Okay. Do you have a feeling for what percentage of your sales are private label?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

It really varies business by business. We don't disclose this, but ECP has the highest level of private label and STAHLGRUBER probably has the lowest level of private label business. And Sator and Rhiag are kind of in between, if you will.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Bottiglieri with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Chris Bottiglieri - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Chris Bottiglieri with Wolfe Research. Your line is open

Hi. Thanks for taking the question.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Chris.

Chris Bottiglieri - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Chris Bottiglieri with Wolfe Research. Your line is open

Hi, good morning. I was hoping given the rapid moves in commodity, and just give us a quick refresh, a primer on the puts and takes to your P&L. So you're hit on the self-service side, but what about your core North American wholesale business? That's where you have inventory on hand. Initially, you would think increases are positive to get LIFO liquidations, but as you kind of turn through it, how should we be thinking about them? How that impacts margins?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, the impact to commodities has a very little impact on our, what we call our full-service North American salvage business, if you will. These are the cars that we're buying at auction and dismantling. Because the real commodity play there is the scrap. And the scrap is a couple hundred dollars on a $2,000 purchase for which we're hoping to park the car out for maybe north of $4,000. So, there's a very little impact. Biggest impact clearly on the self-serve business where the majority of the revenue from the self-serve, more than 50% of the revenue is actually from the residual metals that we end up selling off in the form of scrap. On the aftermarket part side in North America, a lot of the product that we bring in from the Far East is either made of steel, think about hoods and fenders and the like, or plastics. The shallow, the mirror, the bumper covers, grills and so resin prices are really key there. And so, like in any business as the cost of raw materials for the suppliers that we buy from moves around, they're going to try and recoup some of their cost through higher selling prices to their customers. And we've seen a little bit of that, we talked about that in Q1. We're doing what we can to adjust our prices to take care of that.

Chris Bottiglieri - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Chris Bottiglieri with Wolfe Research. Your line is open

Got you. Okay.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Does that help?

Chris Bottiglieri - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Chris Bottiglieri with Wolfe Research. Your line is open

Yeah. That does help. And then as a related follow-up, you had referenced in the call something, the effective – the Chinese considering pulling back from purchasing recycled materials. Just want to get your – what are the puts and takes that they actually do do that? Do you have less competition for buying parts? Are there like lateral effects that we should be aware of? And then, like do you have an ability to source more aftermarket to offset that, if it is problematic? Just overall picture there would be helpful.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, the reference that I made about the Chinese is earlier this year, the Chinese government put in regulations to effectively limit the volume of recycled materials. That's everything from paper to cardboard to metals and the like flowing into China. And really as it related to metals is they wanted a cleaner source of metals because sometimes when the metals that they were bringing into the country, you think about copper wiring, right, the copper is always coated with something, fabric or plastic and the like. And they basically put a halt on the importation of some of that material. And so, at first, their ports weren't fully compliant with the law and more recently we're hearing that they are by the end of the year going to put a hard stop. And that's going to have potentially an impact on prices. We just don't know where. But that's why I made the comment. The reality is, again, in our core North American business, most of the product comes in from Taiwan. Taiwan is deemed to be a different country. And so, the Chinese import laws as it relates to recycled materials do not relate to Taiwan.

Chris Bottiglieri - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Chris Bottiglieri with Wolfe Research. Your line is open

Got you. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

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 very much, Nick, Varun and Joe, for taking the question. Could we look at page 17 on your deck, and could you help us bridge what is in the 90 basis points of headwind from gross margin? What's making up that 90 basis points so we understand what you're dealing with and can get a hand around?

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. Michael, good morning. It's Varun Laroyia out here. Yeah, listen, going back to the margin decline on a year-over-year basis in our North America business, really it's the vast majority of it is mix driven. If you think about the base aftermarket business, as I mentioned on the call, and then to one of the questions earlier also, that was pretty much comparable on a prior year period. But if you think about the strong revenue growth similar to what we had called out even in Q1 in some of our lower-margin product lines, think about batteries, this is coming off the FCA Mopar deal that we announced and essentially got the first full quarter in Q1. While it has contributed to organic revenue, we are nowhere close to getting the margins that we would on our traditional aftermarket crash parts, or for that matter reman engines. Again, great from a revenue growth perspective, but again significantly lower-margin business. And then, finally, with the salvage side of it, also specifically on our self-service business, the rising car cost trend as a result of scrap metal prices going up, that obviously doesn't allow us to get the same level of margin for the parts we pick off those vehicles. So, that really is what comprises the kind of 90 basis points kind of down on a year-over-year basis. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. But can you give us the actual portions of that? So, how much of this is batteries versus reman engines versus salvage?

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. Michael, we don't typically disclose that entire piece in terms of what the key elements of that would be. But if you think about the key components, roughly call it 50 basis points, 30 basis points, 20 basis points between aftermarket, the salvage, self-service operations. So, that really is what we say. So, again, I would not call out anything that was de minimis, but again full-service and salvage are a key piece of it. And in the aftermarket, outside of the base business, which has some of the lower-margin product line that also roll up, those are the key pieces. Michael E. Hoffman - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: So, if I may follow on it, when we were in England and the presentations were given, there was a high degree of confidence that the company would return to the starting year margin by year-end. Is that still the case in North America?

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yes. Well, if you think about – when we've kind of broken out our Q1 headwinds specifically on the gross margin piece of it, you'll recall one of the key pieces we had called out were rising commodity prices in our traditional aftermarket crash part piece. And so, I think that really is where the key piece was. The team has been successful in being able to offset those prices. But with regards to the mix, given what we see from scrap metal prices in the full-service salvage or for that matter what we've seen come through on some of the other product lines, that is something, will just be a mix piece. So, to the time we don't lap the comps on, say, the battery business which will be in Q1 of 2019, we will see that, but in terms of that is a small part of our business, but the big base of our North America wholesale by far is the aftermarket. And that's trending well. Okay?

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Stephanie Benjamin with SunTrust. Your line is open.

Stephanie Benjamin - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · Stephanie Benjamin with SunTrust. Your line is open

Hi. Good morning.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Stephanie.

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Stephanie. And again, welcome to the LKQ call and we appreciate you initiating coverage on us.

Stephanie Benjamin - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · Stephanie Benjamin with SunTrust. Your line is open

Absolutely. Thank you. So, just kind of looking back at the European margins during the quarter, obviously, a lot of moving parts. Just looking at the apparent mix between Western Europe and Eastern Europe and just kind of the margin gap there, is there anything near term or long term that can be done to kind of close the gap between those two regions' margin structure?

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Stephanie, the difference between Eastern Europe and Western Europe, that's really structural, if you will, almost across the board and we've seen financial statements from a lot of different companies, obviously, all over Europe. The Eastern Bloc just structurally has lower gross margins and lower EBITDA margins. The market there seems to be willing to work for just a lower level of profitability. And to be competitive, our Eastern Bloc countries also have lower margins than in the West. We think that's going to persist for the foreseeable future. We don't see a huge shift in the market. That said, we still believe we can earn a good return on capital on the Eastern Bloc operations, if you will, because those companies are growing a lot faster. And so from an absolute euro perspective, if you will, we can grow the EBITDA faster in Eastern Europe than Western Europe just because of the top line growth.

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

The only one additional piece I'll add to just complement Nick's comments here, are if you go back to our Investor Day and John had laid out the key pillars of the margin enhancement for our European business, there was some of the slightly longer-term initiatives which will actually benefit all of our European segment. So, things such as logistics and warehousing optimization or for that matter shared services, back office, rationalizing the infrastructure side a bit, that certainly is a slightly longer-term piece of it, but that really allows us to make some significant moves into our cost structure. So, as Nick mentioned, the margin is what those markets will bear. But in terms of us being able to further optimize relative to competition given our size, scale and footprint in that region, we believe we will be best-in-class even on segment EBITDA margins relative to competition in that market.

Stephanie Benjamin - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · Stephanie Benjamin with SunTrust. Your line is open

Great. Very helpful. Well, thanks so much.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And your final question comes from the line of Scott Stember with C.L. King & Associates. Your line is open. Scott L. Stember - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Good morning, and thanks for taking my question.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Scott.

Varun Laroyia - LKQ Corp.

Management

Good morning, Scott. Scott L. Stember - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Can we just maybe just go back to price increases that we have talked about in the aftermarket business in North America? Last quarter you guys had talked about having to be careful with raising prices, just given the fact that you need to stay within a certain pocket below the comparable OEM prices. Can you maybe just talk about what you're experiencing on that front and maybe that just will give us a gauge of how quickly you can get through the price increases that you need altogether? Thanks.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Yeah. Sure, Scott. I mean, the reality is in Q2 and true going forward, it has less to do with actually raising prices and it has more to do to make sure that the level of discounts that we're giving to our customers are actually earned. The reality is not everyone earns the same level of discount. And clearly, the bigger customers who buy large volumes consistently over a longer period of time get a higher level of discount off a list than the smaller customers, and it's making sure that our sales team is being incredibly rigorous and focused on giving the right level of discount. And that's where we've made some progress here in Q2. We think we're going to make continued progress through the back half of the year. And it gets you to the same spot, right, that if you're really being more disciplined on the level of discounts, if that can increase revenue that helps obviously improve your margins, if you will. But again, we want to be – we are very careful. It's a tightrope that we need to walk. We don't want to turn off the revenue growth by being too aggressive on the price front, right, because at the end of the day, we want to continue to take market share and we want to continue to broaden the overall base. Scott L. Stember - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Got it. That's all I have. Thanks.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And I'd now like to turn the call back over to CEO, Nick Zarcone, for closing remarks.

Dominick P. Zarcone - LKQ Corp.

Management

I would like to thank everyone for their time and attention here today. I know we've ran a little bit long. Sorry about that, but we wanted to answer everybody's questions. Again, we think we had a great quarter, but we're not done, and we're working really hard and we'll continue to focus on improving the margins of all of our businesses around the globe. And we look forward to sharing our further progress with you at the end of October when we report third quarter results. And we hope to have another good report for you at that point in time. So, again, thanks for your time and attention and we'll talk to you in about 90 days.

Operator

Operator

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