Asbury Automotive Group Inc

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Asbury Automotive Group Q3 2019 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded, and now at this time I'd like to turn the call over to Matt Petone. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Asbury Automotive Group's third quarter 2019 earnings call. Today's call is being recorded and will be available for replay later today. The press release detailing Asbury's third quarter results was issued earlier this morning and is posted on our website at asburyauto.com. Participating with us today are David Holt, our President and Chief Executive Officer, John Hartman, our Senior Vice President of Operations, and Sean Goodman, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. At the conclusion of our remarks, we will open the call up for questions, and I will be available later for any follow-up questions you might have. Before we begin, I must remind you that the discussion during the call today is likely to contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements other than those which are historical in nature. All forward-looking statements are subject to significant uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from those suggested by the statements. For information regarding certain of the risks that may cause actual results to differ, Please see our filings with the SEC from time to time, including our Form 10-K for the year ended December 2018, any subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and our earnings release issued earlier today. We expressly disclaim any responsibility to update forward-looking statements. In addition, certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under SEC rules may be discussed on this call. As required by applicable SEC rules, we provide reconciliations of any such non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures on our website. It is my pleasure to hand the call over to our CEO, David Holt. David?

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter 2019 earnings call. We achieved record third quarter adjusted EPS of $2.33, up 5% from the prior year. This was driven by revenue and gross profit growth of 5%. We were able to grow our parts and service gross profit by 9%, grow our total front-end yield by increasing F&I gross profit, and bring our new vehicle inventory levels down by 10 days, which is within our targeted range. During the quarter, we expanded our footprint in Indianapolis by acquiring a Toyota store, and we entered a new market by acquiring a Subaru store in Denver. Both of these stores are characterized by a high quality and tenured team, solid performance profile, strong and loyal customer base, and sound business processes. We're excited to be entering a new market in Denver. We have long been attracted to this market due to its business friendly environment, moderate cost of doing business, and growing population and attractive demographics. In Mike Shaw Subaru, we have found the ideal anchor store. We plan to build our presence in the market following a similar approach to what we successfully executed in Indianapolis. Subaru also happens to be the number two brand in Colorado. We are excited about the return that we will generate from these two great acquisitions and the growth opportunities for Asbury in the Denver market. This quarter, we continue to make great progress implementing an enhanced process and procedures that leverage technology to create a highly guest-centric consumer experience at our pilot store in North Carolina. We're excited to consistently see exceptionally favorable consumer reviews as our guests react to the level of service and transparency. While we are focused on being at the forefront of innovation in our industry, We believe that success is driven by well-designed process improvement and effective change management. We plan to start thoughtfully rolling out our technology-driven process improvements to additional stores in the first quarter of 2020. We are confident that our investments in creating an unrivaled guest-centric experience will yield attractive returns. Before I end, I want to thank Sean for his valuable service and contributions to Asbury. He's been a great partner and a pleasure to work with. I speak for the entire organization in wishing him well as he embarks on his next chapter. I will now hand the call over to Sean to discuss our financial performance.