Asbury Automotive Group Inc

Please stand by. Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Asbury Automotive Group Q3 2020 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded, and at this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Matt Peritone. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Asbury Automotive Group's third quarter 2020 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 me today are David Holt, our President and Chief Executive Officer, PJ Guido, our Chief Financial Officer, and Dan Clare, our Senior Vice President of Operations. 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, including those statements relating to the duration and contemplated impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and financial performance. as well as the financial projections and expectations about our products, markets, and growth. All forward-looking statements are subject to significant uncertainties, and the actual results may differ materially from those suggested by the statement, including potential impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic on us, our industry, and our customers, suppliers, vendors, and business partners. 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 2019, 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. 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. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter earnings call. We just reported an all-time record third quarter despite the ongoing uncertainty in the economy. And even with SAR well below prior year levels, we delivered an all-time high adjusted operating margin of 6.6%. As a result of our cost control measures we implemented, we're able to achieve an adjusted SG&A as a percentage of gross profit of 61.1%. Our focus on gross profit and expense management once again produced a great quarter. with adjusted EPS of $4.08, up 75% over the prior year. In addition, this quarter continued to prove the strength of the new vehicle franchise dealer model. With significantly lower volume of constrained inventories, we increased our front-end yield per vehicle by $1,045 over the prior year. We also flexed our cost structure down, managed our inventories to improve margins, and maximized profits to deliver these record results. We also successfully closed on a highly strategic Park Place acquisition. We want to welcome all of our new teammates and thank all of our employees who worked on the integration to ensure we hit the ground running. Due to our strong performance and cash flow, our pro forma net leverage ended this quarter at 2.4 times below our targeted range and well ahead of schedule after financing the largest acquisition in our history. which increased the size of our company by 25%. This will allow us to maintain a more aggressive acquisition pipeline and grow our business by strategically deploying capital. Our strong performance is the result of our pioneering omnichannel that we launched over four years ago. In the third quarter, 22% of our guests chose to buy their used vehicle online. While we are pleased with these results, we are focused on further building and refining our omnichannel tools to enhance the guest experience. In July, I said we'd have an update regarding our online buying software. We have completed the construction of our newly redesigned on-buying platform and site, which will greatly enhance the guest experience. We have begun live testing on the new platform to work out any kinks we may have. We will have an investor day in mid to late November to walk you through the software in detail. In addition to building an industry-leading online sales platform, two years ago we began our journey to become the most guest-centric automotive retailer. We've made incredible strides and plan to continue enhancing the guest experience with our omnichannel tools and investing in our people and our culture. We believe in the dealer franchise model. Amongst franchises, the only differentiators are, first, the level of service your teammates provide, And second, a world-class omni-channel strategy. These key differentiators create a seamless and transparent experience for our guests. Finally, I want to thank all of our teammates for their commitment during this pandemic. These results happen because of your passion and perseverance adapting to our new world. Thank you. I'll now hand the call over to Dan to discuss our operating performance. Dan?