AutoNation, Inc.

Hello, and welcome to AutoNation, Inc.'s third quarter 2026 earnings call. My name is Kenneth, and I'll be your operator today. All lines are currently in listen-only mode, and there'll be an opportunity for Q&A after management's prepared remarks. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Derek Fiebig, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Kenneth, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to AutoNation's third quarter 2026 conference call. Leading our call today will be Mike Manley, our Chief Executive Officer, and Tom Szlosek, our Chief Financial Officer. Following their remarks, we'll open up the call to questions. Before beginning, I'd like to remind you that certain statements and information on this call, including any statements regarding our anticipated financial results and objectives, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks that may cause our actual results or performance to differ materially from such forward-looking statements. Additional discussions of factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially are contained in our press release issued today and in our filings with SEC. Certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under SEC rules will be discussed on this call. Reconciliations are provided in our materials and on our website at investor.autonation.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike. Yeah, thanks, Derek.

Good morning, everybody. And thank you for joining us today. So as usual, we'll begin with an overview of the quarter, followed by Tom's review of the financial and operating results, and then we will take your questions. So I'm going to begin on slide three. The central message this quarter is straightforward, I think. It's the strength of our business model, which includes durable earnings streams and cash flows and disciplined capital allocation, enabled us to deliver our seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year adjusted EPS growth. Now that result reflects our focus on our customers' mobility needs and the value creation drivers per share shown, which contributed strongly to the Q3 results. Specifically, after sales delivered another record quarter. Customer pay and warranty gross profit each increased 5%, supported by higher traffic, and after sales again contributed half of our total company gross profit. Second, our customer financial services platform gives us control over the placement of products and financial services. This enables us to direct the business to our own captive finance company or to one of our preferred partners. We will discuss the hub in a few minutes, but it gives us upfront income as well as long-term earning stream. Under this model, Automation Finance continued to scale rapidly and profitably. The portfolio reached approximately $2.9 billion, quarterly profit increased to $15 million from $2 million a year ago. And return on equity based on Q3 results is approximately 24%. Now, beyond the financial figures, the business is providing a meaningful platform to drive deeper and ongoing relationships with our customers. Third, cash generation remained, I think, exceptional. Year-to-day adjusted free cash flow was $739 million, representing 141% conversion of adjusted net income. And fourth, we continue to deploy capital with discipline. Through September, we invested in the business, completed attractive acquisitions, and deployed $620 million to share repurchases, reducing our share count by approximately 12% year over year. Now, rest assured that we continually evaluate share repurchase and M&A opportunities through the lens of maximizing value per share. And since 2022, that has favored share repurchases. And over that time, we've allocated 88% of our adjusted free cash flow to repurchases, which includes 84% year to date. And in current market conditions, our share price is attractive. And given that our capital allocation model focuses on long-term earnings per share growth, we anticipate continuing with share repurchases, a preferred use of incremental capital. Now moving to slide four, this provides a visual on EPS and free cash flow performance. Adjusted EPS was $5.11, up 2% from $5.01 a year ago. Again, our seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year adjusted EPS growth. After sales and automation finance were the principal operational drivers of EPS growth, we also realized a significant EPS benefit from our share repurchase activities. Year-to-date adjusted free cash flow was $739 million, in line with 2025, and conversion improved from 141% to 141% from 128%. Now, as I stated earlier, through the end of September, we have deployed 85% of our pre-cash flow to share repurchases. And Tom will talk more about capital allocation in a separate slide, but our model, as always, will continue to focus on the best use of cash to drive EPS in the long term. And with that, I'm going to hand over to Tom.