AutoNation warns CDK Global hack to hit second quarter earnings
In a filing, AutoNation said second quarter earnings would be 'negatively impacted' by $1.50 a share.
AutoNation (AN), the second-largest dealership group in the US by market cap, warned that the CDK Global software hack will have a significant impact on its second quarter earnings.
AutoNation and a number of public and independent dealership groups were crippled by a cyberattack on June 19. That knocked out CDK Global’s DMS, or Dealer Management System, which dealers use to fulfill sales and parts orders, among other activities. While CDK Global restored service to its clients after an approximate two-week outage, with dealers using backup methods like pen and paper to track sales in the interim, AutoNation still said it suffered a big profit hit.
“As a result of the incident’s impacts, we currently estimate earnings per share for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, will be negatively impacted by approximately $1.50 per share, without taking into account any potential recoveries related to the incident,” AutoNation said in a filing on Monday morning.
AutoNation added: “After taking into account such negative impact, we currently estimate GAAP earnings per share for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, will range between $3.15 and $3.30.”
Prior to the outage, analysts had predicted AutoNation’s EPS to come in around $4.50 share, per Reuters estimates. Despite the warning, AutoNation stock was trading higher on Monday, along with other public dealership groups, reflecting the rise of the broader market.
AutoNation said the impact of the outage was split approximately between lost income during the outage period of June 19 through June 30 and one-time costs relating to guaranteed compensation paid to certain salespeople and associates.
While DMS's “core functions” have been restored, AutoNation revealed that certain ancillary CDK Global systems that help with automating orders, scheduling, and payments, among other things, remain “unavailable or limited, and efforts remain ongoing to restore these.”
AutoNation said it will release full financial results for the second quarter on July 31.
When reached for comment on Monday, a CDK Global spokesperson said "all major applications are now available." CDK Global however did not respond when asked whether it reportedly paid a $25 million ransom in cryptocurrency to restore service.
Investors and analysts will be on the lookout for other dealership groups, such as Lithia Motors (LAD) — the largest by revenue — and Penske Auto Group (PAG) among others, for any updates to their Q2 financials stemming from the CDK Global hack. Lithia, Penske Auto Group, and Group 1 Automotive all said in filings last month that second quarter results would be affected by the hack.
CDK Global, a portfolio company of private equity fund Brookfield Business Partners (BBU), has been sued by multiple clients, spanning from local dealerships to service centers due to lost business.
And those lost sales can be significant.
“Because of the disruption to dealer software systems, June sales will not be reflective of actual consumer demand for new vehicles. Instead, a significant number of sales that would have occurred in June are now likely to occur in July,” Thomas King, J.D. Power’s president of data and analytics, said in a statement.
King and J.D. Power project overall June sales will dip from an initial 1.41 million unit projection to between 1.27 to 1.33 million unit sales for the month, or a 2.6% to 7.2% decrease in sales compared to a year ago.
Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering the auto industry. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.
Click here for the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including events that move stocks
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance