In This Article:
Participants
Peter Delongchamps; Senior Vice President, Manufacturer Relations, Financial Services and Public Affairs; Group 1 Automotive Inc
Daryl Kenningham; President, Chief Executive Officer, Director; Group 1 Automotive Inc
Daniel McHenry; Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President; Group 1 Automotive Inc
David Whiston; Analyst; Morningstar
Rajat Gupta; Analyst; J.P. Morgan
Daniel Kahn; Analyst; Morgan Stanley
John Murphy; Analyst; Bank of America
Jeff Lick; Analyst; Stephens
Bret Jordan; Analyst; Jefferies
Michael Ward; Analyst; Freedom Capital Markets
Ron Juleau; Analyst; Securitas Security Services
Glenn Chin; Analyst; Seaport Research Partner
Presentation
Operator
Good morning. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Group One Automotive's Fourth Quarter and full year 2024 financial results conference call. (Operator instructions)
I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Pete DeLongchamps. Group One's senior Vice President, manufacturer relations and financial services. Please go ahead Mr DeLong.
Peter Delongchamps
Thank you, Betsy and Good morning, everyone and welcome to today's call, the earnings release we issued this morning and a related slide presentation that include reconciliations related to the adjusted results that we were referred to on the call this morning. For comparison purposes have been posted to Group One's website before we begin. I'd like to make some brief remarks about forward-looking statements and the use of non-GAAP financial measures except for historical information mentioned during the conference call. Statements made by management of Group One Automotive are forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1,995. Forward-looking statements involve both known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may cause the company's results in future periods to differ materially from forecast results.
Those risks include but are not limited to risks associated with pricing volume, inventory, supply, condition of markets, successful integration of acquisitions and adverse developments in the global economy and resulting impacts on demand for new and used vehicles and related services. Those and other risks are describing the company's filings with the securities and exchange commission. In addition, certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under sec rules may be discussed on this call as required by applicable SEC rules.
The company provides reconciliations of any such non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures on its website. Participating with me on today's call, Daryl Kenningham, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Daniel mchenry, senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'd now like to hand the call over to Daryl.
Daryl Kenningham
Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everyone. Our US team delivered outstanding results in the fourth quarter and our UK team has been hard at work integrating the operations of our growing UK footprint. I'll start with an update on the integration of our UK business and the broader UK market dynamics. We continue to be pleased with the acquisition of Inchcape's retail dealerships. I believe we're better positioned in the UK market than we've been at any point in our history.
We're poised to capitalize on the additional scale geographic diversification and an outstanding brand portfolio. Integrating 54 stores and two corporate organizations has been a huge effort. We carry some incremental SG&A through the fourth quarter in the UK and we've completed many of the difficult tasks and expect others will finalize in the first quarter and throughout 2025. And as always based on business conditions, we will continue to refine and adjust as needed on a real time basis.
Our integration work included the initiation of a UK wide restructuring plan. This plan consists of workforce realignment, strategic closing of certain facilities, systems integrations and other efforts. Our systems integration included a conversion of a legacy Inchcape dealer management system to our existing UKDMS.
The in store portion of the conversion did disrupt our operations for a period of time while being completed. It impacted results for those acquired stores. We've installed a leadership team steeped in the UK Motor Trade and are extremely focused on performance. We've made a number of process changes to focus on just that.
A couple of examples in the Inchcape retail stores, technician productivity was significantly behind our legacy group one stores. So we modified modified compensation plans to focus and reward DRUT. We move decision making on many day to day activities from the corporate office to the Inchcape stores. Examples include used car acquisition pricing and valuation shop, equipment, procurement and technician hiring.
This will allow the Inchcape retail stores to be more nimble and responsive to the marketplace an absolute must in today's UK environment and we certainly have guidelines, technology and training in place to help them with that transition turning to the broader UK market, we continue to see a challenged macroeconomic backdrop.
Government imposed zero emissions, vehicle mandates have proven difficult to achieve and are expected to further challenge new vehicle sales in 2025 the overall market fell short of the 2024 mandated goal of 22% BEV mix.
The market will need to see a further shift towards S in order to achieve 2025 target of 28% and currently lower margin fleet sales in the UK account for a majority of EV sales because of our size. Now in the UK, we've been able to significantly strengthen our presence with great brands like BMW Volkswagen, Audi Porsche, Mercedes, Benz, Toyota Land Rover and Ford, a close relationship with those OEM partners based on performance and commitment is critical to our growth, focus and ability to overcome the broader UK market challenges.
While we're not pleased with our UK results in the quarter, we are confident that the leadership process and integration actions that we've taken will result in improved performance in the year ahead. Now, turning to our US business, we saw record new vehicle units sold as a sequential improvement in PRU.
New vehicle volumes outpaced the industry and same store used volumes were up 5% in a quarter that is traditionally new car focused. Our F&I business performed well in the quarter, up $109 PRU as new vehicle finance penetration, improved used vehicle finance penetration held steady and combined with improved product penetrations that resulted in a $27 increase in UVPR. A positive change from previous trends.
Parts of service revenues reached a record for the quarter with same store growth of nearly 9% and customer pay same store growth up more than 8%. We also saw a nice increase in customer accounts in the quarter. We continue to view aftersales as a differentiator in group one. We believe it is the most underinvested area of our business and adding human capacity is the critical leverage in performance.
In 2024 we increased our technician head count on a same store basis by 7% in the US. And due to our creative scheduling and productivity, we have plenty of physical capacity continue to continue adding technicians well into the future. We will continue to invest in aftersales. An example is our capital program to install air conditioning in nearly all of our US shops and it's on track to be completed by the end of 2025.
As we've previously discussed, shops with air conditioning have much higher technician retention. Now shifting to capital allocation proper properly, allocating capital will always be our highest priority while we regularly evaluate other business adjacencies in this environment. We believe staying focused on the new vehicle retail franchise business is the best use of our shareholders' capital.
Part of that is certainly the return profile. But part of it is also being a great partner to our most important partners, the OEMS, they need their networks more than ever. And in turn, we need them more than ever. So we don't compete with them and we intensely focus on driving performance metrics that determine acquisition eligibility such as sales effectiveness and customer retention.
As a result. Our approvability is quite strong across nearly all of our EMS that allows us to engage in acquisition discussions on nearly any brand with the confidence that we will be approved, the diversity of acquisitions in 2024 with brands like Lexus Honda, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Porsche, Land Rover and Audi are all examples of our ability to acquire outstanding brands in desirable markets because we perform well on the OE eligibility metrics and we will continue to balance acquisitions dispositions with repurchasing our shares in 2024. While we grew the company 24% due primarily to acquisitions over the past three years, we've repurchased 25% of our stock and we will continue to focus on balancing those capital opportunities.
Lastly, a few thoughts on the evolving us landscape. There's a great deal of conjecture at the moment about Washington and the impact the new administration's policies will have on retailers and OEMS while we don't know the outcome of the impact on changes in things like EV subsidies, taxes, tariffs or interest rates, we feel the best way to capitalize is to ensure that group one stays nimble and focused on execution.
We have to be ready to compete on whatever playing field exists with whatever set of variables were presented. Over the past several years, I believe group one has demonstrated the agility and flexibility that will allow us to win any competitive environment.
Now, I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Daniel McHenry for an operating and financial overview.
Daniel McHenry
Thank you, Daryl and good morning, everyone in the fourth quarter of 2024. Group One automotive reported adjusted net income of $133.9 million quarterly adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of $10.02.
Current quarter total revenues of $5.5 billion an all time quarterly record and all time quarterly records across multiple business lines including new vehicle sales of $2.9 billion parts and service revenues of $680 million and F&I of $226 million fourth quarter adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations excluded $33 million of impairment charges primarily attributable to franchise rights and tangible assets for four of our dealerships in the US.
In the full quarter of 2024 we reported a just at net income of $530.6 million full year adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of $39.21 and full year total revenues of $19.9 billion. An all time annual record, an all time annual records across all of our business lines including new vehicle sales of $10 billion used vehicle retail sales of $6.2 billion Parsons service of $2.5 billion and F&I of $829 million.
Starting with our US operation, we achieved all time quarterly record on new vehicle revenues of $2.3 billion with new vehicle units sold up 14% on a reported basis and over 8% from the same store. This reflects the resiliency of demand and our operational effectiveness as well as the value received from driving volume from our new dealership acquisitions. While new Beckel GPUS monitor it from the prior year. We are pleased with the sequential quarter performance increasing $55 on a reported basis.
Used car volume in the fourth quarter grew by 7% and 5% year-over-year on an as reported basis respectively. TPUS held fairly consistent down only [$40 and $39] on a reported and a same store basis respectively. Pricing increased in the fourth quarter. Prices comparable prior year and sequential quarters.
We are pleased with our ability to maintain volume levels and whole pricing. We believe this is a testament to our processes, discipline and use of technology with the pricing of used bagels. Our F&I revenues of $196 million were also a quarterly record for the US. Our fourth quarter, F&I GPU of $2415 increased 3% on a sequential quarter basis and year over year respectively.
The performance by our F and professionals has been outstanding to maintain GPU discipline, shifting gears to after sales after she's fourth quarter revenues and gross profit outperformed sequentially. And year-over-year, the fourth quarter saw a 6.5% increase in the number of repair orders. The only activity declined was our lower margin collision work which was more than compensated for higher margin warranty and customer pay.
The average S $4 per repair order was up over 7% in the fourth quarter. These gains demonstrate our ability to add after sales capacity on the same store basis. Our overall sane store non technician US head Kansas declined 10% from 2019. However, our technician head count is up 18% over that same period. Wrapping up the US. Let's shift to S DNA US adjusted SG and A as a percentage of gross profit increased 27 basis points sequentially to 64.6%.
Demonstrating our continued focus on managing costs below PRECOVID levels. Our execution in the quarter was outstanding and we will remain laser focused on exploring operational efficiency gains to maintain this positioning. A final note in the US in the fourth quarter, we received $10 million in insurance proceeds relating to the CDK outage in the second quarter of 2024 this amount was recognized as other income in the statement of operations.
Turning to the UK in terms of headline results acquisition activity fueled an all time quarterly record in total revenues leading to an 85.3% year over year increase. We were pleased to be able to maintain gross profit on the same store basis. Thanks to improvements in after sales year over year and used vehicles sequentially, new vehicle GPUS improved $348 on a reported basis respectively.
Same store retail used vehicle units sold decreased 2% year-over-year. However, GPU improved by almost 12% leading to improved gross profit performance. Same store wholesale losses per unit improved compared to the prior year quarter. Evidencing our efforts in 2024 to better manage our used car inventory in a tough UK market. The fourth quarter was a challenging quarter for the UK in terms of SG and a management UK ST store adjusted SG&A as a percentage of gross profit and as reported adjusted SG and A as a percentage of gross profit worsened sequentially by 761,100 basis points respectively.
We recognize that we still have some challenges to overcome in the UK as a whole and we will continue to focus on cost control and business process. Efficiencies as we execute our business integration activities. Our integration activities related to inscape have been ongoing and principally include efforts at workforce alignment system conversions and operational efficiency. We anticipate substantial completion of integration activities by the end of the first quarter.
Turning to our balance sheet and liquidity, our strong balance sheet cash flow generation and leverage position will continue to support a flexible capital allocation approach. As of December 31st, our liquidity of $1.2 billion comprised of accessible cash of $323 million and $893 million available to borrow on our acquisition line.
Our rent adjusted leverage ratio as defined by our US syndicated credit facility was 2.79 times at the end of December cash flow generation through the full year of 2024 yielded $683 million of adjusted operating cash flow and $504 million of free cash flow. After backing out $179 million of CaPex.
This capital was deployed in the same period through a combination of acquisitions share repurchases and dividends including the acquisition of $3.9 billion in revenues through December 31st, $162 million repurchasing approximately 518,000 shares at an average price of $311.67 resulting in a 3.8% reduction in our share count since January the first and $25.5 million in dividends to our shareholders.
During the fourth quarter, we repurchased 80,300 shares at an average price of $398.30 for a total cost of $32 million during the first quarter of 2025. Under a rule 10 B 51 trading plan, we repurchased 32,900 shares at an average price per common share of $419.30 for a total cost of $13.8 million.
We currently have $462 million remaining on our board authorized common share repurchase plan as of December 31st, approximately 60% of our $5 billion in floor plan and other debt was fixed resulting in an annual EPS impact of only about $1.15 dollars for every 100 basis point increased in the secured overnight funding rate for additional detail. Regarding our financial condition, please refer to the schedules of additional information attached to the news release as well as our investor presentation posted on our website.
I will now turn the call over to the operator to begin the question and answer session operator.
Question and Answer Session
Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session to ask a question. (Operator instructions)
The first question today comes from David Whiston, Morningstar.
David Whiston
I know there's a ton of uncertainty with what's going on with the Trump administration tariffs right now. But can you, given what happened to GM Stock yesterday? I think a lot of us watching you guys, would appreciate if there's any kind of indication you can give on. If such happens on tariffs, is there any kind of cooperation with the OEM or you as the dealer, you're the importer? So you're going to bear the full cost of this normally. Is there any kind of arrangement being discussed even in terms of splitting the cost of any of these tariffs.
Daryl Kenningham
This is Daryl. You know, all the OEMS are talking about the impact and they're all, I guess for lack of a better word war gaming potential outcomes and what that means to their own sourcing and production plans. At this point, we haven't had any discussions with the OEMS around, what kind of an impact that might look like on pricing or our cost as retailers. They are communicating regularly that they're looking at it and making adjustments, but nothing specific yet?
David Whiston
On a new vehicle, new vehicle affordability. And I'm just curious as, that was a big concern last year. We had a big surge in December. I think a lot of people are probably relieved to put the election over. But I'm just curious going forward in 25. Do you think the affordability problem is lessened because the election is over, or is it still a really key concern for customers and especially in the US?
Daryl Kenningham
I don't know if it's because of the election or not. I do know there are our transaction prices held up and our gross is we were pleased with and our same store sales growth we were pleased with. So our indication is the consumer is pretty healthy and we were pleased with those. So, and I don't see anything that would lead me to believe it'll get worse. It could potentially get better if there's some stimulation tax rates or something like that. So, or interest rates for that matter.
Operator
The next question comes from Rajat Gupta, J.P. Morgan.
Rajat Gupta
Thanks for taking the question. Just, just wanted to follow up on the UK comments, earlier in the prepared remarks just given, some of the headwinds with respect to the new mandates, it looks like, it has been to worse and more here, in the fourth quarter. Just curious, what kind of expectation do you have for just new car or used car sales in the UK for 2025? And then what implications could this have for GP US as well? And just relatedly on UK, I just ask my follow up as well. Given the restructuring actions that you've already executed on, there's more to come during the first quarter. It seems like you're running at an analyzed level of SG&A expenses probably $650 million. What should we expect the new run rate to be once those restructuring actions are completed? Thanks.
Daryl Kenningham
Hi Rajat. This is Darryl. I'm going to take your question the new vehicle demand and Daniel will take the SGN a question most forecasts in the UK show growth in 2025. And the underlying core retail business looks pretty good. There's you know, EV is being forced through the fleet channel right now. And that's creating margin pressure and total as a result. So, you know, that has to get resolved and I think it will get resolved. Really do.
And when you just listen to some of the, at least some of the political rhetoric in the UK, there's much more visibility around that issue and how they should address it and what that's what that does to their industry. And we're optimistic that there will be some resolutions brought forward and that should result in a healthier mix of retail and fleet sales and a more natural mix of EVSI don't know what that looks like yet, but we feel like there's enough commitment and discussion around it that something will happen. And I'll turn over to Daniel for the SG&A discussion.
Daniel McHenry
Rajat. I think as you know, we discussed on our last earnings call, it should have been no shock this quarter to see that our SG&A as a percent of gross was at a higher level. Some of that involved that, we carried double costs in the quarter for some activities and some of our head count as we and exited some of the colleagues from the business equally. So Inchcape had a large outsourced accounting center that we onshored and we had some costs for the accounting center offshore and trying to employ employees in the UK to take those duties up on the first of January in terms of our go forward. And you know, this year SG&A as a percent of growth adjusted was 83%. Our expectation is that we would take at least 300 basis points out of that going into next year. It could get better than that as we continue to execute on our cost reduction plan for 2025. But if you use that for your base model, that would be my expectation.
Rajat Gupta
Great. Thanks for all the color. I'll hold back in you.
Operator
The next question comes from Daniel Kahn, Morgan Stanley.
Daniel Kahn
Thanks. Good morning. I just want to ask again about the trends in SG&A to growth. I know you discussed already and prepared remarks and just now about UK is higher as a result of the Inchcape integration. But we also saw a sequential increase and year over year increase in the US. And so in what areas are you seeing the most cost inflation and what components do you feel there's opportunity to be more efficient.
Daniel McHenry
This is Daniel, there was some increase in head count SG&A as a percent of growth, small amount. Some of it was due to, margin reduction in terms of the margin on new vehicles year on year as a percent of gross opposed to absolute dollar.
Daniel Kahn
Got it. And then my second question is more so just about January trends thus far, what are you seeing new used and state of the consumer just kick off 2025.
Daryl Kenningham
Well, the January is not finished yet and we're we'll be prepared to talk about that at the end of the end of the quarter. And you've seen the industry kind of forecast that have come out.
Operator
The next question comes from John Murphy, Bank of America.
John Murphy
Good morning guys. You just had a first question Daryl on pricing and GPUSI mean, we saw a for the first time in a while, a sequential improvement in New GPUS. Obviously fourth quarter has some relatively strong seasonality with Lux being a little bit stronger. But just curious as you think forward into 2025 and maybe even beyond, obviously, there's a great debate of, where these GPUS are going to settle. It seems like we're kind of reaching an as some product limit on the downside here. But just curious, your thoughts of how much of that benefit was, typical seasonality and, or how much do you think we're kind of starting to scrape on the bottom here?
Daryl Kenningham
Well, I think we're generally, I agree with you, John, if we're not at the bottom, I think we're approaching it. I don't think the fourth quarter, naturally buoyed GPUSI. A little bit because of the big year end push with the luxuries, obviously, but you see a day supply numbers going into the fourth quarter, kind of all over the map. Right. we have a few brands that were fairly heavy in stock and then we had some that were very tight and we were able to hold PRU basically flat or up a little on a reported basis. So, I think we're probably close to the bottom. I don't know if we're absolutely, but I think we're probably close to the bottom. It just feels like it. The contenting the vehicle, the customers have the transaction prices are much higher than they were pre-COVID. And a lot of it is due to the equipment on the vehicles. And we're seeing more rationalization with some of the brands on their production, which obviously helps that too.
John Murphy
Got it. That's helpful. And then just a second question parts and parts and service 7% tech growth I think is what you guys said in 2024 which is pretty impressive to get that kind of hiring done. What are you thinking for the pipeline of hires for technicians? Because that seems like that is almost the only gaining factor on growth on parts and service.
Daryl Kenningham
We're not lowering our expectations. John, our targets are the same in '25 as they were in '24 and they're probably more aggressive than the UK. And we feel like we have an opportunity to do that. We're trying to, put some things in place. We're doing things like the air conditioning project which we believe will lead to, higher retention in those shops. It does in the rest of our shops. And we've got some other things that we're working on to try to improve retention in our higher defection brands and shops and experimenting with different kinds of compensation plans and retention programs and recognition programs and mentoring programs.
We don't see us stopping that and you know, at this point, we know we got to be creative and continue to evolve in that we can't just rely on what we did a year or two years ago to do that. So that's our focus and that's what we're going to continue to do. And one key to this is keeping your shops full. Techs want to work at places where they can get work and we keep our shops full because of the way we schedule our customers. So that's a real key as well.
Operator
The next question comes from Jeff Lick, Stephens. Please go ahead.
Jeff Lick
Good morning guys. Thanks for taking the question and congrats on a great quarter. I hate to be on the UK thing, obviously, especially with the US results being as strong as they were. I think, some of us were a little surprised at some of the line items in the UK. You'd highlighted some pretty big things in terms of the DMS change over, the productivity pushing. The decision making process down to the dealerships. I was wondering if you could just elaborate more. We obviously you hit the SG&A point the 300 Bs for next year, but just maybe giving a little more color just in terms of magnitude of just how kind of impacted, negatively things are right now and how you would see that go in the other direction and just, how much opportunity is it to go the other direction in 2025?
Daryl Kenningham
Well, I think there's quite a bit of opportunity. The business we bought, the brands are terrific and they're in great geographies. The way they manage their business was different than us. We tend to put more decision making in the stores because we feel like our general managers have to have flexibility to react to the marketplace. It's a better way to serve customers. The edge cap was more centralized. They had a lot more of their decisions, centralized and even things like just replacing a lift or hiring a technician had to go to the corporate office for approval.
If you wanted to reprice a used car, you had to have approval in writing from the corporate office. We don't think that's the proper way to manage a retail business. We think putting guidelines and technology in place to help the operators make those decisions as the best way and then let them make those decisions based on the customer needs at the moment. And so we've moved all of that in the half of our business that's in, out to the stores.
And they're not going to wake up day one and be great it. But I can tell you just throughout the quarter, we saw improvements, in those actions that resulted from those actions and I feel like we're going to continue to see that.
Jeff Lick
There's a significant opportunity there. I'm as convinced today that we've got a great, a great business there that can really develop and produce good returns for our shareholders. And I certainly believe that. So it doesn't mean there's no work to do. There certainly is.
And a quick follow up for Pete if I could relating the, conversations that are always ongoing with the OEMS obviously a lot's been going on in the back half, stop sales, inventory is normalizing as you talk, but it's not quite there yet. The EV mandates, You're just curious, Pete, how conversations with the OEMS are evolving as we go into 2025 and you know, what are they most focused on and vice versa?
Peter Delongchamps
So I don't think you can broad brush the OM focus, but I will tell you that when you take a look at day supply, I think that there's been a real balancing, especially with some of the higher day supply. OEMS. And you know, we're still at low numbers with Toyota and Lexus. But I think, we're going into this year, the OEMS are bullish on this year and at Darryl's earlier point and just focusing on the relationships we have with them and the, and the performance so we can continue to grow. But, in talking with all the OEMS. I think their outlook is very positive for this year.
Operator
The next question comes from Bret Jordan, Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Bret Jordan
Hey, good morning guys. Could you give us a little bit more color on the BEV impact in the UK, I guess as you're forcing them through the fleet channel on the unit GP US in BEV versus ice over there and maybe where you see that as the mandate is looking for six points higher in BEV this year.
Daryl Kenningham
The margin impact is and we can get some detail on it, but the margin impact of sending them through the fleet channel, those go to corporate fleets in the UK. It's not like rental car fleets and most companies have corporate fleet programs for their, for their employees but, they tend to be subsidized and they tend to be lower price and lower margin than so the incentives have been focused more on those fleet buyers because of the volume there to be able to do it. So that's the issue.
Daniel McHenry
It's Daniel here, the additional thing out there on the fleet market is you don't traditionally get any F&I income on that fleet business. In addition, there's not really traditionally a trade that you take with that fleet vehicle. So that just makes it a much more difficult trading environment than what a standard retail deal would make.
Bret Jordan
Great and then parts and service. And I guess in the USI mean, how much of that is, are you seeing benefit from things like the Toyota Tundra engine replacement yet, or is that still to come in '25? And I guess what's the cadence seems like you'd have some seasonal tailwinds here? Into early '25.
Daryl Kenningham
We'll see some, yeah, we'll definitely see tail one and '25 on all the warranty that's there. The warranty numbers are pretty high right now. And the good thing is, third of customers who come in on warranty end up with some customer pay on their repair order. So that high warranty, trend also helps our CP business. So that and I think that's firstly one of the reasons we were up 8% quarter in customer pay, but I expect the warranty to continue through the year.
Operator
The next question comes from Michael Ward, Freedom Capital. Please go ahead.
Michael Ward
Thanks very much. Good morning, everyone. Just one more question the UK there. If you take the indicate business in the G&A, it looks like it was like 96% in four Q. Is there anything structurally that prevents that business from getting down to the overall corporate average in the UK.
Daniel McHenry
Mike? It's Daniel. I don't think there's anything structurally that prevents that from happening. If anything, my expectation would be that the Inchcape Group should be slightly better than the Legacy Group. One stores. Now, the simple reason behind that is a big differentiator between the US and the UK is the rents are structurally higher in the UK than they are in the US. The inch cap business tends to be more in the north of England versus the group one Legacy business in the South and rents in the south of England just are structurally higher than the north. So my expectation would be that it should be as good if not better than the legacy group, one businesses, as well as the brand mixes of the cape storage tend to be slightly higher gauge towards luxury than the legacy. So all in all, I would say absolutely as good as if not better than the legacy UK.
Michael Ward
Okay. So then, so therefore you had about $10 million of redundant SG&A costs in four Q with Inscape and that affected your overall SG&A as well as the UK portion.
Daniel McHenry
I think that's fair, Mike.
Daryl Kenningham
Yeah, Mike, one of the ways we're thinking about the UK business is, we feel like in total group one had a really good fourth quarter, really good. And when you on almost any broad basis that you look at it on EPS growth and performance versus expectations, we have a really good quarter and that's really without the UK contributing very much. And so we feel like as we get a lot of the major integration activities behind us and start to see the benefits of those in 2025 that's only a plus for us relative to where we are today.
And some of the integration activities were very disruptive. Every single employee in an inchcape store. We had has new technology today and we replaced all the networks, we replaced the DMS. You basically shut the store down for five days to do that when we did every store in late November and December. So, it was a big impact but we expect that as we get further into '25 we'll see more and more good news out of our business there.
That's what it sounds like a second question page 13 of your slide deck. Peter, your neck of the woods, the F&I side to it looks like you've had steady improvements in a lot of the different take rates.
Michael Ward
If I look at that, it seems to me that, back about six months ago or so, there were some concerns that maybe FFF and I was going to normalize a little bit. It seems to me that you're at another high level and if anything, some of the captive finance comes back a little bit, we might see that drift a little bit higher in 2025. Is that a fair assumption?
Peter Delongchamps
I think the real opportunity Mike is we get lower rates is to improve the used car penetrations because those are, those are the kind of bottom out at 63% of traditional number of 68. We've actually seen captive financing help the new vehicle finance pen, up to 75 76%. So we think that there's some opportunity there this coming year and then the, we just executed on our product offerings. We've talked about it for years. We've continued to have the same products offered and that, our teams have done a great job of maintaining good product penetrations and increasing and a couple of the products that we have. So we're pleased with our F&I performance this year.
Operator
The next question comes from Ron Juleau, Securitas Security Services. Google time security. Please go ahead.
Ron Juleau
Yeah, good morning and thanks for taking my question. Maybe just starting off on parts and service because the print was very strong this quarter. Is there anything we should be aware of surrounding kind of the 7% increase in revenue per repair order? I guess this warranty work or does the current scope of warranty work carry a higher revenue per ROI. Is that just a sign of kind of customer willingness to pay and your and your ability to pass through kind of tech costs and general inflation?
Daryl Kenningham
Well, II think some of it may be the latter. When you combine it though about about half of our benefit parts of service this quarter was because of higher customer count in our store. So we're pleased to see that on the specific, dollar increases. That the average mileage continues to go up across our service drives. And so as that continues, we will see higher dollar ROIs just because older vehicles need more repair. And so I believe that's what's driving It's not, we're not taking necessarily any meaningful pricing that's largely behind us. And I don't think it's the environment to do it anyway.
Ron Juleau
And I know it's very early innings on tariffs and it seems like it's probably a tough situation to comment on, but to the extent we do see Mexican import duties levied. Could that actually be supportive for your pricing? Because I think if we just look at some of your tightest supplied OEM brands and, and your partners, they build a large portion of their vehicles actually in the US.
Daryl Kenningham
No, that's there's some truth to that. Absolutely. Yeah.
Ron Juleau
Okay. That's helpful. I'll hop back in the queue. Thanks for taking my questions.
Operator
The next question comes from Glenn Chin, Seaport Research Partner.
Glenn Chin
Great. Thank you for squeezing me in. Just a follow on question related to aftersales DLI. You mentioned targets for 2025 are unchanged 2024. Can you just remind us what those targets were for last year.
Daryl Kenningham
What I was specifically referring to Glenn, was that this past year we grew our tech camp by about 300 technicians in the US. And we're not lowering our expectations in the future on that. And we don't feel like physical limitations in terms of our stall count will limit us either because a third of our stores in the US have more technicians than they do stalls in the dealership. And so just the physical open number of stalls is not what we look at in terms of what's our run future run rate look like on being able to hire technicians. So we intend to keep hiring as at the same rate we have been in the past. And so that's what I was referring to. I don't know if that answers your question or not.
Glenn Chin
It does. And then just looking at inventory levels, it looks like 67 days of use in the UK. Does that need to come down?
Daniel McHenry
Glenn and Daniel, December is traditionally a fairly weak month, I would say for used vehicle sales in the UK. It's, January is the opposite to that. January tends to be a very buoyant month for used vehicle sales in the UK. And effectively what we've done is we've looked at our inventory levels at the end of December and effectively divided it by the number of vehicles that we sold in December. So that's artificially high for December.
Operator
No further questions in the queue. This does conclude our question and answer session and concludes our conference call. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.