Sonic Automotive Q4 Profit Down, Revenues Up 6%

(RTTNews) - Automotive retailer Sonic Automotive Inc. (SAH), Wednesday reported a drop in profit for the fourth quarter, hurt mainly by a non-cash impairment charge despite a revenue growth of 6 percent.

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Sonic's fourth-quarter profit dropped to $28.08 million or $0.53 per share from $30.38 million or $0.55 per share a year ago.

Earnings for the quarter include a non-cash impairment charge of $9.8 million.

Excluding special items, earnings from continuing operations improved to $0.67 per share from $0.52 per share a year ago. On average, nine analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.59 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Sonic Automotive's revenue for the fourth quarter grew 5.8 percent to $2.32 billion from $2.19 billion a year ago. Five analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $2.37 billion for the quarter.

New vehicle retail revenue for the quarter rose 3.1 percent, while used vehicle retail revenue increased 12.7 percent.

The company sold 34,001 new retail units, up from 33,767 units. Total used units increased to 26,354 from 23,943 units.

Looking forward, Scott Smith, President of Sonic Automotive said, "We expect the automotive retailing sector to continue to grow in 2014 and are anticipating 2014 new vehicle industry volume of between 15.75 million units and 16.25 million units."

The company also approved a quarterly dividend of $0.025 per share, payable on April 15 to stockholders of record on March 14.

SAH is currently trading at $22.73, up $0.60 or 2.71%, on the NYSE.