Conference Transcript - DRVN 2026-09-15

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us at the Goldman Sachs Global Consumer and Retail Conference. My name is Mark Jordan. I'm an analyst here at Goldman Sachs, and it's my pleasure to introduce Driven Brands and to moderate our fireside chat. Today we have with us Danny Rivera, President and CEO, and Mike Diamond, Executive Vice President and CFO. Danny and Mike, thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. I think a good place to start off, just give a quick overview of the company so that for anyone in the audience who might be less familiar with the business, give a little bit of background. Driven Brands is a leading provider of diversified automotive services. They have businesses ranging from quick lube to collision repair to automotive maintenance to glass repair and replacement. So run the full gamut of automotive services, over 4,000 locations, and of those, 75% or so are franchised. I think a good point to go to after that is the company had a great announcement today. You announced you're planning to get to three times net leverage by the end of the current quarter, And with that, some updated capital allocation priorities focused on take-five growth, long-term net leverage of two to three times, and importantly, a share repurchase authorization. So what can we learn from that, the updated priorities?

Mike Diamond, CFO

Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for having us here. I mean, I think if nothing else, it helps illustrate the strength of the driven platform, which is both growth and cash. And I think as you think through the three elements of that, I think they all come to life there. And so if I walk through the three, as you mentioned, and we put out in the press release, First is continuing to grow Take 5. Take 5 is a great business. It is a growing business, and we see really strong unit-level economics, both for our franchisees and the company-operated stores that we have. You know, we're talking EBITDA margins north of 40%, sub-three-year payback, and a lot of opportunity to grow. And so, you know, that was the first bullet point there in our capital allocation priorities because it is so important to us as a growing business. How do we continue to find ways to grow that business? both in existing markets and identifying new markets so we can continue to drive that growth going forward. The second is the leverage target. As you mentioned, we had committed to getting to three times by the end of the year. We were able to do that by the end of Q3, which is great. Going forward, we plan to operate within a two to three times net leverage area. We believe that's reasonable. We believe that's wide enough to reflect the strong cash flow characteristics of our business and gives us the right level of flexibility and strong balance sheet growing forward. We generate so much cash that even between the growth and the potential accumulation of cash, we'll still have more. And so that's what anchored the share repurchase authorization earlier today as well. It's about $100 million. It is exactly $100 million. That's about 5% of our market cap. And we think it's a really good first step to help us assess what this does with respect to the float. That 5% market cap reflects roughly 13% of the company float. and assess how, you know, engaging in that will impact the float as we move forward.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

I think just sticking on the leverage point for a second there, so three times the end of the quarter, targeting two to three, is it fair to think any drift down from three might come more from EBITDA expansion versus debt reduction?

Mike Diamond, CFO

I don't think it will come from debt reduction. You know, the next couple of tranches we have in our securitization are very low interest, and that's very attractive. I'm not interested in paying those off until the day before they're due. I do think we will generate cash, given our strong free cash flow characteristics, And so it is possible that leverage ratio will drift down as we continue to generate cash. But I think that's really what we're looking at, is it gives us a tremendous amount of flexibility, enables us to lean in on growing that take-five business, and then, again, helps us assess the best way to go forward from a return to shareholders, of which the $100 million is really that good first step.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And that's kind of my next question. So I think the share-your-purchase authorization is a great signal to the markets that you're going to be more flexible with your approach to capital allocation. How do you view the tradeoff as the dollar comes in of how you want to allocate it in terms of maybe, I don't know if you want to go into it, but ranking how you view your priorities?

Mike Diamond, CFO

Yeah, and I think the beauty of the Driven platform is we don't have to. You know, we have access to both. This is a strong cash flow business. As a reminder, our outlook for 2026, $125 to $145 million. That's inclusive of restatement costs that we won't necessarily see in the subsequent years. So we generate a lot of cash flow. And so the beauty of this is we get to do both. We get to grow our take five and return capital to shareholders. And, again, that target between two to three gives us some flexibility to lean in where we need to and pull back if we don't. But in general, we see the ability to do both. It's really an and. It doesn't have to be an or.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Well, that was a great announcement to hear today. I was very happy to see it. I think right now we should maybe transition to some of the operating businesses. So Take5, I think of that as the company's crown jewel, certainly your main growth engine. The QuickLube channel in particular sets a benefit from a lot of secular tailwinds. They have a growing and aging vehicle population, increasing premium oil mix, all tailwinds for the business that are, I think, supporting your white space expansion. You know, when we think about the growth prospects for the industry and then Take5 in particular, you know, what's your long-term view for the platform there?

Danny Rivera, CEO

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think, you know, you underscored a lot of the kind of the fundamentals in the industry and why it's such a lucrative industry. At the end of the day, if you think about it, right, there are more cars on the road today. Miles driven is up. Car complexity is going up. It's not going down. So you've got a bunch of tailwinds. And I think something that's often overlooked from a consumer perspective, it is the one area in automotive where you can innovate. If you go back to our business and to the roots of our business, we invented the stay-in-your-car 10-minute oil change. And it's something that at the time was new and different and actually attracted customers. So it's a neat space to innovate. So I think it's a great industry. To your point, it's the crown jewel of Driven Brands. It is the growth engine at Driven Brands. Mike and I tend to talk about Driven Brands as growth in cash. When we're talking about growth, it's really about take five. If you unpack that a little bit, you know, sitting here today, we're at 1,400 locations. If we do a quick history lesson, we bought the business back in 2016. At the time, it was 40 locations. You fast forward to the day, 1,400 locations. We'll continue to open 150-plus locations a year. We have our eyes set on 2,500 locations over time, and we have a really strong pipeline of 800 locations sitting here today. So not only has it been a great growth juggernaut for us historically, but we're also relatively early innings, which is really interesting.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And the store mix today is roughly 60-40. as we think about it going forward in future growth? Should we think about a more even distribution between company and franchised?

Danny Rivera, CEO

I think in the short term what you should expect from us is, again, we will open 150-plus locations a year. In the short term, think more 50-50, company and franchised. Some of that is with the announcement today, it's a company-owned stores for us. That is a very lucrative investment. Four-wall margins in that business are in the mid-40s. I mean, it's just a really strong IRR. So we're going to continue to lean in there just because financially it makes a ton of sense. As we get closer to the $2,500 number, you should see that skew a little bit more towards franchise over time.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And then sticking on take five, you know, one of the things I'm sure you've answered many times today in your investor meetings is the oil supply environment. So can you talk about how the company is navigating the current environment, if you're seeing any constraints, and just what conversation you've had with suppliers?

Danny Rivera, CEO

Yeah, I'd say first and foremost, from a supply perspective, it's actually we're sitting in a good place right now, which I don't think is true for everybody. I think there's certainly some supply constraints out there. We pour a lot of oil. We've got great supplier relationships. And when we look at the near to midterm, we're doing well. Obviously, we're seeing costs go up. That's also kind of a common thing that's happening right now in the industry. We first started to see those costs go up at the back half of Q2. For our part, we've got company-operated stores and franchise stores. We saw some of our franchisees take price a little bit earlier in the quarter. They're franchisees, so they don't all act in unison, but we certainly saw some of them take price early in the quarter. We, for our company-owned stores, took some price in the second half of the quarter. We think there may be some more price takes or some more cost increases in the back half of the year, which will lead to a little bit more modest price takes in the back half for us. Historically, what we've done, and it's true now, we are able to take price to stay gross margin dollar neutral in the short term. that will create some short-term margin headwinds. But given where we are right now, we think the prudent thing to do is to balance both value for the consumer, which I think right now is really important, and also balance profitability for our business. So that's where we're sitting.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Excellent. And as we think about the magnitude of cost increases and the timing in which you pass them through, is it sort of a one-for-one? You see the costs come through, you pass them through, and you're focused on maintaining the margin dollars as that happens?

Danny Rivera, CEO

And I think a better way of thinking about it is we think about pricing as an algorithmic approach, right? So we have a pricing engine. That engine takes several inputs into account. Costs are obviously one of those inputs, right? But so are market dynamics, local dynamics, competitive dynamics. So we have the ability to price nationwide at a market or all the way down to a store level. Now, when we see cost increases on a nationalized basis like we're seeing now, yes, obviously that can affect pricing everywhere. But we do have the flexibility and the ability to do different things at the local level. So, for example, maybe you have a store that is, you know, six months old and you're really worried about or you're really focused on, I should say, getting throughput and getting traffic. You'll treat that differently than, you know, a store that's been 15 years in New Orleans.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Okay, perfect. And then as you look across the competitive landscape, obviously this is a segment of the auto services channel where there can't really be too much deferral. there could be some discretion, but with that, are you starting to see any competitors increase promotion intensity to drive oil changes?

Danny Rivera, CEO

You know, I would say overall the oil industry is a pretty rational industry. We just came off of Q2. Q2 by its nature is a more promotional quarter. You've got 4th of July, that's peak driving season for Americans, and so it's always a bit more promotional in nature. But overall I would say the quick loop space continues to be pretty rational in terms of pricing.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Perfect. And you touched on this as well about maintaining the gross profit dollars, but theoretically we see the costs go up for maintaining dollars. So when we think about take-five segment EBITDA margins in the coming quarter, a quarter after that, fair to say there should be some headwind in the quarter from the cost increases.

Mike Diamond, CFO

Yeah, I mean, I think obviously as we've described that, our focus is on the margin dollars, not the margin percentage. I think what I would do is more re-anchor to we feel good in the longer term about take-five as a segment doing mid-30s EBITDA margins. It has continued to be able to do that. That may not be every individualized quarter, but overall we feel really good about the earnings power of that business.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And then, you know, customer behavior, you've talked about some shifts, some moderation at the lower-income customer. I think that's something that's very understandable given the macro pressures they're facing. When we think about, you know, their ability to, you know, watch their wallet, they can, of course, as I mentioned, defer it to some degree or they can trade out to another channel. Are you seeing any increased signs of that today, of deferral, maybe extended oil change intervals?

Danny Rivera, CEO

You know, so back in Q1, we called out, that was the first time that we started to see a bit of moderation. And at the time, we called out that that lower-income consumer, we're seeing some moderation happen. When Q2 numbers came out, what we said is we've seen it stabilize, hasn't gotten any better, hasn't gotten any worse. We continue to see pressure with that cohort. But the inverse is also true. So if you isolate to that cohort, we're seeing some moderation. but if you look outside of that cohort, generally speaking, we're seeing resilience. So ARO is up, attachment rates are up, premium mix is really solid. NPS scores are in the 70s, as they've always been. So there's the whole cliche of the K-shaped economy, and we're certainly seeing some truth to that. There's definitely pressure on that lower-income consumer, but outside of that, we're seeing resilience.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

I think one of the important things to underscore about the oil change industry is that people generally never trade down, Even if their vehicle can take conventional, if they've had premium, they will stay with premium, right? So a fair way to think about it is it's not an impact to the business.

Danny Rivera, CEO

I think that's a really fair way of looking at it, and I think there's also a bit of a tailwind in the industry anyway. The reality is newer cars need newer formulations of oil, which tend to be more, quote-unquote, premium in nature. So there is a bit of a tailwind in the industry as well.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And then you touched upon as well another aspect of the business is the non-oil change services. Have you observed any changes in attachment rates recently?

Danny Rivera, CEO

I would say, you know, we've had a really good track record of growing attachment rates over time. You know, I have the benefit. I've been with the business since 2012. I was there when we bought the business in 2016. You know, attachment rates when we bought the business were in the low to mid-30s. Sitting here today, we're in the high 50s. The other thing that we've successfully done is we've added new services. So when we bought the business, we talked about the big four. It was four attachments. Today we've got big six. So through the years, we've introduced two new services. So not only have we proven from an organic kind of box-level economics that we can grow the business in terms of attachment rates, we've grown the business in terms of premium mix skewing upwards as well, but we've also successfully introduced new services. Most recently, we introduced differentials at the end of last year. So there continues to be many levers, so to speak, to grow that business.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Excellent, excellent. So shifting now to the franchise brand segment, I think the largest contributed there is your collection of collision repair businesses. and I believe that's now 100% franchised? And that is an industry which, you know, the individual participants there are largely at the whim of the industry trends, right? I think your franchisees have done a great job of outcompeting the broader market. But can you talk about your outlook there for the collision repair market, what you're hearing from franchisees?

Danny Rivera, CEO

Absolutely. I mean, so what we've said, you know, coming into this year is what we think is going to happen is 2026 is going to be a year of stabilization. It's not going to be a bounce back year. I think that that's basically how things have played out. To your point, when we look at our business and we compare ourselves to the industry, we tend to outperform the industry anywhere between 100 to 300 basis points historically. You mentioned a second ago it's a fully franchised business. And, you know, I think the reason why we outperformed kind of to the second half of your question is because of the franchise model of that business. So if you look at the collision space, number one, it is a very complex space. You've got insurance carriers that have pretty demanding requirements and SLAs and KPIs that you have to keep up with. You've got the repairs themselves are quite complex. You're talking about body work and welding and all sorts of really difficult things. And then the third thing that makes it fairly complex is the labor force. So when you get into collision, you're talking about you need to keep senior technicians that are certified and in short supply staying put and making sure that you have consistency in terms of labor. So one of the competitive advantages that I think we have is that franchisee. You've got an owner-operator on the ground every single day, and what ends up happening is ultimately you get better customer service, you get better quality, which keeps the carriers happy, and you have a more stable workforce because that owner can take care of those technicians. So for us, we think that that's been a nice competitive advantage.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

It's really the entrepreneurial spirit of the franchisee base that really helps the engine there. 100%.

Danny Rivera, CEO

Perfect. Perfect.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

So sticking with collision repair, you have the Mako banner, of course. Perhaps a bit more discretionary than other collision repair businesses, given it has a higher retail mix, it has paint. Can you talk about how that business has trended you to date and some of the headwinds it faces, and maybe how you think of what might drive a recovery in that business over time?

Danny Rivera, CEO

Yeah, our Mako business has been a bit soft this year. So Q1, there's some softness that extended into Q2. If you look at the overall driven portfolio, so Mako is the most discretionary business that we have left in the portfolio. So anytime that the consumer is feeling a bit pinched, that business is going to feel it a little bit more. I don't think a lot of folks really understand where Mako fits in the collision space. So maybe just two quick kind of common use cases to demystify that business a little bit. So one really common use case in the Mako business is say that my son is turning 16 and I'm going to hand down my car. So I have a 10-year-old car. I'm going to buy myself the new car, but I'm going to hand down the car to my 16-year-old. But maybe before I do so, I paint the car. So that's a really common use case. You're going to do an overall paint job. Another really common use case is you get into a light fender bender, nothing super serious. The car is operable. You can drive it away, but you've got damage on the car. That's another really typical use case. And by definition, neither one of those are needs. They're wants, right? You don't have to paint the car, and the car is drivable. You don't have to get that fender bender fixed. So, again, that lends itself to being more discretionary, and in turn what you see is a bit of softness whenever the consumer is more pinched.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

I do have a vehicle with some light paint damage that needs to be replaced, so maybe I'll bring it to my local make-up. We can take care of that, yeah. And so shifting to one of your other franchise brands, Meineke, definitely an iconic automotive brand. The business is more maintenance and services. It's much less discretionary. It's been a strong performing year or date. Can you talk about what you're currently seeing in that business?

Danny Rivera, CEO

Yeah, so conversely, the Meineke business is doing quite well, right? So that's one of the really neat things that I think is undervalued about Driven is that you do have a portfolio of businesses, right? And like any portfolio, there's a bit of diversification that happens there. So we've got that amazing take-five growth juggernaut, which is great, but within franchise brands, sure, Mako's seeing some softness, but this year we've seen strength out of Meineke. To your point, Meineke is non-discretionary in nature, so typical services for a Meineke, you're really talking breaks, shocks, struts, exhaust, general repair work. And the nature of that type of work, look, if you're driving your car and your brakes are squealing, it's not the kind of thing that you're going to defer. You're going to get that work done. And so not only are we benefiting from the fact that it's a little bit more non-discretionary in nature, it's another business that's 100% franchise and we've got owner operators on the ground. That's also a business that you need certified ASC technicians that are also in short supply. So again, having that owner operator on the ground makes a huge difference, and it's important to call out that both of those businesses, ultimately, the role that they play in Driven Brands, it's all about the cash side of that equation, right? So we talk about growth in cash. These are great EBITDA margin businesses for us.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Right, and I guess with the typical Meineke customer, is there anything to note there from a demographic or income perspective for that customer base?

Danny Rivera, CEO

I'd say the Meineke customer is very middle America. So one of the other really neat things about Driven in general is that our customer demographic base doesn't skew too far one way or the other. I mean, we generally serve middle America across most of our businesses.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Perfect. And I think you touched on this a second ago, but the franchise brand segment as a whole, it's a very cash-generated platform. EBITDA margins in the low to mid-60s, very limited CapEx requirements. Of course, there's some CapEx you need to continue to invest in. You have the system to support your franchisees. But as we look forward, how should we think about the platform's contribution to the broader business? Is it best to look at it, I think, as maybe a stable source of cash that can redeployed elsewhere for, you know, higher priority uses?

Mike Diamond, CFO

I think that's right. I mean, I think you've hit the highlights, which is EBITDA margins in and around 60%, same-store sales growth in the low single digits, and then very minimal CapEx. So it's a really strong cash flow provider. as we talked earlier about the power of the and between growing take five and returning capital to shareholders. One of the reasons we can is because of the strength of the franchise brand segment.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Excellent. And then shifting to your last segment, Autoglass now, it's still relatively small compared to the broader business, but it's got a great market position. Very compelling, I think, long-term growth opportunity. Can you talk about where the platform currently is in the U.S. glass market and what your growth aspirations are?

Danny Rivera, CEO

Yeah, happy to. I think, you know, to talk about where it is, we almost have to talk about where it was or kind of what the roadmap has been, right? So I think it's important. If we were having this conversation five years ago, we wouldn't even be in the industry, right? So we went from no position in glass to fairly quickly building up a number two position. So sitting here today, we're the second biggest operator in North America, which is fantastic. I would say the reason we got into the space, nothing has really changed. We see heavy amounts of fragmentation, certainly when you get outside of the number one player who's the incumbent who has been in the space for a long time. A lot of fragmentation, great unit level economics, a relatively simple business from an operating perspective, and none of those things have changed. We continue to say that that business is an incubation. We see growth, and we have been growing that business, but growth is not expected to be linear right now. For us, this is really about the long term, and the long long-term is ultimately we want to get into the national insurer carrier business. So if you look at the top 10 national insurers in the country, they're all sitting with the incumbent. We would love to earn our fair share of that business. And when we do, you're going to see a nice unit step change in the business, both from an EBITDA dollars perspective and also from a margin perspective.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

When we think about the different customers you serve in that channel, obviously there's a difference between ticket and margin, between commercial insurance and retail. Can you talk about what drives the difference there? And I think a lot of it has to do with the scanning and calibration attachment.

Danny Rivera, CEO

That's right. I mean, so generally speaking, on the insurance and commercial side, they tend to be higher tickets. There's a certain part of that. It's just there's more calibration that happens on that side. If you're coming out of pocket, a consumer can choose to not do calibration work if they choose not to. We don't recommend it, but they can make that choice. And ultimately, the real benefit to getting into the national insurer carrier business is more about the stickiness, right? So at the end of the day, it's just a completely different experience, and it's a different stickiness and retention to the customer base.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

So when we think about the platform, you've built the position, you have the assets in place. Now you're working on winning the business and longer term. How should we think about growth? Is it expanding into new markets, expanding in new units, or is it adding more vans? Because this is a very mobile-heavy fleet.

Danny Rivera, CEO

It is. I think, I mean, pragmatically when it comes to distribution, Generally speaking, what you should expect from us is when we're new into a piece of geography, if we're new to a market, you tend to lead with vans. It's the fastest way to get distribution on the ground and to scale up the business. Ultimately, you'd like to graduate, so to speak, to brick and mortar, and we've got about 200 brick and mortar locations today. But the brick and mortar doesn't make sense until you scale it. And so this business is somewhat unlike Take 5, and there's been historically we've gotten a lot of questions where if you look at Take 5, I would call that a build-it-and-they-will-come kind of a model, right? We know exactly what types of markets we want to be in, what street corners we want. We can predict all that and model all that out. And Mike and I sit on capital committee, and we approve every single site through Take 5. We can look at a business and go, okay, you know, that business over three years is going to do this much top line, this many cars, et cetera, et cetera. On the AGN side of the business, it doesn't quite work that way. Ultimately, you want to drive supply, so to speak, from getting carrier business or commercial business. You want to drive the scale. And once you have the scale, the brick-and-mortar makes a ton of sense.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And as we think about the difference between having the brick-and-mortar versus having the van fleet, is there any difference in capabilities between what you can do in the van versus in the physical location?

Danny Rivera, CEO

No, there's some really niche cases where there's some, but generally speaking, no. I mean, the services that we can provide brick-and-mortar we can do remotely as well.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And as we think about very longer term for the platform, how should we think about what you'd like your ideal business mix to be?

Danny Rivera, CEO

That's a great question. I'm not sure that I want to get into percentages here today. Again, for me, the long term is if I look at the top ten national insurance carriers, I want my fair share of that business. Along the way, there's really three channels in that business. You've got insurance. You've got commercial. You've got retail. We've been growing all of those. Commercial is a great part of the business. It's great to hit your fixed costs, and it's just a great way to have a steady source of business. Retail is a great business, and as much as, again, if the other parts of the business are soft, you can drive demand there, you can do advertising, and there are certain kind of levers that you can pull. But the big picture there and the thing that gets Mike and I excited is breaking into the top ten national insurance carriers.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Excellent. And I think, you know, we've gone through all the different segments we have here. In recent years, the company's gone through some portfolio optimization, and I think now it's at a point where you feel pretty comfortable about the businesses you have. If you look at the Take 5, that's certainly a growth engine. If you look at the franchise brand segment, that's a great source of cash. It's very stable, as we talked about. And I think maybe that's just how I think about it, but Autoglass now is sort of a long-term option on growth and your expansion within the market. Is that a fair way to think about it? And then, you know, how do you feel about the current portfolio? Do you see room to optimize it, or are you fairly confident and feel good where it is now?

Mike Diamond, CFO

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great way to describe it. I couldn't have said it better myself. I think, look, Danny and I have demonstrated over our last couple of years, we will continue to evaluate the portfolio. You know, we've gotten out of the car wash business. We sold a glass distributor, PH Vitra, in late 2024. That said, the pieces of this business right now work well together. And so I'll never say never. We feel good with the portfolio where it stands, the growth that take five, the cash of the franchise brand's business, and then the ability to see, you know, outsized benefit from AGN as it goes from an incubation period now, and we start to make progress there.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Excellent. And, you know, historically the platform has been built up by a lot of M&A, and I know it's not part of your capital framework now, but as we think about it, could there be the potential for – I guess there's bolt-on M&A potential for sure, But do you see any potential to expand across the auto services platform? Or is that even something you'd look at? Because I know M&A has been on hold for a while now.

Danny Rivera, CEO

I would say, I mean, I think you've characterized it well, right? So M&A has been a tool in the tool belt for a long time. In the short term, what you should expect from us is M&A, as it relates to Bolt-On, to the Take-Five business, makes a ton of sense. It's a great way to deploy capital. And that's a business that we understand, and it's the growth business for Driven Barons. In the short term, what you should not expect from us is large M&A, certainly like new vertical entries or anything like that. That is not in our short-term plans.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And I think it's important to know for take five, you have opportunities to densify existing markets, to go into new white space because you have geographies that are untapped from that perspective. How do you approach that from whether it's going to be a greenfield, brownfield development or going to be a bolt-on M&A or acquire a location and convert it?

Mike Diamond, CFO

I think to answer that, you first have to take a step back on how we think about market mapping, right? So we look at all of the country and figure out where we think in general we want a take five. And so that's not necessarily down to main and main, but it says, look, within this trade area, let's call it, there should be a take five. As opportunities come up from a real estate perspective or from an M&A perspective, we then decide, is that the right location? And that can be as simple as, boy, there's a piece of real estate here, but we really think we need to be half a mile further north because that's where the retail is. In a couple of instances, we've actually started down the process of a Greenfield location, and then we've had a conversion opportunity come up. And so, as Danny says, every site comes back. And so we will then go back to Capital Committee and say, hey, Danny and Mike, you approved this location last month, but there's now a conversion opportunity that oftentimes has quicker turnaround time and lower capex because it's already being built with a stable customer base. But the short answer is we are prepared to go in from a green field perspective. We can do sale leaseback if we want to buy the dirt. We can do ground lease. And when there's conversions, we can do that as well. And so for us, it is, you know, agnostic. The best thing to do is get the right location with the right long-term growth potential. and our job is to deploy the capital in a specific site that has the right customer demographics, the right growth potential, and the right economic profile. And the beauty of a business that has four-wall EBITDA at steady state of 40% is you really can find a lot of different vehicles to get that way.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

I think when you identify your existing company markets, you, of course, benefit from opening up because you don't have to leverage the same marketing expense. You have the aid of brand awareness. So, of course, that makes the decision a little bit easier when you want to deploy capital within your existing markets.

Mike Diamond, CFO

Yeah, that's true. I mean, look, I think the strength of the business, to be clear, has been the ability to go from one single market in New Orleans and expand to 1,400. So we definitely have an ability to take it to, we think, any market in the U.S. that we want. That said, it's always nice when you're opening the 20th or 30th location because there is that awareness. but going into new areas doesn't scare us because we know what a great model it is and what strong economics they are, and it's what gives us confidence that we can get from the $1,400-ish we are today to the $2,500 goal that we've stated.

Danny Rivera, CEO

The other really neat thing about the Take Five business is that when you compare franchise and company ops, I mean, Mike and I, I won't speak for Mike, I've certainly worked in businesses where company operations was nowhere near as good as franchise operations, and it's actually fairly hard to find franchisors that know how to run company ops. But if you compare our company ops and our franchise ops side by side, whether it's financial or operational KPIs, they're fairly similar, right? So it's a very – it is a box that operates the same way across the country, and that lets us replicate things pretty readily.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Well, definitely tremendous growth on right ahead for take five. I'm looking forward to that. We have a few minutes left here, and I left a little bit more time than usual to go through these four questions that we're asking each company because you have a very, I would say, very different customer bases for each one of your businesses. And so, you know, I think we'll start off. The first one is around the health of the consumer and the second half environment. So what are your expectations for the environment for the second half of the year relative to recent results? Do you expect them to be the same, better, or worse? And, you know, feel free to opine on each business or keep it high level if you'd prefer.

Mike Diamond, CFO

Well, I'll start by saying, you know, in general, we're just speaking to where we saw in, you know, Q2 results, and we're not going to break any new ground here in terms of an inter-quarter update. I think Danny talked about this. He talked about it in Q1. He talked about it again in Q2. We continue to see, you know, softness, moderation with the lower income consumer. I haven't seen anything in the popular press that would suggest that's going to stop, right? I think borrowing costs are going to go up for the average consumer starting tomorrow, And so I think, you know, I think in general, whether it is more discretionary or not, that consumer is going to be under pressure. I think the benefit of most of our portfolio is we are non-discretionary. And so while the lower income consumer may be under pressure, I think outside of maybe MAKO, which tends to be more discretionary, we benefit from being non-discretionary. And people need their cars to work. They need to get to work in this environment, and therefore they will continue to need our services, whether it's oil change, collision, glass repair, or any of those things.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Yes, certainly the strength of the non-discretionary auto services is highlighted here. And similarly, when we think about 27 versus 26, it might be very early to think about that. But if you have any thoughts on how you think about the strength of the consumer there.

Mike Diamond, CFO

I mean, I think to your point, it's tough to tell, and it's a very dynamic environment. So similar to what I just said, I think our job is to make sure we continue to execute as well as we can and react to whatever environment we are, and thank goodness we're in a non-discretionary space.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And for pricing, I think we may know the answer for take five, but of course you have other businesses as well. So when you think about, I guess, your blended pricing environment for the second half of this year, do you expect it to be higher or lower than the first half?

Danny Rivera, CEO

I think generally speaking you can trace what's happening in the overall market and then you can assume that we're going to follow suit. I mean, one of the benefits of being non-discretionary in nature is that we feel like we can pass through a certain amount of pricing. We're going to continue to be smart about how we do it. We want to ultimately protect profitability, but we also want to deliver value to the consumer, and so we're constantly trying to figure out what's the right balance there.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

The next one is kind of interesting. We've had some good answers on this, and I'm always surprised how companies are leveraging AI. Do you leverage AI, and to the extent that you do, Do you expect a significant increase in efficiency as a result in 27 versus 26?

Danny Rivera, CEO

Yeah, I mean, we do have a few AI pilots in place right now. I'm not going to get into a lot of detail for competitive reasons, but we look at AI investment like we look at any other investment. It starts with, you know, Driven is all about growth and cash, and so it either, number one, needs to accelerate growth at take five or it needs to make the rest of the business more efficient. We've got a couple pilots right now that are aimed at both sides of that equation. the early results are promising. Whether it's going to be game-changing next year, I'd say it's too early for us to tell. Is it ultimately game-changing technology?

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Yes. Excellent. Yeah. And I know you don't want to get into it, but I'm sure some have to do with pricing, sourcing, and all those sorts of things are very interesting avenues I expect we'll probably hear from in the coming years. And I think we touched on this a little bit, but again, as we think about the margins, right, you know, do you see more margin headwinds or tailwinds when we think about 27 or 26. And, again, you might be too early to talk about 27. I think a lot of companies are preferring not to answer that, so feel free.

Mike Diamond, CFO

Well, thank you for giving me the out. No, I think, look, we've talked about the uncertainty as it relates to, you know, in general supply, particularly as it relates to oil. I will use this as an opportunity just to remind people we feel very good with our supply. Clearly, there are price and cost impacts we need to think about. We have committed to trying to maintain that margin dollar, not margin percent, as we go forward. We think the beauty of our category is so far to date across the industry, across our category, across history, we've been able to pass that along while maintaining those margin dollars. The commitment is we'll continue to monitor the macro environment and adjust accordingly. Again, I'll come back to thank goodness we're in a nondiscretionary category for an asset, people's cars, that they need even when the economy is uncertain. And so we'll continue to monitor it carefully. We feel really good with our supply, and, you know, we feel pretty well positioned with where we are.

Mark Jordan, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

I think it's also to note the diversification of the businesses you have. You know, they have very different customer bases, very different industry trends. So I think that helps, of course, from people looking at the business, understand that, you know, live and die by any one business, you have a lot of other businesses that can facilitate, and they all have excellent, I think, different strengths. So Take Five being the growth driver, again, I think you have an excellent source of cash in the franchise brand business, this very stable, iconic automotive brand. And glass is just something that I'm looking forward to seeing over the coming decade unfold as you continue to move up in your market position there and expand. So, Danny and Mike, this has been very wonderful. I appreciate your time today. It's been a great pleasure.

Danny Rivera, CEO

Thank you, Mark.