Earnings Call Transcript - GPC Q1 2024

Operator, Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Genuine Parts' First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. This call is being recorded on Wednesday, April 18, 2024. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Tim Walsh, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Tim Walsh, Senior Director, Investor Relations

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Genuine Parts Company's first quarter 2024 earnings call. Joining us on the call today are Paul Donahue, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Will Stengel, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Bert Nappier, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In addition to this morning's press release, a supplemental slide presentation can be found on the investors page of the Genuine Parts Company website. Today's call is being webcast and a replay will also be made available on the company's website after the call. Following our prepared remarks, the call will be opened for questions. The responses to which will reflect management's views as of today, April 18, 2024. If we're unable to get to your questions, please contact our Investor Relations department. Please be advised this call may include certain non-GAAP financial measures which may be referred to during today's discussion of our results as reported under generally accepted accounting principles. A reconciliation of these measures is provided in the earnings press release. Today's call may also involve forward-looking statements regarding the company and its businesses as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company's actual results could differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to several important factors described in the company's latest SEC filings, including this morning's press release. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during this call. Now let me turn the call over to Paul.

Paul Donahue, Chairman and CEO

Thank you, Tim, and good morning. Welcome to our first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. We are pleased to report our first quarter results for Genuine Parts Company and we are encouraged by the start to 2024, particularly when compared to our strong performance in the first quarter of 2023. Our results in the quarter reflect and highlight the value of our business mix paired with our geographic diversity. Our teams delivered results that exceeded our expectations while they stayed laser-focused on our strategic initiatives to enhance our businesses and drive profitable growth. This strong start to the year, along with the continued execution of our initiatives, gives us confidence to raise our outlook for adjusted earnings per share in 2024. Bert will provide additional details in his remarks. A few highlights of the first quarter include: total GPC sales of $5.8 billion increased slightly versus the same period in the prior year, which produced nearly double-digit growth; total company segment margin increased 30 basis points as continued operating discipline at motion and solid momentum in the actions implemented at our U.S. Auto business improved our profitability; and lastly, we delivered mid-single-digit adjusted earnings per share growth from the same period last year. As we look to the broader macroeconomic environment, the start to 2024 continues to present a mix of challenges and opportunities. Higher interest rates and persistent cost inflation are pressuring businesses and consumers alike. Fortunately, our businesses enjoy supportive industry fundamentals, providing a positive backdrop for growth. Within our Global Automotive business, we continue to see an increase in the number of miles driven, the fleet continues to age, and new and used car pricing remains elevated, particularly with financing costs. On the industrial side of our business, we have recently begun to see positive movement with key industry metrics. This further supports our positive outlook for Motion business for the balance of the year. Our Motion business benefits from a highly diverse portfolio of customers and end markets. Motion serves nearly all aspects of the industrial and manufacturing economy and is not over-indexed to any one end market or customer. In addition, we continue to expand into new areas of opportunities such as semiconductor technology. Longer-term trends around recovery present a significant opportunity for Motion and the team is well-positioned to capitalize on those as they materialize. As we expected, sales were challenged in the first quarter as the team posted a slight year-over-year sales decline. Despite the more challenging top-line environment, the Motion team delivered exceptional profit conversion. We are pleased with the progress with our supply chain initiatives and enhanced data analytics, which are driving inventory productivity, lower cost and higher customer service levels. We expect Motion's business to accelerate through the year, particularly in the second half of 2024. During the quarter, we were pleased to announce the promotion of James Howe to President of Motion North America. James has nearly three decades of service to the company and most recently served as EVP and Chief Commercial and Technology Officer. His leadership in overseeing e-commerce, strategic pricing, sales excellence and corporate accounts has been instrumental in driving the company's recent success. James is supported by a deep bench of talent both in the field and amongst its leadership team. Last week we had the chance to visit our Motion team at their Birmingham headquarters and tour their new learning development center. This is a great example of investing for future success as we provide intensive training for both our customers, as well as our technical field teams. So now moving on to Automotive. Our teams in Europe and Australasia continue to perform well and grow market share. In addition, our team in the U.S. demonstrated solid sequential improvement from the fourth quarter in both sales and profit after a challenging 2023. The improvement was driven by the continued progress on the decisive actions we took at U.S. Auto over the past several quarters. We're really proud of our leadership team for their focus and execution and are confident they'll continue to drive sequential improvements as we progress through 2024. Looking ahead, we believe the GPC team is well positioned with the right strategic plans, supportive fundamentals, and a strong balance sheet to pursue organic and inorganic growth opportunities, while also returning capital to shareholders through the dividend and share repurchases. Our results in the first quarter reflect the progress our teams around the globe are making on our key investment pillars and we believe the execution of our strategic initiatives, along with our team’s relentless focus on our customers, will drive value for our shareholders both now and for years to come. So, in closing, we thank each of our over 60,000 GPC teammates around the globe for taking great care of our customers. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Will.

Will Stengel, President and COO

Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everyone. I want to start by adding my thanks to the global GPC teams for their ongoing dedication to taking care of our customers. We're pleased with the solid start to the year and our first quarter performance. We truly appreciate your hard work and commitment. As always, we're aligned with global strategic initiatives centered on five key priorities including talent and culture, sales effectiveness, technology, supply chain and emerging technology, complemented by disciplined and value-creating acquisitions. Our global focus around these priorities drives efficiency and pace as we work to continuously improve the customer experience and deliver profitable growth. Now, turning to our first quarter results. During the first quarter, total sales for global industrial were $2.2 billion, a decrease of approximately 2%, with comparable sales down 2.6% versus the same period last year. These results were in line with our expectations as we were up against our most difficult comparative period of the year with first quarter 2023 sales up 12%. From a cadence perspective, average daily sales were flat to slightly down in all three months with January seeing the most pressure, partially driven by a negative impact from severe winter weather that caused some customer facilities to close. Motion continues to see mixed results across our various served industrial end markets with strength during the quarter in iron and steel, as well as chemicals and automotive. Equipment and machinery and lumber and building products were softer in the quarter relative to the average end market. We continue to receive mixed and cautious feedback from our diversified customer base. However, our overall outlook for the year remains positive. Current renewal rates for corporate accounts, which represents approximately 45% of the business, remain at historically high levels, which further validates the current strength of the Motion value proposition. We're seeing outsized growth in our offering to physically locate Motion teammates at customers' facilities to enable an even closer partnership. Motion's highly technical sales expertise and solution-based selling drives deep relationships with our customers and helps to keep our customers' operations moving every day. Over the past 16-months, manufacturing PMI readings have experienced the longest period of contraction as represented by a PMI index below 50 since the financial crisis in 2009. Despite this, our Motion business has outperformed driven by its customer and end market diversification, business mix and strategic initiatives. Encouragingly, in March 2024, the manufacturing PMI was 50.3, representing an expansionary data point for the first time in 16-months. We obviously appreciate that one month doesn't make a trend, but we remain cautiously optimistic about the rest of the year and the medium-term outlook. Turning to Industrial segment profitability, which represents now 50% of GPC's total profit. In the first quarter, segment profit was $271 million, up 3% and 12.3% of sales, representing a 70 basis point increase from the same period last year. The team continues to execute category management and supply chain productivity initiatives and operate with discipline to deliver operating leverage and margin expansion despite lower sales. Turning to the Global Automotive segment. Sales in the first quarter increased approximately 2% with comparable store sales essentially flat. Our International Automotive businesses in Europe and Asia-Pac posted positive sales growth in local currency, while U.S. Automotive was flat and sales in Canada were down low-single-digits. As expected, Global Automotive sales inflation moderated to less than 1% and we expect this to be the case throughout the remainder of the year. Global Automotive segment profit in the first quarter was $273 million, up 3% and 7.6% of sales, representing a 10 basis point increase from the same period last year and a meaningful sequential improvement from the fourth quarter. Our first quarter results for Global Automotive segment reflect strong operating discipline and a positive initial impact that we're seeing from actions taken at our U.S. Automotive business. We are encouraged by the sequential improvement in this segment. Now let's turn to our Automotive business performance by geography. Starting in Europe, our Automotive team delivered another solid quarter with total sales growth of 8% in local currency and comparable sales growth of 1%. Our team continues to deliver growth with key accounts winning a higher share of wallet with existing accounts and the further rollout of NAPA private label products across the region. The ongoing bolt-on acquisition activity continues to have a positive impact and create value. In addition, during the quarter, our new national distribution center in France opened. This approximately 500,000 square foot distribution center represents a significant technology and automation upgrade within our local supply chain. This project is a great example of how we're investing to optimize our network to drive productivity and increase service levels to our customers. A similar project is well underway in the U.K. and we're leveraging best practices and technologies to deliver the project efficiently. In the Asia-Pac Automotive business, sales in the first quarter increased 2% in local currency with comparable sales growth of 1%. Similar to last quarter, this performance compares to strong double-digit growth in the same period last year. Sales for both commercial and retail were up in the first quarter with retail showing relative strength. Despite a challenging macro environment, the team is executing well to simultaneously deliver growth and expand operating margins. In Canada, sales decreased approximately 1% in local currency during the first quarter with comparable sales decreasing approximately 3%. Our Canadian team continues to focus on sales growth in excess of the market, despite pressure from a more cautious consumer and an unseasonably mild winter. During the quarter, our Automotive business saw positive sales growth in line with our expectations, while our heavy vehicle business was slightly below driven by softer-than-expected market demand. In the U.S., Automotive sales were essentially flat during the first quarter with comparable sales increasing approximately 1%. This represents a notable improvement from the fourth quarter in both reported and comparable sales. The first quarter performance was in line with our expectations. As we moved through the quarter, we saw a sequential improvement in average daily sales growth each month. During the quarter, we also saw positive buying behaviors from our independent owners, a trend that we expect to continue over the course of the year. From a customer segment perspective, sales to commercial customers in the quarter were slightly down, while sales to Do It Yourself customers were approximately flat. For commercial, Auto Care continued to outperform while major accounts underperformed, driven by a cautious end consumer. We believe the in-flight actions across the business are delivering a positive impact and we expect the benefits to build throughout the year. Let me provide another quick update on some of the focus areas. First, we experienced further improvement in our inventory fill rates during the first quarter, and as expected, our actions significantly improved our in-stock levels in both our stores and distribution centers. Second, our in-store service levels, as measured by customer service and on-time delivery metrics improved following the improvements we experienced in the fourth quarter. Related, to start the second quarter of 2024, we realigned certain field teams to help focus the field on key activities, deliver excellent customer service and generate sales growth. Our elevated focus on the stores and the field operations is having a measurable positive impact on our teammates. The team is energized and we've seen a notable reduction in employee turnover year-over-year. Finally, our supply chain teams are making significant operational improvements across our network. We've enhanced processes and procedures in our operations that are driving better safety, accuracy, service levels and operational efficiency, while simultaneously reducing errors and overtime. During the quarter, we also made progress on medium-term strategic initiatives. For example, we continue to build upon our strategic pricing and sourcing initiatives that are delivering results. During the quarter, our newly expanded distribution center in Indianapolis went live. This 600,000 square foot facility will more efficiently service hundreds of independent and company-owned stores in the U.S., utilizing new automation and enhanced technology. We also leveraged our partnership with Google to accelerate enhancements to our search and catalog that remove friction and drive a better customer experience. The feedback on these technology improvements from our customers and teams has been exceptional and we look forward to building on the momentum in the months and quarters ahead. And finally, as announced on our fourth quarter call, we're advancing our initiative to evolve our operating model at U.S. Automotive as we're being more intentional about owning more stores in selected priority markets. In parallel, we continue to partner with our existing network of independent owners, who play an important role to help us serve our local markets. Our current in-flight initiatives are designed to improve growth and operations at both company-owned and independently-owned locations. During the first quarter, we made strategic acquisitions of 45 NAPA stores from our independent owners, an increase from the 33 NAPA stores acquired in the fourth quarter and the 16 acquired in the first quarter of last year. We're leveraging our disciplined integration playbook as we integrate these stores into our own store base. We expect these trends to continue over the course of the year. Our global teams are executing on our 2024 priorities and are focused on key strategic initiatives across our business. Last quarter, we announced a coordinated global initiative across each of our operations to further simplify and streamline our operations, improve productivity, increase our speed of service and reduce our cost to serve. Our efforts are on track and Bert will go over the restructuring details in a moment. In closing, GPC started 2024 well. We delivered first quarter results that exceeded our expectations, we're cautiously optimistic about a North America industrial recovery, we're seeing encouraging traction at U.S. Automotive, we're making progress on our long-term strategic initiatives, and we're confident in the revised outlook that we laid out for 2024. These results are only achieved with the hard work and dedication of each of our global teammates who take care of our customers, live our GPC values, and focus to deliver performance. We remain committed to our plans for long-term growth and we're confident our teams are focused on the right strategic initiatives that will deliver solutions for our customers and create value. Thank you again to the entire GPC team. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Bert.

Bert Nappier, Executive Vice President and CFO

Thank you, Will, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. Our momentum from 2023 carried into the first quarter of 2024 as our teams delivered profit growth against the backdrop of low sales growth. We are pleased with the start to the year, which was ahead of our expectations, particularly as we anticipated this quarter to be the most challenging given the strong results we delivered in the first quarter of 2023. My comments this morning focus primarily on adjusted results which exclude non-recurring costs related to our previously announced global restructuring program. During the first quarter, we incurred approximately $83 million of costs on a pre-tax basis in line with our expectations, or $62 million after-tax related to our restructuring efforts. As we look at the first quarter, total sales were up slightly versus the prior year, reflecting a 1.9% contribution from acquisitions, offset by a 0.9% decrease in comparable sales and a 0.7% unfavorable impact of foreign currency and other. During the quarter, the contribution from inflation was less than 1% in both our Automotive and Industrial segments, in line with our expectations. Our first quarter sales performance was highlighted by the continued growth in Europe and Australasia, offset by slight declines in Industrial and Canada. Sales in our U.S. Automotive business were flat in the first quarter and our performance reflects a more than 500 basis point improvement sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2023. During the first quarter, our gross margin expanded by 100 basis points to 35.9%, primarily driven by the ongoing execution of our strategic sourcing and pricing initiatives. Our investments in technology and category management capabilities are continuing to be beneficial in driving positive results and our gross margin performance. Adjusting for restructuring expenses, total adjusted operating and non-operating expenses were 28.8% of sales in the first quarter, an increase of approximately 90 basis points from total expenses in the prior year. Our higher operating expenses in the first quarter reflect a negative impact of approximately 20 basis points from planned investments in IT as we continue to invest in modernized technology to run our businesses, approximately 25 basis points of negative impact from rent expense as inflationary pressures are contributing to higher costs as we renew leases, and approximately 70 basis points of negative impact from salaries and wages as we lap the final quarter of our previously announced 2023 investments in team members and absorb continued mandatory increases in minimum wages in certain international markets. These headwinds were partially offset by discipline in other discretionary categories and looking ahead, our operating expenses will benefit from the actions taken under our global restructuring program. For the quarter, segment profit margin was 9.4%, a 30 basis point improvement year-over-year. Industrial delivered 70 basis points of margin improvement, while sales declined slightly. Our margin expansion in our Industrial business is a result of ongoing efforts to improve the efficiency of our operations combined with strong expense discipline. As Will outlined earlier, the actions we've implemented to improve our U.S. Automotive business are driving benefits and we are encouraged with the margin expansion at Global Automotive and expect further improvement throughout the year. Our first quarter adjusted net income, which excludes restructuring expenses of $62 million after tax or $0.44 per diluted share, was $311 million, or $2.22 per diluted share. This compares to net income of $304 million, or $2.14 per diluted share in 2023, an increase of 3.7%. Turning to our cash flows. For the quarter, we generated $318 million in cash from operations and $203 million in free cash flow. We closed the first quarter with $2.5 billion in available liquidity, and our debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio was 1.8 times, which compares to our targeted range of two times to 2.5 times. During the first quarter, we invested $116 million back into the business in the form of capital expenditures and another $135 million in the form of strategic acquisitions, including bolt-on acquisitions in the U.S. to support our strategy to own more NAPA stores. In addition, we also made a small acquisition for our Motion business in North America, which expands our value-added service capabilities in fluid power and repair solutions. In the first quarter, we returned approximately $170 million to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases. This includes $133 million in cash dividends paid to our shareholders and approximately $37 million in cash used to repurchase 261,000 shares. Our global restructuring efforts kicked off in the first quarter as we implement actions to position us to achieve our long-term targets. We continue to expect costs of approximately $100 million to $200 million, most of which will be incurred in 2024, and we will report these as non-recurring expenses. Our restructuring efforts are expected to deliver a benefit of $20 million to $40 million in 2024 and $45 million to $90 million on an annualized basis. We incurred $83 million of costs in the first quarter related to our restructuring program, which can be categorized into two key areas: costs associated with our voluntary retirement program and facility optimization. Approximately 65% of the first quarter restructuring expenses were the costs associated with our voluntary retirement offer. The remaining costs are related to facility closures and start-up costs associated with new facilities that replace those that were shut down. Our first quarter restructuring activities, including the voluntary retirement offer, were completed in line with our expectations and we expect to start realizing benefits in the second quarter. Turning to our guidance. While the macroeconomic backdrop remains dynamic, industry fundamentals remain supportive and we are confident in our team's ability to drive results. With that in mind, we are raising our adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance for 2024 and reaffirming our sales guidance. For the year, we expect total sales growth to be in the range of 3% to 5%, with a more moderated first half and stronger second half for both Automotive and Industrial. Included in our outlook is the assumption that the benefit from inflation remains at more normalized levels, contributing less than 1% for both business segments. For gross margin, we now expect full-year gross margin expansion of 30 basis points to 50 basis points, primarily driven by our continued focus on our strategic sourcing and pricing initiatives. This compares to our previous guidance of 20 basis points to 40 basis points of gross margin expansion. Our outlook assumes that SG&A will deleverage between 20 basis points and 30 basis points, primarily from further investment in technology. We now expect the diluted earnings per share, which includes the expenses related to our restructuring efforts, will be in the range of $9.05 to $9.20, compared to our previous outlook of $8.95 to $9.15. We now expect adjusted diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $9.80 to $9.95, an increase of 5% to 6.6% from 2023. This compares to our previous outlook of $9.70 to $9.90. By business segment, we are guiding to the following: 2% to 4% total sales growth for the Automotive segment with comparable sales growth in the 1% to 3% range. For Global Automotive segment margin, we continue to expect 20 basis points to 40 basis points of expansion year-over-year. For the Industrial segment, we expect total sales growth of 3% to 5% with comparable sales growth in the 2% to 4% range. For 2024, we anticipate global industrial segment margin to expand by approximately 10 basis points to 20 basis points year-over-year. And finally, we are targeting corporate expense to be approximately 1.5% to 2% of sales. Turning to a few other items of interest. We are confident in the strength of our cash flows in 2024 and continue to expect cash from operations to be in a range of $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion with free cash flow of $800 million to $1 billion. In 2024, we will continue our long history of balanced capital allocation with four priorities: capital expenditures, M&A, our dividend and share repurchases. For CapEx, we continue to expect approximately $500 million or 2% of revenue. As we look at 2024, the growth capital we are deploying, which is approximately 55% of our forecast, will drive modernization of our supply chain, including new distribution centers partnered with technology that enhances our customer experience. As we look at M&A, our global pipeline remains robust and we will remain disciplined in evaluating opportunities that create value, including continuing to pursue our strategy around stores at our U.S. Automotive business. With our strong balance sheet and cash flows, we are well-positioned to take advantage of opportunities that fit with our long-term growth and strategies regardless of the economic backdrop. Overall, we are pleased and encouraged with our first quarter results as our teams continue to remain agile and deliver in this dynamic environment. Our outlook for 2024 reflects the ongoing confidence in our teams and the actions we are taking to better align our business. We look forward to updating you on our progress in July. Thank you. And we will now turn it back to the operator for your questions.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Your first question comes from Scot Ciccarelli with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Scot Ciccarelli, Analyst

Good morning, guys. Scot Ciccarelli. A couple of clarifications, if I may, on the U.S. Auto. Did you guys say commercial comps were down a bit and DIY was flat? And if I heard that right, I thought you said U.S. Auto comps were up slightly. Can you just help reconcile that for us?

Will Stengel, President and COO

Yes, Scot, it's Will. Good morning. Thanks for the question. So the way to think about it, when we give you our reported numbers, both reported total and comp, that's the total U.S. Automotive kind of sales environment. So our sales into our owners and then our company-owned and independent-owned sales out. And so those numbers reflect that concept. When we start digging into the deeper level of detail around customer segment, that is just sales out, both independent and company owned. So that would be the distinction between the two data points.

Scot Ciccarelli, Analyst

Okay, understood. And that does or doesn't include that 130 basis point drag you cited in the deck?

Bert Nappier, Executive Vice President and CFO

Yes. So, regarding that question for Bert, the reported figure includes the 130 basis point adjustment, while the comparable number does not. To provide some context on the rebate, we regret having to mention anything related to it, but it's a new program and it's beneficial for the business. Historically, these programs were managed by our suppliers, outside of our profit and loss statement, directly between supplier and customer. In the new arrangement, our team manages these programs, which is advantageous for the business. However, this new structure must be accounted for, resulting in a reduction of revenue along with a corresponding decrease in cost of goods sold, with no effect on gross profit. It's a better framework when considering our customers, and we are seeing tangible improvements, especially in fill rates with our new suppliers. For the first quarter, as noted in our earnings presentation, there was a negative impact of 130 basis points on our total reported sales growth in U.S. Automotive. When we examine comparable sales, that figure is excluded, as our approach to comparable sales does not include revenue adjustments, and this new incentive qualifies as a revenue adjustment. Thus, we have accounted for it accordingly and ensured consistency with like items from previous years. Lastly, it’s important to note that the new program did not exist in the prior year, which we believe makes this a more comparable way to present our figures. If any adjustment were to be made, it would be to the reported number that is flat, which likely would have shown a positive result without the 130 basis points drag.

Scot Ciccarelli, Analyst

Okay, thanks. I'll save my follow-up questions for later. Thank you.

Will Stengel, President and COO

Thanks, Scot.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from Chris Horvers with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Chris Horvers, Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. I have a question regarding Motion. With the organic decline of 2.6%, you expect it to accelerate significantly for the remainder of the year, especially with the increase in ISM. Can you elaborate on how much of your acceleration forecast is based on improving macro indicators versus internal business factors or simply the year-over-year comparisons? Additionally, I know you mentioned a much stronger performance in Motion during the second half of the year. Do you anticipate that the second quarter will show positive growth or remain flat?

Will Stengel, President and COO

Chris, I'll begin by discussing the commercial aspect. The Motion team is performing exceptionally well. As we consider the recovery in sales growth, we believe it will originate from the market. Our initiatives are helping us exceed market performance. As mentioned, as this recovery occurs throughout the year, it will contribute to improvement. Additionally, in the first quarter, we noted that weather negatively affected the business, impacting the top line by approximately 80 basis points due to customer facility closures in Q1. We don't want to overemphasize this point. Another factor to consider is the Easter holiday, when the last business day of the quarter fell on Good Friday, leading to some customer order delays related to the holiday weekend. Combined, these two factors account for about 160 basis points of negative impact on the top line. When factoring in macroeconomic acceleration for the year, we feel optimistic about the revised guidance we provided. Bert, do you have any further insights?

Bert Nappier, Executive Vice President and CFO

Yes, look, I'll just say, Chris, when we think about the guidance for the year, we raised the outlook to $9.80 to $9.95. We really raised and tightened around a solid start to the year, the progress we've seen at U.S. Automotive, a little bit better than expectation first quarter results and our restructuring activities being in line with our expectations. So we're making great progress, but we've got more work to do. As you noted, our guide assumes that U.S. Automotive and Motion accelerate through the year sequentially improve. The first half is still going to be a bit moderated for all the reasons we'll just outline. And the second half, we think gets better just on the general expectation of an improvement in industrial production and easing interest rates. I don't want you guys to think we're being overly precise about the correlation of interest rates and industrial activity in the outlook. It's not terribly specific. It's more like many companies, just a general view around our forecast that easing rates will be more supportive, more robust activity on the industrial side. And we're seeing a little sign of that with March data and no cuts right now. So we're bullish on the second half and believe that the environment will get better as we move through the year.

Chris Horvers, Analyst

Understood. And then two quick ones on the margin side. So first, on the vendor incentive program, how does that roll? So if it just changed, do the benefits grow as the volumes grow? So would that be an accelerating tailwind to the gross margin over the year? And on the SG&A side, you talked about the restructuring. It's going to be $100 million to $200 million in costs, and you're basically saying it's only annualizing savings, slightly less than half of that. So why wouldn't it be something, I guess, more in line with the cost to restructure versus half of that rate? Thank you.

Bert Nappier, Executive Vice President and CFO

Yes. Regarding the vendor rebate program, we expect it to remain stable without any acceleration throughout the year, making it quite straightforward. As for the restructuring program, we view it as a positive opportunity, projecting a two-year payback. We encountered some variability in our assumptions at the beginning of the year due to the voluntary retirement program in the U.S. However, we are making good progress with the restructuring activities. To clarify, the overall program’s cost will consist of approximately 50% related to personnel and about 30% concerning facility actions. We anticipate around 70% of the benefits we outlined will come from personnel and about 15% from facilities, with the rest attributed to various other categories that don't require detailed discussion. In the first quarter, out of the $83 million we spent, about 65% was on personnel, while the remainder focused on optimizing facilities globally. The voluntary retirement program has now concluded, with most retirees having transitioned by March 31. We wish them well in this new phase of their lives, and their departure aligns with our expectations. We expect to start seeing the associated benefits in Q2 as we progress through the year. Regarding the size of the program, we provided a range of $100 million to $200 million as we still have significant work ahead this year. The majority of costs incurred thus far stem from the voluntary retirement program, which has now wrapped up. We are estimating the benefits based on the take rate from the VRO and various future activities scheduled throughout the year, which depend on specific go-live dates related to facilities and distribution centers. These timelines may shift, so we're taking a cautious approach until we have more clarity as we move further into the year. We're pleased with our strong start and will keep you updated, refining our estimates as we gain more insight.

Chris Horvers, Analyst

Got it. Thanks very much.

Will Stengel, President and COO

Thanks, Chris.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from Greg Melich with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Greg Melich, Analyst

Hi, my first question is about inflation. I believe I heard it is now trending slightly positive and you expect it to remain flat moving forward. Is that the case for both Industrial and Auto?

Bert Nappier, Executive Vice President and CFO

Yes, Greg, it's Bert. So the inflation impact for the quarter was less than 1% for all GPC. Both segments were pretty much in line with each other. Very, very slightly positive. So when I say less than 1%, it was pretty de minimis. And our outlook for the rest of the year is for it to stay at that less than 1% level.

Greg Melich, Analyst

Got it. And then I wanted to go a little deeper. I think in the prepared comments, it might have been, Will, you mentioned Auto Care outperformed and the major accounts continue to underperform. Could you sort of give us more detail around that and how you see that playing out some of the initiatives and how that could change some of those performances in coming quarters?

Will Stengel, President and COO

Yes, Greg, happy to. So Auto Care, obviously is a super important part of our commercial business and we've been incredibly intentional about making sure we're servicing that customer segment with a lot of excellence. So making sure that we've got the right sales coverage, the right economics to motivate those folks to grow and buy from us. And so we're seeing very nice traction in that part of our business, and we're encouraged by the trajectory of that. Major accounts, as we've talked about before, is a pretty diverse book of business for us. It's about 15% to 20% of our commercial business. And inside that, there's four or five different flavors of accounts. We have very specific strategies for each one of those sub segments and focusing and being disciplined around making sure that our value proposition is upheld and intact. So I think as we think about the bigger national accounts, they are feeling some sluggishness from a cautious consumer. And so that's on top of the work that we're doing to make sure that we're covering the market in the major accounts and each of its segments in the right way with a lot of strategic intent. A note is our Auto Care Advisory Council in here very recently, the teams, that group is energized. We've got a growing Auto Care base. The quality of our auto cares has never been better and that's a program now that's 18,000 members strong and growing. Our goal is just to continue to capture more of their spend, which our team is doing a great job of executing. So that's a business that's been a hallmark of NAPA for many, many years. And certainly we're energized with the direction that group is going.

Greg Melich, Analyst

I wanted to ask if you are maintaining the pace of adding over 100 drivers like you did last year. How does that support your initiatives to bring those individuals on board?

Bert Nappier, Executive Vice President and CFO

Well, look, Greg, it's Bert. We announced in Q1 or the year-end call that we were pivoting some strategy there around the independent owner model. Look, that model has been successful for many, many years and will continue to be. Both models work in our business and they'll stay in our business. We've refined the approach a little bit and we're going to lean into owning more stores where we can and see that mix shifting some over-time. And so we're going to continue to accelerate the pace. We did so in the first quarter. We had 45 stores acquired from independent owners in the first quarter. That's against 33 stores in the fourth quarter and then that number in the prior year would have been 16. So we're excited about this opportunity and we think it's great for the business. It's going to allow NAPA to really control more of the transaction, the customer experience, the strategic priorities in key markets. And we think that's a real positive thing for the business.

Paul Donahue, Chairman and CEO

Hey, Greg, and I'd also mention the acquisition of independent stores is not a new development for Genuine Parts Company. We've been doing that every year for as long as I've been here. As Bert mentioned, we see that accelerating in 2024, we saw it in Q1 and expect that to continue throughout the year. But our buying and selling independently-owned stores is not a new phenomenon for GPC.

Greg Melich, Analyst

That's great guys, and good luck.

Paul Donahue, Chairman and CEO

Thank you.

Bert Nappier, Executive Vice President and CFO

Thanks, Greg.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Lasser with UBS. Please go ahead.

Henry Carr, Analyst

Good morning. This is Henry Carr on for Michael Lasser. I just wanted to ask, I believe you said you've been seeing more positive buying behaviors from your independent owners. What exactly is driving that? Thanks.

Will Stengel, President and COO

Yes, Henry, thank you for the question. I want to emphasize that the initiatives I mentioned in my prepared remarks are pertinent not just to our business but also to our independent owners. We have been very deliberate and collaborative in our partnership with them to ensure they have the appropriate inventory and are managing their stores and operations effectively. When we talk about initiatives related to NAPA, we are referring to both company-owned stores and independent owners. I believe these programs are making a difference.

Paul Donahue, Chairman and CEO

Hey, Henry, I'd just add to Will's comment. I think it's also evident of the great job our ops team is doing in improving availability and improving our overall supply chain for U.S. Auto.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we have time for one more question. Your next question comes from Carolina Jolly with Gabelli. Please go ahead.

Carolina Jolly, Analyst

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I know you talked about the automotive cadence. I was wondering if you could touch anything on maybe industrial and anything you can talk about in terms of cadence there and any end-markets that might have done well in the quarter?

Paul Donahue, Chairman and CEO

Yes, Carolina, thanks for the question. I'm happy to discuss that. From the end-markets perspective, considering some of the disruptions mentioned related to the weather and the March Good Friday, I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on some of the comments I'll share. If you recall from the last call, we provided additional details about the 14 end-markets we monitor, and we observed sequential improvement in two of those compared to the previous quarter. However, we also experienced a minor setback in sequential improvement, with three or four markets going the opposite direction this quarter. Again, I wouldn't read too much into that. In summary, it’s a mixed situation overall. I've noted some areas of strength and weakness across different categories. Throughout the quarter, we experienced a generally mixed performance, mainly influenced by the weather. January was somewhat unconventional, and March also had its peculiarities due to Good Friday.

Will Stengel, President and COO

Hey, Carolina, thank you for the question. I would comment as well on the end-markets that you mentioned. Iron and steel performed very well. We also saw good strength out of the automotive sector in the quarter. Chemicals was strong, and mining was strong. So we saw a good balance across a number of end-markets, which really gives us good optimism, especially when you combine it with the positive PMI number that came across in March, it certainly gives us good optimism about our Motion business in the remaining quarters of the year. So all good on that front, and thank you again for the question.

Carolina Jolly, Analyst

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.