Shares of Lithia Motors Inc. were indicated up about 1% in premarket trading Wednesday, after the auto retailer reported third-quarter profit and revenue that rose sharply and were well above expectations. Net income nearly doubled, to $307.9 mullion, or $10.11 a share, from $158.8 million, or $6.86 a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted earnings per share rose 63% to $11.21, beating the FactSet consensus of $9.30. Revenue grew 70.4% to $6.17 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $5.78 billion, while cost of sales increased 67.8% to $4.98 billion. New vehicle retail revenue rose 53.9% to $2.90 billion and used vehicle retail revenue rose 90.2% to $2.08 billion. “The pipeline is robust and we continue to identify accretive deals that strategically expand our network while meeting our disciplined return thresholds,” said Chief Executive Bryan DeBoer. The company said it is pacing ahead of schedule toward its goal of $50 billion in revenue and $50 of EPS by 2025. The stock has gained 15.7% year to date while the S&P 500 has advanced 20.3%.
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