CARY, N.C. -

The wintry weather that has wielded its wrath throughout the U.S. in early 2014 appears to have varying impacts among publicly traded dealer groups.

In a conference call with Wall Street analysts this week, Sonic Automotive executives said that the weather will likely have a modest downward impact on earnings, but it’s nothing “catastrophic” and the retailer hopes to make up the lost business shortly, according to a transcript of the call provided by SeekingAlpha.com.

Sonic has stores from coast-to-coast, but its dealer base is most heavily concentrated in the South, which certainly dealt with a few body blows from winter storms. Not to mention, the retailer has locations in other recently snowbound states like Maryland, Michigan and Ohio.

Jeff Dyke, Sonic’s executive vice president of operations, said a good portion of the dealer group’s East Coast operations have been affected in January and February, but it hopes to gain some ground next month.

Dyke said that “our net store-level income is going to be hit — 1.5 million to 2 million (dollars) for the first couple of months.”

He continued: “That translates into two pennies, maybe three pennies (of earnings per share) … but March is coming, and March is a really, really strong month for us. And there is no question that we have the ability to make up those numbers.”

Dyke and chief financial officer Heath Byrd said the $0.02 to $0.03 figure they referred to would equate to about an 8-percent EPS impact.
 
“But it is not catastrophic,” Dyke said. “And our teams, one of the things that we’ve done is we’ve extended our operating hours. We’ve opened stores — where we can — later and earlier. And so we’re doing everything we can to take care of our guests and to make up the lost business.

“So, there are stores where it does a ton of fixed operation gross and we’ve got them, some in our Atlanta market and to make that kind of gross up is going to be difficult,” he added. “But it’s not a game changer … it may be two pennies or something for the first few months. That doesn’t mean we can’t make that up in March. It certainly has an impact but it’s not catastrophic.”

At Group 1 Automotive, its U.S. store count stretches several snow-impacted states from East to West, and reaches up from the Deep South into New England.

In a statement released Wednesday, the retailer said that due to a combination of weather factors, the company is likely to see first quarter results drop by up to $0.20 per share.

Group 1 noted “significant business interruptions” at the majority of its U.S. dealerships, with store closures or strong decreases in store traffic reported at 105 of its 118 U.S. stores.

For the first quarter, these storm events equate to 391 lost store selling days, or about a 9 percent loss in total available selling days through Feb. 16 of this year.

“While we lose selling days every winter, the severity and extremely widespread nature of the storms this year is far beyond our normal experience,” said Group 1 president and chief executive officer Earl Hesterberg.

He noted closures in areas of the nation normally safe from winter weather, stretching from Houston to New Orleans to Atlanta, and said even places typically impacted, such as the Northeast, have seen closures “far exceeding” normal winter conditions.

“We would ultimately expect new and used sales not to be lost, only deferred, but it is unlikely that all of the sales will be recovered in the first quarter,” Hesterberg said.

“More importantly, lost service days are difficult to recover as our service capacity is somewhat finite. In addition, many of our stores are spending above normal amounts on snow removal and lot cleaning services as multiple storms sweep through our markets, with our concentration of stores in the Northeast being particularly hard hit,”  he added.  “The combination of these factors is likely to negatively impact our first quarter results by 15 to 20 cents per share.”

At Lithia Motors — whose stores are all located west of the Mississippi River — said its dealers did feel some impact, but operations appear to be “back on track.”

“We did have some weather issues, primarily in the Northwest and Midwest stores,” president and chief executive officer Bryan DeBoer said when asked during the company’s quarter conference call about weather impact.

“We did have four days in the Northwest that was a little bit tough with snow on the ground at about 20 stores, and I think it vapor-locked things for about three of four days,” he continued. “It appears, though, that we have recaptured most of that, and there were pent-up sales we have seen for the past couple of days, so it looks like we are back on track.”
 

Editor's Note: Staff Writers Nancy Pardue and Sarah Rubenoff contributed to this report.