引言

Zack

扎克

I'm Zack Fuss, and today were breaking down AutoZone, the leading retailer and distributor of auto parts in the Americas. From the outside, AutoZone might look like a dull business in a mature industry, but once you dive into the details, you quickly realize it's a hidden gem that echoes the best of Walmart and Costco, earns some of the highest returns on capital in retail, and has a long history of outsized shareholder returns. To help break down the business, I'm joined by Freddie Lait, founder and CIO at London-based Latitude Investment Management. Please enjoy this fascinating breakdown of Autozone.

我是扎克·弗斯，今天我们将解析 AutoZone——美洲领先的汽车零部件零售和分销商。乍看之下，AutoZone 似乎身处一个成熟行业、业务单调；但深入细节后你会发现，它是一颗隐藏的宝石，兼具沃尔玛与好市多的优点，在零售业获取了最高的资本回报之一，并长期为股东创造超额回报。为了帮助拆解这家公司，我邀请了总部位于伦敦的 Latitude Investment Management 创始人兼首席投资官弗雷迪·莱特加入。欢迎收听这场精彩的 AutoZone 深度解析。

AutoZone 与汽车零部件行业

Zack

扎克

Freddie, thanks so much for joining us to break down AutoZone. It's a fascinating story of a business that's quietly executed on a strategy and had an adept capital allocation. And it's kind of an unsung hero of share cannibalizers given their prolific buybacks. So perhaps a good place to start or set the stage will be just a general summary of the industry, how they interact in the value chain, where the players are, and then we'll go from there.

弗雷迪，非常感谢你加入我们来剖析 AutoZone。这是一家静悄悄执行战略、巧妙进行资本配置的迷人企业故事。鉴于其大量回购，它也是回购“食股”英雄中鲜为人知的一位。或许可以先从行业的整体概况谈起——他们在价值链中的互动、各参与者的定位——然后再深入探讨。

Freddie

弗雷迪

Sure thing, the industry is a very dull sounding industry to begin with. But from an investment perspective, as you rightly outlined, has been one of the most exciting places to be invested for the last sort of 20, 25 years; and indeed the last five or 10. Broadly, the industry's split into two parts, it's do-it-yourself, so buying the auto part parts of your car, 80% of that is to fix up an immediate problem with your car. So think of a wiper blade or a battery. And the other 50% roughly is do-it-for-me, so selling to local garages or nationwide garages who will repair your car for you. And as you probably can guess, that's been a slightly increasing part of the pie over the last 10, 20 years, but the DIY business is still growing strongly as well.

当然，这个行业乍听非常乏味。但正如你指出的，从投资角度看，它在过去二三十年——尤其是近五到十年——一直是最令人兴奋的配置领域之一。整体上，行业分为两大板块：DIY（自己动手）——即购买汽车零部件自行更换，其中 80% 用于解决车辆的即时问题，比如雨刷片或电池；以及 DIFM（由他人代修），大约占 50%，即把零件卖给本地或全国性车行，由他们为你修车。过去十到二十年，DIFM 占比略有提升，但 DIY 业务也保持强劲增长。

And I think looking at the kind of outline from the demand side of the industry, what you've got as sort of macro statistics to follow is a ever increasing car park, more new cars being sold and the average age of cars being higher each year as the cars are built better. So the average miles driven as well is going up by about 1% or 2% a year. The car park itself is going by 1% or 2% a year. That leads to nearly 3% to 4% underlying addressable market growth. There's a lot of rational pricing, so decent inflation coming through as well. And it's a very predictable market.

从需求侧来看，有几组宏观数据值得关注：车辆保有量持续增加、新车销量上升，同时由于制造质量提升，车辆平均车龄逐年升高。平均行驶里程也以每年约 1% 至 2% 的速度增长，车队规模本身亦以 1% 至 2% 扩张。由此带来可服务市场约 3% 至 4% 的基础增速。定价相当理性，也带来可观的通胀收益，总体而言这是一个高度可预测的市场。

It's very defensive; 85% of the sales are essential sales to the consumers, either through the do-it-for-me channel or do-it-yourself. And you can predict five or six years out what the market's going to look like because the cars that are addressed by this segment of the market are really those cars that are out of warranty. They're not going to the main dealer channels; you're looking to repair your vehicle elsewhere. Seven years or older is the industry standard for addressable market for these players. So with seven years lead time, you know roughly or pretty accurately what that market's going to look like. And that's also growing sort of 2% to 3% a year.

该市场极具防御性；85% 的销售属于消费者的必需支出，无论是通过 DIFM 还是 DIY 渠道。而且你可以预见未来五六年的市场状况，因为本细分领域所服务的是已过保修期的车辆——它们不再回到主机厂经销商，而是寻求其他维修渠道。行业通常把车龄七年以上的车辆视为可服务市场。因此有七年的提前期，你可以相当准确地预测市场规模，而这部分规模也以 2% 至 3% 的速度增长。

We're just exiting that period of the Cash For Clunkers story, where they had a huge number of used cars replaced with new cars in 2008-9. And so we're seeing strong growth at the moment. The average age of the car does continue to rise and maintenance costs go up reasonably linearly with that average age of the car. So it costs about \$2,000 a year to maintain a car that's got 50,000 miles on the clock, but it costs nearly \$4,000 a year to maintain one with a 100,000 miles on the clock. So that's, again, a compounding story. And I think when we go through AutoZone in more detail, you'll see there's lots and lots of layers to the story, which compounds up to a great success. And that's kind of the demand side.

我们刚刚走出“以旧换新”时期——在 2008 至 2009 年间，大量旧车被新车替换。因此目前增长势头强劲。车辆平均车龄仍在上升，与之线性相关的维修成本也在上涨：行驶 5 万英里的车辆年维护成本约 2,000 美元，而行驶 10 万英里的车辆则接近 4,000 美元。这再次展现了复合增长的魅力。我想当我们更深入探讨 AutoZone 时，你会看到故事中叠加的众多层面最终造就了巨大成功。这就是需求端的大致情况。

And then from the supply side, you've basically got three national players: AutoZone, Advance Auto Parts, and O'Reilly, three great businesses. They can make up about 40% of the market. You've then got 20% through the main dealer channel. So again, those young cars where people are still going back to the place they bought the car to have it serviced, maybe in warranty or just outside warranty. And then 40% of the market is made up of mom and pops with very small chain sizes. And that's really an interesting feature of the future for this market where those mom and pops are being increasingly consolidated or outplayed by the three nationwide players. That's kind of the outline of the structure of the market.

在供给端，基本上有三家全国性玩家：AutoZone、Advance Auto Parts 和 O'Reilly——三家优秀企业——它们合计占据约 40% 的市场份额。主机厂经销商渠道占 20%，主要服务车龄较新的车辆，车主仍会回到购车点进行保养，可能仍在保修期内或刚过保。剩余 40% 市场由规模很小的夫妻店组成。这一特征预示着市场的未来趋势：这些夫妻店正逐步被三大全国玩家整合或淘汰。这便是市场结构的概览。

Zack

That's a really helpful backdrop. I think if we kind of zoom out a bit and compare and contrast the three to four large public players, you have AutoZone that we'll be talking about today, O'Reilly, Advanced Auto Parts, and then to an extent, Napa, can you just give a high level of how those businesses compare and contrast to one another?

扎克

这段背景信息非常有帮助。我想如果我们把视角稍微拉远一些，比较一下三到四家大型上市公司——今天要谈的 AutoZone，还有 O'Reilly、Advance Auto Parts，以及在某种程度上的 Napa——你能否从宏观层面概述这些企业之间的异同？

Freddie

They're very similar businesses in many ways. Napa's a little bit more you unique because it's more of a franchise model, but the three nationwide player, the other three players you mentioned are very similar. They're similar in size of stores, five, six, 7,000 stores, broadly nationwide. Advance doesn't have much of a West Coast presence, but it's driving to amend that at the moment. Advance is slightly more do-it-for-me channel, whereas AutoZone is still more in the do-it-yourself channel. And there's a small difference between the way they sort of own and lease their stores.

弗雷迪

它们在许多方面都是非常相似的企业。Napa 更独特一些，因为它主要采用特许经营模式；而你提到的另外三家全国性玩家非常相像。店铺规模都差不多，大约 5,000、6,000 到 7,000 家，基本覆盖全美。Advance 在西海岸的布局不太多，但目前正着手改进。Advance 的业务稍微更偏向「由他人代修」（DIFM）渠道，而 AutoZone 仍更偏向「自己动手」（DIY）渠道。二者在门店的自有与租赁方式上也有细微差别。

Other than that, the key difference to note is that for the last 25 years AutoZone has been a very successful business story. O'Reilly in particular, in the last 10 to 15 years has really been hitting its game, and by having a little bit more business going through that do-it-for-me channel, which is growing slightly faster, has slightly got a lead on AutoZone over the last 10 years, but both very, very solid returns. Advance Auto Parts has been struggling more in the last five. It may actually be about to exit that period of consolidation, but they're really a merger of sort of four quite distinct entities. They have merged that into sort of two, they're doing more OEM parts. So they are the number one distributor for the branded OEM parts in the US, but really building up that supply chain and building up their warehouse and distribution systems and consolidating that within their business has really distracted over the last three or four years.

除此之外，需要注意的关键差异在于：过去 25 年来，AutoZone 一直是一段非常成功的商业故事。O'Reilly 在过去 10 到 15 年表现尤为亮眼，凭借更高比例的 DIFM 业务（增速略快）在最近十年略微领先于 AutoZone，但二者依旧能够产生非常稳健的回报。Advance Auto Parts 在最近五年表现更为挣扎；它或许正要走出整合期，但本质上它是由四个截然不同的实体合并而成，目前已整合为两个业务单元，并更多涉足 OEM 零件领域——它是全美品牌 OEM 零件的第一大经销商。然而，过去三四年里它在建设供应链、仓储和配送体系并整合这些资源时分散了精力。

But other than that, they're three very good businesses with wide margins, high returns on capital, very rational industry pricing, which is key for all three players and they all sing from a very similar hymn sheet about the macro opportunities, as well as the dynamic micro level.

除此之外，这三家公司都是非常优秀的企业，拥有高毛利、高资本回报率，行业定价也十分理性；这对三家玩家都至关重要。它们在宏观机会和微观执行层面几乎唱着同一首歌。

Zack

The three to four major players are operating in an increasingly consolidating industry, auto parts, retail and distribution. Today AutoZone, I think, has close to 6,500 stores. Can we just share a little bit about how they started, how they got to where they are today?

扎克

这三到四家主要玩家活跃在日益整合的汽车零部件零售与分销行业。如今 AutoZone 的门店数接近 6,500 家。能否请你简单分享一下公司是如何起步并发展到今天的？

Freddie

The history goes back to the late seventies when Malone & Hyde, which was a large, I think it's third or fourth largest food wholesaler in the US, when Walmart was coming out and consolidating the grocery market, Malone & Hyde were there as well. The grandson of the founder was called Pitt Hide. He left college and went and started working in the business and he started up drug stores, he started up trying to expand into sporting goods, and then he saw a real opportunity in auto parts. With the business's permission, it was underneath the parent business, he started a business called AutoShack, which would later be named AutoZone. And he started it very much with that Sam Walton playbook. He actually was on the board of Walmart for seven years. And you can see a lot of the way that Walmart was built in the way that the foundation stones were laid for the AutoZone business.

弗雷迪

故事要追溯到 20 世纪 70 年代末。当时美国第三或第四大食品批发商 Malone & Hyde 与新兴的沃尔玛一起整合杂货市场。创始人的孙子 Pitt Hyde 大学毕业后进入家族企业，他尝试开设药店、拓展体育用品业务，随后发现汽车零部件领域存在真正机会。在母公司的许可下，他在旗下创办了 AutoShack——后来更名为 AutoZone。他极大程度沿用了山姆·沃尔顿的经营秘诀，还曾在沃尔玛董事会任职七年。你可以从 AutoZone 的奠基方式中看到许多沃尔玛的发展影子。

It started with a great sense of purpose. They built deliberately designed DC. Their stores looked completely different to the existing stores at the time, which were dusty and dim and really for auto specialists. They were light, they were everyday low prices, they had great distribution, great availability. And from the word, "Go," great customer service, which is something we'll come back to a lot. But the service element to this business and this industry is one of the greatest barriers to entry. And so within the first year they launched eight stores in five different states. I think they opened 23 stores in the second year. So a very rapid start for the business. About four years later, KKR led a management buyout of the business, an LBO effectively, and it IPOed about seven years later. Eddie Lampert was a director from 1999 to 2006. Pitt Hide retired around the turn of the millennium.

公司一开始就带着明确使命。他们精心设计配送中心，门店与当时尘土飞扬、昏暗且只面向汽车专业人士的旧店完全不同——明亮、坚持天天平价，拥有卓越的配送系统和高货品可得性，同时从第一天起就提供卓越的客户服务，而服务正是这个行业最大的进入壁垒之一。创立首年，他们就在五个州开出八家门店；第二年又新开 23 家，起步非常迅速。约四年后，KKR 牵头完成了这家企业的管理层收购（即一次 LBO），再过七年公司上市。Eddie Lampert 于 1999 至 2006 年担任董事；Pitt Hyde 则在千禧年前后退休。

And there were a couple of other CEOs who came into place over maybe one or two years, but then they appointed Bill Rhodes in 2005, who is still the current CEO. He was only 40 at the time. So he'll be nudging 65 soon, but he's really been doing that kind of fantastic later stage management of the business. In the early days, there were some acquisitions there, there was a little bit more laying the groundworks, innovation in technology. And what's been fantastic reading through the old reports is you can really see the echoes of what their great strengths are today coming from those seeds they planted all those years ago. So one of the first groups to start doing private... 1986 is the first time I can find a mention of Duralast, their main private label brand, but they really pushed that, which is something obviously retailers are finding very, very successful as a strategy today.

在之后的一两年里，公司还更换过几位其他 CEO，但在 2005 年他们任命了 Bill Rhodes，他至今仍是现任 CEO。当时他只有 40 岁，所以他很快就要 65 岁了，不过这些年他一直在出色地进行企业后期管理。早期，公司进行过一些收购，也在夯实基础、推动技术创新。阅读旧年报最精彩的地方在于，你能够清晰地看到他们今日强大优势的回声——那些早年播下的种子。举例来说，他们是最早开展自有品牌业务的公司之一……我能找到的关于其主力自有品牌 Duralast 的最早记录是在 1986 年，而他们确实大力推广这一品牌，显然如今许多零售商都发现这是一种非常成功的战略。

They've always pushed technology. And so they had satellite systems in mid-1990s, which connected their distribution centers to their stores, which was quite a novelty at the time. They gave lifetime warranties on products when no one else would offer it, not even the underlying suppliers of those products, just trying to drive at that customer service.

他们一向重视技术。因此在 1990 年代中期，他们就部署了卫星系统，将配送中心与门店连接起来，在当时相当新颖。他们为产品提供终身保修，在其他任何人——甚至是这些产品的原始供应商——都不愿提供此服务时，他们仍然这样做，只是为了提升客户服务体验。

And they've got a million different acronyms for all the sorts of different programs that they have. I might mention some later, but all the way through all of the reports and all of their thinking is, "How can we please this customer? How can we make this customer happy? Do we need to drive 10 minutes to drop the good to the customer's house because they can't start it? Can we go outside the store to fit the good for the customer free of charge? What can we do to really drive that satisfaction?"

他们为各种内部项目设计了无数首字母缩略词。我稍后可能会提到其中一些，但贯穿所有报告和思考的核心始终是：“我们怎样才能取悦顾客？如何让顾客满意？我们是否需要驱车 10 分钟把商品送到顾客家，因为他们的车无法启动？我们能否走出店外免费为顾客安装部件？我们还能做什么来真正提升顾客满意度？”

And I think it's been a great success story because those foundation stones were laid so strongly in the eighties and nineties. And really the job has been one of careful capital allocation since then. The last 15, 20 years far more a story of consolidation of the industry through steady growth and store count, steady efficiency gains within your business, decent capital management, very, very impressive working capital management, driving a huge share buyback program which we will mention later, but you mentioned on the introduction as well, which has really resulted in, for the last 25, 15, 10 years, the stock has compounded at about 20% a year driven entirely by earnings per share. It's never really been a very expensive stock, which is one of the most attractive things about it. Because it's in such a mature industry people tend to slightly write it off, but we believe it can carry on delivering those sorts of returns well into the future.

我认为这是一个巨大的成功故事，因为那些基石在 80、90 年代就已牢牢奠定。此后真正的工作就是谨慎进行资本分配。过去 15 到 20 年更像是通过门店数量稳定增长、内部效率持续提升、稳健的资本管理以及极其出色的营运资本管理来实现行业整合，同时推动了庞大的股票回购计划（稍后会提到，你在开场白中也提及过）。正是这些努力使得在过去 25、15、10 年里，公司股价完全由每股收益驱动，年复合增长约 20%。它从未是一只估值昂贵的股票，这也是其最具吸引力的特点之一。由于身处一个如此成熟的行业，人们往往会有些低估它，但我们相信它未来仍能持续带来类似的回报。

Zack

So it may not be core to the story, but I think it's an interesting wrinkle that Eddie Lampert and ESL had such a large position; clearly they're most well known among market historians today for their failed effort to consolidate Sears and Kmart and what became of that business. But is there anything more to the ESL interaction with AutoZone?

扎克

这或许不是故事的核心，但有个耐人寻味的细节：埃迪·兰伯特和 ESL 曾持有如此大的头寸；在市场史学者眼中，他们如今最著名的无疑是整合 Sears 与 Kmart 却以失败告终。那么 ESL 与 AutoZone 的互动还有别的故事吗？

Freddie

There's not a huge amount to it. It was really a great period of change at AutoZone where they pivoted the strategy. And I suppose his oversight as a director was probably a driving force behind that. Prior to his arrival as a director in 1999, it was still about consolidation through acquisition to a degree. They bought up a couple of chains in the three years prior to that one was maybe 500 stores, which is quite a big acquisition. One was about 200 stores. And they were still spending a lot on CapEx and building out these systems.

弗雷迪

并没有太多额外故事。那段时期恰逢 AutoZone 战略转型，他作为董事的监督作用可能是推动力之一。在他 1999 年加入董事会之前，公司依然通过并购进行一定程度的整合：此前三年里收购了两家连锁体系，一家大约 500 家门店，规模相当可观；另一家约 200 家门店。同时公司仍在大量投入资本支出，搭建系统。

As the turn of the millennium, they'd already invested sufficiently in technology, and they felt that the time was right for a sort of a pivot in strategy. And so they moved their capital allocation strategy very heavily towards share buybacks. So efficient capital allocation in deploying a new number of stores each year, maintaining and supporting those with distribution capacity and technology, but any excess free cash flow going to share buybacks. And to get to the punchline, I think they had 150 million shares outstanding just before the millennium. And now they've got about 21.

千禧年之际，他们在技术上的投入已相当充分，认为是进行战略转向的最佳时机，于是资本分配大幅倾向于股票回购：每年高效开设新店，并以配送能力和技术支持门店运营，将多余自由现金流全部用于回购。简言之，千禧年前公司流通股约 1.5 亿股，而如今只剩约 2,100 万股。

单店经济学与价值主张

Zack

Let's spend some time on the unit economics of an AutoZone store. I know that there are some benefits to this business that have been the breadth and the depth of their distribution and their product catalog, but it'd be helpful to understand how big is a store, how much does it cost to build one, what are the sales per store? Just general information so we can get a better context on how the economic model works.

扎克

我们来谈谈 AutoZone 门店的单店经济学。我知道其优势在于配送网络和产品目录的广度与深度，但了解一家门店面积多大、建设成本多少、单店销售额如何等信息，将有助于我们更好地理解其经济模型。

Freddie

So the stores are mostly located as standalone entities. Some are strip malls, but they're all slightly out of town locations. So rent tends to be reasonably inexpensive. The stores are about six-and-a-half, 7,000 square feet. And again, for the last 30 years, they were one of the earliest retailers to start using planograms. So the vast majority of the stores are built to plan and fit a model of one of their cookie cutter type stores, which drives their efficiency. They do have hubs and mega hubs and distribution centers, which we'll come on to, and their average store count per year goes up by about 200. They pretty metronomically for the last 10, 15 years have opened 200 stores per year, which is currently 2% to 3% a year. They do it opportunistically, but that's about right.

弗雷迪

公司门店多为独栋物业，部分位于条形购物中心，但都略偏离市中心，因此租金相对低廉。单店面积约 6,500–7,000 平方英尺。过去 30 年里，他们是最早使用陈列规划（planogram）的零售商之一，因此绝大多数门店按标准模板建设，提升了效率。公司还设有枢纽店、超级枢纽及配送中心（稍后会谈），平均每年净增约 200 家门店；过去 10–15 年几乎年年如此，相当于年增 2%–3%。选址机会主义，但大体如此。

And the CapEx has been reasonably consistent as well at about half-a-billion dollars a year. So it depends on how you cut the capital spending per store. I think the most interesting way to do it is to cut it through all in, so including that maintenance, central cost, distribution center rollouts, they've been doing a lot more of that recently. So that is included in that CapEx number. I'd estimate only half of it actually goes to the unit economics in terms of actually building out the physical store bases. But even if just for now, we take that total CapEx number, 500, and divide it through by the 200 stores, you're kind of spending 2.3, 2.4. It's a little bit under on the CapEx number, call it 2.5 million per store. All in including central costs, the revenue per stores nudging $2 million now. It's increased year after year by about 5%. I think it could continue to grow, but it's around 2 million and they make just a short 20% operating margin.

公司的资本性支出也相当稳定，大约每年 5 亿美元。如何分摊到单店取决于切法。我倾向于把所有成本都算进去——包括维护、总部费用、配送中心扩建（近年投入更多）——这些都计入 CapEx。我估计其中只有一半真正用于建设实体门店。但即使现在我们用总 CapEx 5 亿美元除以 200 家新店，单店投入约 2.3–2.4 百万美元，保守点算作 2.5 百万。把总部成本都算进来，单店年收入如今逼近 200 万美元，并以约 5% 的速率逐年增长；营业利润率略低于 20%。

Already that's a 15, 16% ROI on the all-in CapEx number, which is supporting obviously the central cost distribution costs and improvement in technology and growing out the moat. I think that's a really nice way to think about the lower end of the returns they're achieving. In reality, I think they're probably closer to double that on a unit economic basis and indeed the group on an invested capital level, so including debt and capitalized leases, generates nearly a 40% break. It's a very, very high return business. For the last 20 years, they've made occasional reference to a 15% after tax hurdle target for returns on capital investment. The second thing to make the point on this really quite heavily costed return on capital point is, this is in year one every year. After that densities continue to drive, like for likes continue to drive higher, capital gets depreciated. And so you do have another one of these arcs of exponential compounding growth in that return from the asset base they're building out. I think it's only right to include the central costs in many ways because that's really one of their barriers to entry as you highlighted that distribution setup.

以全成本 CapEx 计算，投资回报率已达 15%–16%，其中还涵盖总部、配送及技术投入并不断拓宽护城河。这可视为他们回报下限的一个漂亮衡量。实际上，按单店经济算可能接近于此的两倍；从集团层面（含债务与资本化租赁）看，投入资本回报率接近 40%。这是一门回报极高的生意。过去 20 年，他们偶尔提到资本投资税后门槛回报率 15%。需要强调的第二点是，这里说的回报指的是“第一年”就达到的水平；此后，店面密度提升、同店销售增长、资产折旧摊销，资本回报呈指数式复合上升。将总部成本计入是合理的，因为正如你所指出，配送体系本身就是他们的关键壁垒之一。

Zack

I hope it stands out how outrageous a 40% ROIC capitalizing leases and considering all the other additional costs in a way that you're encumbering them is relative to anything else in retail. What else ranks close to that?

扎克

我希望大家能注意到，若将租赁资本化并计入所有其他附加成本，仍能取得 40% 的投资回报率（ROIC）是多么惊人——放眼零售业几乎找不到可与之相比的水平。还有哪些企业能接近这个数字？

Freddie

Some of the restaurant stocks can rank similarly to that. If you look at a unit economics for something like Starbucks, it's one of the highest, if not the highest in the group, and you can probably get a 60% unit economics out of the Starbucks store in a successful location, where I think you might be getting 45 from an auto zone. That's excluding any central cost. That's not a comparable argument to the one I just made here. Starbucks is still investing a huge amount elsewhere as well.

Nothing in retail, some other store based concepts are up there, but also zone has been a standout and it's been a standout for many years. It's always had that capital discipline and ever since I invested in the company first in 2009, have been a shareholder ever since, ever since I can remember Bill Rhode's has said on all the earnings calls, "we carefully consider where we invest our capital because it's our investors capital." That is how they think about it. The management team are large shareholders. They're driving that per share units economics, per share return on capital, per share free cash and earnings growth. To their benefit on ours.

在零售领域几乎没有对手能匹敌，某些店铺概念虽然接近，但 AutoZone 始终独树一帜，多年来一直如此。这得益于他们严谨的资本纪律。我自 2009 年首次买入后便一直持有；在我印象中，Bill Rhodes 在历次财报电话会议上都会强调：“我们谨慎投资每一分钱，因为那是投资者的资金。”管理层本身就是大股东，他们关注的是每股层面的单店经济、资本回报、自由现金流和盈利增长，这既利于他们，也利于我们股东。

Zack

That's really helpful. Maybe we should spend some time trying to flesh out how exactly those returns are driven. Maybe to start, just a basic use case on how the customer interacts with AutoZone.

扎克

这非常有帮助。或许我们应该详细探讨一下这些高回报究竟是如何实现的。先从一个基本的使用场景说起：顾客是如何与 AutoZone 互动的？

Freddie

There's two ways. There's do it yourself and do it for me. Take the do it yourself category, which is 75% of AutoZone's business still to date. There's a major growth push to in the commercial channel, but at the moment, the majority of their business is still do it yourself. In this instance, you live locally to a store and that is one of the key reasons why you choose over the large three or local independent is locality.

Something goes wrong with your car. 85 to 90% of the time it's something that's gone wrong and needs immediate fixing because either it's essential and the car won't work without it, or because you really want it to be fixed now. It's something that is broken. You drive into the store. You park, you walk into the store within 30 seconds, well, they have a stop, drop 30/30, that's the first of the acronyms or saying that I'm going to tell you, where someone has to come up to you, talk to you within 30 seconds or 30 feet of entering the store.

当汽车出现问题时，85%–90% 的情况都是必须立即修复：要么关乎行车安全，否则车无法开动；要么顾客急于马上解决。你把车开到店门口，停好车，走进店内；AutoZone 有一条“Stop, Drop 30/30”原则（第一个要介绍的内部术语）：顾客进入门店 30 秒或 30 英尺内，员工必须上前提供帮助。

They do that. They come up, they try and address your problem. They bought an incredible database of solutions, so they can look up your car through registration number or a make and model. They can find the exact part. They've nearly always got the exact part because inventory availability is a very, very major barrier to entry in this space too. If you've driven miles to the store to try to find that one wiper blade or connector and they don't have it, it's unlikely you'll go back.

员工会上前了解问题。他们拥有庞大的解决方案数据库，可通过车牌或车型迅速找到精准配件。几乎总能找到所需零件，因为库存可得性是本行业的重要壁垒——如果顾客驱车数英里却买不到那根雨刷片或接头，他们大概不会再来。

Inventory turnover is actually very low, but they tend to have what you need in store at that point. They will come. They will help you fit it if they can. They will help give you advice on how to fit it. They'll lend you a tool if it's a slightly harder job free of charge for 72 hours if you need to take it home and fit it yourself. They will try to do everything to make that journey easier for you. Most of the order sizes are reasonably small. I think the average ticket's about \$35. That tends to be the customer journey. Very quickly turning in, finding out what they need, getting what they need on the shelf, getting some help with fitting it or advice on how to and leaving as quickly as possible.

虽然库存周转率并不高，但门店通常备有顾客所需商品。员工会帮忙安装，或提供安装建议；若任务稍复杂，还可免费借用工具 72 小时，让顾客将零件带回家自行安装。他们尽一切努力简化顾客流程。大多数订单金额不大，平均客单价约 35 美元。整个顾客旅程就是：快速进店、确定需求、货架取件、获得安装帮助或建议、尽快离店。

Zack

You look through the financials of a business like AutoZone and what really stands out of the gross margins at 55%. Businesses like Walmart are closer into the twenties. Retail is generally a little bit higher than that, but it's clearly a standout. What is it the nature of what they're selling that allows them to earn such a high gross?

扎克

翻阅 AutoZone 的财报，最显眼的是 55% 的毛利率。像沃尔玛这样的企业毛利率只有 20% 多，一般零售也略高一点，但与 55% 相比仍差距巨大。究竟是什么让他们能获得如此高的毛利率？

Freddie

I believe it's the fact that they're not just selling you a part. They are include the service. And by having that availability, that's selling you apart when you know you're going to get it, which is really quite difficult. They have hundreds of thousands of SKUs and all different makes and models of cars. Knowing you've got the part availability, knowing it's local to you, I forget the statistic, but something like 90% of the population lives within 10 miles of an AutoZone store. That is a huge, huge benefit to the customer.

And you are able to extract a little bit more in a gross profit sense for that benefit. It's interesting to see gross profits have been rising pretty steadily over the last 25 years. They're up maybe 40%, but realistically, over the last 15 years, they're up three or 4%. They're barely ticking up a little bit through probably supplier efficiency. But I think around that 50% level is where they're due to stay and they deserve to stay because the customers are very, very satisfied with the results they get. They're not just buying the part for the cheapest price. They're buying it for that service and availability.

因此，他们可以在毛利上多收取一些，以反映这种价值。回顾过去 25 年，毛利率稳步提升，大约提高了 40%；过去 15 年则提高了三四个百分点，主要得益于供应端效率。总的来说，50% 左右的毛利水平符合其价值定位，也理应维持，因为顾客对结果极为满意——他们购买的不是最低价配件，而是即时可得且附带服务的整体解决方案。

Zack

So clearly when you advertise 50% plus gross margins, it attracts competition. We know about their adjacent competitors in O'Reilly and Advanced Auto, which we talked about, but it seems like there have been other attempts, whether it be eCommerce, local retailers, you name it, how have they staved off the competition?

Zack

显然，当你宣传 50% 以上的毛利率时，就会吸引竞争者。我们知道他们在 O'Reilly 和 Advanced Auto 这些邻近竞争对手的情况，但似乎还有其他尝试，无论是电子商务、本地零售商等等——他们是如何抵御这些竞争的？

Freddie

Take the easy one first. I think other general retailers attempting to do auto parts as a sub-service or a concession within their stores really has failed over the years. I think it comes down to that specialist knowledge. That doesn't also people that work in an AutoZone store have specialist knowledge, understand how to use the systems, understand generally they're really interested in cars and they're able to help you and take you through that journey. So I think it comes down to the service more than the availability point or pricing on that one. And then obviously your eCommerce is an outstanding threat. They will have eCommerce businesses now. I think 90% of the parts are available for next day delivery, which is better than Amazon still. It's a difficult industry to do eCommerce. It's not high turn inventory assets. Often they have one or two SKU debts in their store. So you need a very wide range and you don't sell any individual product with high frequency. And the second one is, some of the parts are difficult to transport selling oil and selling things like that.

Selling liquid, selling wiper fluid and selling brake fluid, that's slightly harder and very expensive to ship. Batteries, which are a really key driver for these businesses. One of the largest categories, if not the largest category, you can't really ship a battery economically, or at least at a price that they're willing to pay. I think while Ecommerce is likely to grow as a percentage of sales for the group, I do think that it's going to grow much more slowly than other areas. If you look at their own initiatives, you can now go onto their store on their mobile app. They give you perks and they give you discounts to try to use their app. There you can enter your reg number. You can find all the parts that you need. It digs into their own data system. People still aren't doing it. At best, they're doing buy online, pickup in store. That delivery doesn't come with service. Delivery drivers not going to give you that tiny a bit of advice on how to fit it. I think that is still a really big barrier to entry in this industry.

销售液体、玻璃水、刹车油都比较麻烦且运费高昂。电池是这类业务真正的关键驱动因素之一，也是最大的品类之一，但几乎无法以经济的方式运输，至少达不到顾客愿意支付的价格。我认为虽然电商在集团销售中的占比可能会增长，但增速会远低于其他领域。从他们的举措来看，现在你可以在手机 App 进入他们的商店，他们会提供优惠来鼓励你使用 App。在那里输入车牌号码，就能找到所需所有零件，系统会调用他们的数据库。但人们仍然不怎么用。最多也就是“线上下单，门店自取”。这种配送不包含服务，送货司机不会给你一点点安装建议。我认为这仍然是该行业巨大的进入壁垒。

Zack

One of the other things I learned in studying the business and interacting with it, given their exposure to do it yourself, you're not always dealing with people that perhaps have the know-how or the education, and they have a program to offer the tooling that may be needed. Can you talk a bit about how that would work and how that serves as an additional opportunity in their competitive advantage?

Zack

在研究并接触这家公司时，我还了解到另一件事：由于他们面向 DIY 客群，你并不总是面对真正具备知识或技能的人，他们有一项计划可以提供所需工具。你能谈谈这项计划的运作方式，以及它如何进一步巩固他们的竞争优势吗？

Freddie

Yeah. They have two real systems that are very beneficial in that sense. The first is an engine diagnostic system. Increasingly cars have an electric operating system and it's very helpful. You obviously can't test that at home in most cases. You can go in and have diagnosed generally free of charge, but they will also lend you a tool. If you have a small DIY job at home and you don't want to buy the tool for it, I think for 72 hours, you put down a small deposit, it's free of charge if you return it within 72 hours, as long as you buy the parts from AutoZone to do the work. That's another thing that they've done, which isn't really available anywhere else. I think it's just great initiatives like that, that drive that loyalty. That's more for the hardcore DIYs who are working on their cars on weekends as either a hobby or maybe even a kind of small time local mechanic who does a bit in his spare time. That's the kind of benefit to that more extreme end of the DIY market.

Freddie

是的，他们在这方面有两套非常有用的系统。第一套是发动机诊断系统。如今汽车的电子化程度越来越高，这套系统非常有帮助，而你显然无法在家里做这类测试。你可以去门店进行免费的故障诊断，他们还会把工具借给你。如果你有一个小型 DIY 项目又不想为此购买工具，你可以交一笔小额押金借用 72 小时；只要在 72 小时内归还并且从 AutoZone 购买零件，就无需支付租金。这是他们推出的另一项服务，其他地方基本没有。我认为正是这些优秀的举措带来了客户忠诚度。这更偏向那些硬核 DIY 玩家，他们把周末修车当成爱好，或者是一些兼职的本地小修理工。这项服务满足了 DIY 市场最极端那部分人的需求。

提升效率

Zack

There are two ways really to drive a high return on capital. It's either to have wide margins or to have high capital turnover. Most of the most reputable retailers tend to have low margins and high turnover. This is somewhat of the opposite approach. The inventory turnover here is quite low and the way they do it in such a capital efficient way seems truly unique to the business. Can you spend some time explaining that.

Zack

要实现高资本回报率通常有两条途径：要么保持高利润率，要么实现高资本周转率。大多数备受推崇的零售商往往是低利润率、高周转率，而这种模式则恰恰相反。这里的库存周转率相当低，但他们却能以如此高的资本效率运营，这对这家公司而言似乎独一无二。你能详细解释一下吗？

Freddie

That's exactly the right characterization. This specialty retail is almost inverse to that general retail model of stack it high, sell it cheap, sell it frequently. It's a real barrier to entry. That really is something that needs to hit home to the listeners. Having this huge assortment available whenever customers need it is hard to do in terms of merchandising and supplying. It's great because it's long lived inventory. It generally doesn't go out of stock. You don't have obsolescence of that inventory. You can afford that wide margin through exceptional customer service, which we've touched on. And then you can drive great efficiencies through the store level, great efficiencies as you consolidate and grow, improving that operating margin, driving up that right from that side of things. The capital employed side, there is one other thing that they've done incredibly well, which is to maintain a zero or almost, it has been negative actually for the last 10 years working capital position.

And so the inventory in the business is actually very high. The physical in store stock and in the distribution centers, it's very high, very wide ranging, luckily low obsolescence, but their networking capital due to the high level of payables is negative by about 10 days of sales outstanding negative working capital position. Which means as you grow, when you are doing that store level math that I talked about earlier, you don't need to stock the store with cash. You put physical items into it, but you don't need to include them in your capital calculation because you are not actually outlaying the cash for them. Obviously receivables, there's very, very low levels of receivables on the balance sheet because most customers pay point of sale.

因此，业务中的实际库存非常高——无论是门店还是分销中心，库存既多又广，而且几乎不会过时；但由于应付账款水平高，他们的营运资金净额大约为负 10 天的销售额。也就是说，在做门店层面测算时，你无需用现金去“进货”。实物货品摆上货架，却不用在资本计算里计入，因为你并未为其支付现金。当然，应收账款几乎没有，因为大部分顾客都是现买现付。

Zack

Given the amount of times inventory turns around one times a year, I imagine given the long catalog and SKU count they have, there'll be times where inventory isn't where it needs to be. How do they manage the business locally and regionally to make sure that the parts are where they need to be when they need to be there.

Zack

鉴于库存每年仅周转一次，加上他们拥有庞大的目录和 SKU 数量，我想必定会出现库存不在正确地点的情况。他们如何在本地和区域层面管理业务，以确保零件在需要时能够出现在需要的地方？

Freddie

In stocks are very, very important at a local level, but also at a central level, DC level. They've spent a lot of time in the last five years analyzing the optimal drop offs, whether it's once a week in terms of returns on time, return on capital, whether it's three times a week, five times a week, and they believe they've got to that level. In the same way that they centralize their main buying decisions at the DC level, they give a lot of flexibility to the general managers through a flexagram plan to stock what they need in their stores according to local data sets on car types, car ages, and their experience in sales to date.

Freddie

库存水平在本地和中央（配销中心）层面都至关重要。过去五年，他们花了大量时间分析最优补货频次——从时间回报率和资本回报率来看，是每周一次还是三次、五次——并相信已找到最佳方案。同样在配销中心集中主要采购决策的同时，他们通过 Flexagram 计划给予店长很大灵活性，可依据当地车型、车龄和既往销售经验等数据为门店配货。

There is a little bit of flexibility. There is a little bit of localization in what they stock, and there's a lot of frequent top ups of inventory coming from their hubs and from their mega hubs and from their DCs. They have a great network of inventory that they can spread it around, where it's needed most. It's the huge competitive advantage taking that inventory off balance sheet for the garages, maintaining that inventory there. Readily available in the local community for the DIYs. It's been 25, 30 years in the making, getting this model right, but they're very good at it and despite the recent supply disruptions, seem to be managing in stocks very, very well.

他们的备货既具灵活性，也考虑本地化，并且会从枢纽店、超级枢纽店和配销中心频繁补货。他们拥有出色的库存网络，能够把库存调配到最需要的地方。通过替修车厂将库存从资产负债表中剥离并在当地维持库存，这成为巨大的竞争优势，也让 DIY 用户在社区即可轻松获得零件。这个模式历经 25 至 30 年打磨，如今运作娴熟；即使最近供应链受阻，他们似乎仍能将库存管理得非常出色。

Zack

The thing that's quite unique here for a retailer is that supplier finance that you alluded to. Can you just talk about the mechanics of how something like that works for a retailer just to better understand it?

Zack

这里对于一家零售商来说颇为独特的一点是你提到的供应商融资。能否谈谈像这种供应商融资在零售行业中是如何运作的？我想更好地理解其中的机制。

Freddie

Something that we always look for in businesses in terms of looking at that competitive advantage and mode is some of the sort of porters five forces type arguments. We've been through customer economics, but suppliers are very plentiful in this industry. There's a huge number of suppliers. No one supplier makes up more than I think 10, maybe 15% of sales now. But they buy from a huge number of people and increasingly as they buy private label and not OEM brand, but other brands, they can dual source as well. They have a huge amount of power over their supplier base to a large degree, their vendors. What they put in place probably 15, 20 years ago, was a sort of vendor financing program. Effectively, they will pay you the supplier on a very delayed payment term, but they will guarantee that payment to such a degree that you can then go factor those receivables very, very easily for yourself.

Freddie

在评估企业的竞争优势和护城河时，我们总会用到波特五力之类的分析框架。我们已经讨论过客户层面的经济性，但在这个行业里，供应商极为充足，数量庞大，没有任何一家供应商的销售占比超过 10%，也许 15% 都不到。然而，他们从大量供应商手中采购，并且随着他们越来越多地采购自有品牌商品，而非 OEM 品牌或其他品牌，他们也可以实现双重采购。在很大程度上，他们对供应商群体拥有巨大的议价能力。大约 15 到 20 年前，他们就推行了一种供应商融资计划。实际上，他们会给供应商非常延后的付款期限，但同时对付款做出足够的担保，以至于供应商可以非常轻松地将这些应收账款出售（保理）以获取现金。

They can get the cash at a AutoZone credit rating if you like, from a bank or from some other provider of their financing. They're able to get the cash flow that they need to run their business effectively with that AutoZone guarantee. But AutoZone is still able to sit with the cash on their balance sheet when they need it for this expansion and maintain lower levels of capital deployed. It's employed across the industry now and I've seen it in other industries too. It was AutoZone where I first came across that model and it's been very beneficial to driving that compounding thread through higher returns on capital and incrementally, more capital deployed each year through CapEx, but not through working capital.

供应商相当于以 AutoZone 的信用评级从银行或其他融资渠道获得现金流，藉由 AutoZone 的担保，他们能及时获取经营所需的资金。然而，AutoZone 仍能在需要扩张时把现金留在自己的资产负债表上，从而保持较低的资本占用水平。如今这一模式已被整个行业采用，我也在其他行业见过。最早是在 AutoZone 我了解到这种模式，它极大地促进了利润的复利增长——资本回报率更高，而每年通过资本支出（CapEx）投入的资金逐步增加，却不占用营运资本。

Zack

Example after example of the efficiency that they drive in the business. One of the things most struck me was the operating margin expansion that they've pushed over the last call it 20 years. This is a business that at the turn of the millennium was doing 10% operating margins, today closer to 20. I imagine private label had a lot to do with that. Their last being their most notable brand. But can we talk about some of the private label programs that they've been successful with?

Zack

他们在业务中推动的一连串效率提升举措令人印象深刻。其中最吸引我注意的是过去大约 20 年里营业利润率的大幅提升——千禧年初这家企业的营业利润率约为 10%，如今接近 20%。我想自有品牌功不可没，其中 Duralast 是最知名的品牌。那么，我们能否谈谈他们成功实施的其它自有品牌计划？

Freddie

The operating margin expansion's been fantastic. as you said for the last 20 years, it's nearly doubled. It did have a strong ramp up in that transition phase that I explained when they stopped going from acquisition led growth to investment in the business and capital returns in 2002, 2003. Margins were probably closer to 15% at the end of that process. And so then have come drifted up steadily towards 19 today, but private label has been a major contributor to that and Duralast is a fantastic brand, and again, this is something that we're seeing across the retail landscape now, people coming out and trying to drive their private label penetration. Brands have existed for many, many years, but have extracted a huge amount of economic rent for a product that may be of no greater quality.

Freddie

营业利润率的提升确实令人惊艳。正如你所说，这 20 年间几乎翻了一倍。在 2002、2003 年那段从并购驱动的增长转向内部投资和资本回报的过渡期，利润率跃升显著，当时大约提高到 15%。随后逐渐上升至今天的 19% 左右，其中自有品牌贡献巨大，Duralast 就是一款出色的品牌。同样的趋势我们正在零售业各处看到——企业积极提升自有品牌渗透率。许多传统品牌长期以来凭借并无显著质量优势的产品攫取了大量经济租。

When it comes down to it, one of the most important things in business is distribution. These guys, collectively, but AutoZone specifically own the distribution of auto parts in the US and in Mexico. We haven't talked about their international expansion. They're growing there a lot too, but they are in control of that distribution. At the end of the day, if they can push through and capture more margin from vertical integration of the product manufacturing into their own distribution, alongside a product of equal quality, but maybe 20 to 30% higher price from an OEM. Some people will still prefer the OEM parts, and that's absolutely fine, or the other national brands, but a huge number of people go towards these private label products, which are cheaper yet a higher contribution margin large into the business.

归根结底，生意的关键之一在于渠道掌控。这些公司——尤其是 AutoZone——掌握着美国和墨西哥汽车零部件的分销网络。我们还没谈到他们的国际扩张，他们在海外也在快速增长，但他们牢牢控制着分销。最终，如果他们通过将生产纵向整合进自有分销系统来获取更多利润，而 OEM 同质产品的价格可能高出 20% 至 30%，那么自然就会吸引大量客户选择价格更低、但对公司贡献更高毛利的自有品牌。仍然有一部分人会偏好 OEM 或其他全国性品牌，这完全没问题，但大量消费者会转向这些自有品牌产品。

When you build an own brand like Duralast, in a small way, it's sort of comparable to Kirkland at Costco where it's a huge brand equity. It has its own brand equity. It drives people in to try to buy products from that brand because it has a great quality to it. The halo effect of private label, which is the antithesis of, I think, how people saw it 15 or 20 years ago where it was seen as this really cheap option, the option if you can't afford the main brand. Again, these guys were innovators by pushing out Duralast in the late 1980s. They really were ahead of the game on it. I think it's just paying dividends now, because you've got a whole generation who's grown up with that brand.

打造像 Duralast 这样的自有品牌，在某种程度上有点类似 Costco 的 Kirkland——它拥有强大的品牌资产。优质的产品力让消费者主动进店寻找该品牌的商品。如今自有品牌的光环效应与 15、20 年前人们的刻板印象截然相反——那时它被视为“买不起主流品牌”的廉价替代品。而 AutoZone 早在 1980 年代末就率先推出 Duralast，可谓行业先行者。现在，这张早早播下的种子正在结出丰厚成果——整整一代消费者都是伴随这个品牌成长起来的。

Zack

When you think about a business like auto parts retail, people know, obviously, windshield wipers and oil changes, but there are certain categories that are core to the business that are failure-oriented parts. What is it exactly that they're selling?

Zack

当你想到汽车零配件零售这样的业务时，人们当然会想到雨刷和换机油，但有些类别才是业务的核心——那些与故障相关的零件。他们究竟在卖什么？

Freddie

As I said, failure and maintenance really make up sort of 80 to 90% of the sales they make. Failures could include batteries and accessories to batteries, obviously bearings and belts. You can look at certain ignition pumps, fuel pumps, fuses, any of these sorts of pieces that actually without which you can't get the mechanism of the car working, those are the failure categories where you need it right now. In terms of the sort of maintenance it's coming into winter, needing more antifreeze, it's needing some paint or some sensors, or some transmission fluid, which may be running low, may not be driving, an actual failure in the mechanical operations of the car, but you still will really need it to run properly. These are slightly more technical jobs obviously than fitting a wiper blade, but that's the majority of the categories into which they sell within those failure and maintenance categories.

Freddie

正如我所说，故障和维护类零件大约占他们销售额的 80% 至 90%。故障类包括电池及其附件、轴承和皮带，也可以是点火泵、燃油泵、保险丝等——缺少这些部件汽车就无法运转，因此属于“立刻就得更换”的故障类别。维护类则是冬季来临需要更多防冻液、需要补漆或传感器、变速器油即将不足等情况，这些并不会导致车辆立即故障，但仍然是保持正常运转所必需的。这些工作比装雨刷技术要求更高一些，但在他们的产品组合中，大多数都属于故障和维护这两个范畴。

They are the most important drivers for them. The discretionary category includes things like point of sale, food and drinks, which is probably a few percentage points of their sales, just at the counter. Then it's things like wax and washing materials, floors mats, covers, steering wheel covers, things like that. Air fresheners, truly discretionary items, anything else is included in the failure and maintenance categories.

这些品类才是他们最重要的增长驱动力。可选消费品则包括 POS 点销售的零食和饮料，可能只占他们销售额的几个百分点，仅在收银台有售。其次是车蜡、清洁用品、脚垫、车罩、方向盘套等，以及空气清新剂等真正的可自由选择商品。除这些以外，其余都归入故障或维护类别。

Zack

Then AutoZone is obviously known for their DIY mix relative to some of their competitors. But they're starting to take more share in the pro or the do-it-for-me division. How is management thinking about what are the key drivers in transitioning towards more opportunity in DIFM?

Zack

AutoZone 以其较高的 DIY 业务占比而闻名，但他们正开始在专业或“代工”领域抢占更多份额。管理层如何看待转向 DIFM（Do-It-For-Me）机会的关键驱动因素？

Freddie

This is another great example of the culture within the business. For the last 25 years or since inception really, it's been a DIY-focused business, and DIY is clearly growing less rapidly than DIFM. Potentially at one day, we'll slow down and start retreating. For the last five years, they've been talking to shareholders steadily about, we need to transition to having more commercial programs within our existing stores. It's very common and definitely the right model to service the local garages on a do-it-for-me basis from the same store as you do DIY. They've done this through a number of initiatives, which they really did outline in a lot of detail.

Freddie

这再次体现了公司文化的一个绝佳例子。过去 25 年——实际上自创立以来——这家公司一直侧重于 DIY，但 DIY 的增速显然低于 DIFM，未来某天甚至可能放缓乃至萎缩。在过去五年里，他们持续向股东沟通：需要在现有门店中推出更多商用方案。用同一家门店同时服务 DIY 客户和本地车行的 DIFM 模式非常普遍，也确实是正确的做法。他们通过多项举措推进这一转型，并在细节上做了充分阐述。

They were looking at a mega hub and hub strategy. A normal store has 25,000 SKUs and maybe six, 7,000 square feet. A hub is 50% bigger with a 100% more SKUs, and mega hub is a 100% bigger with four times as many SKUs. These different hubs in different places, they tested different delivery frequencies. They tested inventory availability. They delivered to certain stores five times, three times a week, and they showed us the results of these and came out with what they believe is the optimal mix. It's nothing to insightful, but they really spend years getting that mix right for their commercial programs whilst ensuring that wherever they laid out a commercial program, which are now in about 80, 85% of their stores, there was sufficient demand for it. They've been really pushing commercial for the last two or three years. It's growing at 20% a year against a market that's maybe growing closer to five.

他们制定了“超级枢纽—枢纽”战略：普通门店约 25,000 个 SKU，面积约 6,000 至 7,000 平方英尺；枢纽店面积大 50%，SKU 数量翻倍；超级枢纽店面积翻番，SKU 数量则是普通店的四倍。针对不同位置的枢纽，他们测试了不同的配送频次和库存可得性——有的门店每周送货五次、有的三次——并向我们展示了结果，确定了他们认为的最佳组合。这并非高深理论，但他们确实花了数年时间才为其商用项目调配出最佳比例，并确保在推行商业项目的门店（目前约占 80%–85%）有足够的需求。过去两三年他们大力发展商用业务，年增速 20%，而市场整体可能只有 5% 左右。

They're having great success. They're winning contracts. They're winning being first call to that local garage, because quite often the guys in the garage will use a number of people. You need to be the first person they call. That's what they're really pushing for, and they're driving it again with service. Again, they have local vans that the guys in the shop will drop it off at the point of ordering. I believe they're still doing this where, if you're not quite sure which part you need, because if you put yourself in the mind of the mechanic, what drives your business model? It's getting a car into the bay, turning it quickly, fixing it quickly and getting it out. That's your asset turn right there. If there's one part, one belt, one battery, one light, one fuse, that's holding you up, you can't finish your job, and so maybe sometimes over-ordering, and then sending back the ones you don't need can really speed up your job. I believe they're still doing that.

他们取得了显著成效，赢得了合同，也成为当地车行的首选供应商——因为修车师傅通常会联系多家供应商，你必须成为他们打出的第一个电话。这正是他们大力争取的目标，而他们再次凭借卓越的服务做到这一点。他们配备本地货车，店里的员工接单后直接把零件送到车行。我相信他们仍在执行这种做法：如果技师不确定所需零件，就会多订几件备选，然后把不需要的退回。设身处地想想技师的商业模式——把车开进工位、尽快完成修理、迅速开走，这就是资产周转。如果只缺一个皮带、电池、灯泡或保险丝，你就无法完成工作，“多订再退”能大大加快工序。我相信他们现在仍在这样做。

I think it's supplying that service mentality alongside preempting it with exceptional inventory availability and delivery speed. Larger stores, which maybe carry larger number of SKUs, so you are moving up that first call and now really building up that sales force to push into that commercial channel. It's been a number of years in the making, but I think the time they've taken gives them a much greater chance of success in that market. I can't see why in time, they couldn't be 50% of their sales. We see that as one of the most exciting angles for the business over the next five to 10 years is growing slightly faster into that slightly faster growing channel, driving better top line and ultimately better EPS progression too.

我认为，这种服务心态加上卓越的库存可用性和配送速度才是关键。更大的门店可携带更多 SKU，从而提升成为“首选来电”的概率，并且正在建立更强的销售团队深耕商用渠道。虽然这一切筹备多年，但正因如此，他们在这一市场的成功概率更高。我看不出他们未来无法将商用业务做到占比 50% 的理由。我们认为，在未来 5–10 年里，进入这一增速稍快的渠道并持续略快于市场增长，将为公司带来更高的营收并最终推动每股收益更好地提升——这也是业务最令人兴奋的看点之一。

Zack

Maybe it makes sense just to talk about how a professional auto body shop buys from O'Reilly and AutoZone, in that I assume they don't use the same retailer for all the products. I know about the call list, how do you move up and down the call list? What is it that they're competing on?

Zack

或许我们应该先谈谈专业汽修厂是如何向 O'Reilly 和 AutoZone 采购零件的；我想他们不会所有产品都从同一家零售商购买。我知道有一份“呼叫列表”，那么怎样才能在这份列表上排名升降？他们究竟在什么方面展开竞争？

Freddie

I think a little bit of it is price, but not a huge amount. As you can see from these gross margins, this business is not a highly price sensitive business. I think, again, if you get into the mind of that garage worker, this is a very small part of the job, a couple of pieces, maybe for some of the really large hard parts, price matters a little bit more. We certainly see that in a slightly lower margin contribution, gross margin contribution, from do it for me, but in the smaller parts, I think it's very similar. It comes down to availability. It also comes down to habit, in the same way that proximity drives a lot of local DIY sales, probably going to use the store that's roughly equally as good if it's five miles away, not the one that's 20 miles away. The same thing comes down to this. If you've habitually been using O'Reilly, AutoZone have to prove that they have better in stock, better pricing on some of the large, hard parts or some of the own brands. If some of these own brands or availability of OEM parts is only coming through your channel, that also helps drive some of that customer loyalty.

Freddie

我认为价格因素有一点影响，但并不是主要驱动。正如这些毛利率所显示的，这个行业对价格并不特别敏感。再站在修车技师的角度看，这只是工作里很小的一部分；也许在某些高价值的硬件零件上，价格更重要一些。我们确实看到代修（DIFM）业务的毛利率略低，但用于小零件时差异并不大。最终还是库存可得性决定一切，也与惯性有关——就像地理便利性驱动大量本地 DIY 销售一样，如果两家店水平差不多，五英里远的店更可能被选择，而不是二十英里外的那家。如果技师习惯了用 O'Reilly，AutoZone 就必须证明自己在大件硬件或自有品牌方面库存更充足、价格更好；如果某些自有品牌或 OEM 零件只能通过你的渠道获得，这同样能加强客户黏性。

The other key thing to mention is that obviously effectively, the role these guys play in turn for their customers in the DIFM segment, is to keep that inventory off balance sheet. In one sense, these guys could have a business model where they had to keep all of these parts in their own inventory and utilize them as and when they could to try to turn their bays faster. But instead, the major players say, no, you don't have to, we'll keep it all. We'll keep our stocks high and we'll keep it wide, and whenever you need it, you can have it almost instantaneously. But for that, you do have to pay a 50% gross margin. That's perfectly acceptable to them, because of the economics of the size of the job and the price of the labor that they put through on top of it.

另一个关键点是，在 DIFM 领域，这些零售商为客户承担的角色，本质上是把库存留在自己的资产负债表之外。理论上，车行可以自己囤货并尽量加快工位周转，但大玩家会说：你不用囤，我们来囤。我们保持高库存、宽品类，你需要时几乎立刻就能送到。不过，你得为此支付 50% 毛利率的价格——而这对车行来说完全可以接受，因为相对于工单金额和其加价的人工费，这个成本并不高。

电商的仓库和配送能力看着也能做到。

We see it as a very, very solid market for them to grow into where the underlying financials, returns on capital, underlying margin structures shouldn't change dramatically. Actually, if it works, what you'll see coming through is, in particular for AutoZone out of the three of them, is a much greater pickup in density, because you'll are serving another customer base from the same store, the same capital base. You may need more inventory, but as we've discussed, that's a zero cost to you in cash terms. From your capital and maybe a little bit more labor, but from a similar labor base, you could be driving far higher sales, maybe with a slightly lower gross margin, but a much higher contribution margin to the bottom line, because your commensurate pick up and SGNA is much lower. We see it as a very exciting business.

我们认为这是一个极其稳固、值得深耕的市场，其底层财务、资本回报率和毛利结构都不会发生剧烈变化。如果运作得当，尤其对 AutoZone 而言，同一门店、同一资本基底即可服务另一类客户群，门店密度和利用率都会大幅提升。你可能需要更多库存，但正如我们所说，这在现金层面成本为零；再投入一点劳动力，就能显著提升销售额，虽然毛利率稍低，可对利润的贡献率更高，因为新增的 SG\&A 很有限。总体来看，这是一个令人十分振奋的业务领域。

竞争压力

Zack

Maybe this is a good time to transition the conversation towards some of the competitive pressures that auto parts can potentially face in a world where cars are becoming increasingly electrified and complex. How is that going to potentially impact the business?

Zack

也许现在是时候把话题转向汽车零部件在汽车日益电动化、复杂化的背景下面临的潜在竞争压力了。这将可能对业务产生什么影响？

Freddie

The threat from electric vehicles is clearly the biggest bear case in this space. Other than that, I think everything is ticking along very nicely and you can paint a very positive picture, but we believe you can too, despite the positive news flow around EVs and the success that the EV makers are having to date, and this boils down to a few points. The first one is that EVs are still a very small percentage of the annual sales of new cars. Full EVs are five to 10%, depending on how you count them and growing rapidly. Don't forget this industry and this stock, particularly, they service cars that are seven years old or older. What you have to say to have a bear case over the next, say, decade is, well, over the next three years, how much will the sales of EVs impact the car park in seven years time from there, I.e., 10 years time? The truth is no matter what numbers you put through the car park, and in particular, the car park of seven year old cars or older, is going to grow and it grow to 3% a year.

Freddie

电动汽车带来的威胁显然是该领域最大的空头论点。除此之外，一切都运转良好，你完全可以描绘出非常积极的前景——即便围绕电动车的新闻看起来一片向好，我们仍然认为如此，原因主要有几点。首先，电动车在新车年销量中的占比仍然很低，纯电车型占 5%–10%（视统计口径而定），虽然增速很快。别忘了，这个行业——特别是这些公司——主要服务车龄七年以上的汽车。若要构建未来十年的悲观论点，就必须回答一个问题：未来三年电动车销量的增长，会在七年后对车龄七年以上的存量车市场造成多大冲击？事实上，无论你怎么测算，汽车保有量——尤其是七年以上车龄板块——都会继续增长，年复合增速约 3%。

These businesses can carry on driving like for like growth on top of that. So at least for the next decade, we can see industry growth. Beyond that, actually, you can still see a reasonable probability of high levels of industry growth, even with a higher EV penetration of 30 or 50%, just because of that weight, that duration, that predictability of the addressable market for the cars. I think that's really key, and that's the first point to make.

这些企业还能在此基础上继续实现同店增长。因此，至少在未来十年内，我们可以看到行业的持续增长。再往后，即便电动车渗透率提高到 30% 或 50%，行业仍有较大概率保持高增长，这正是因为汽车保有量的体量、寿命以及可预测性所带来的“惯性”。我认为这是关键，也是第一点要强调的内容。

The second point to make is that there is still a lot of consolidation to go in this industry. They are steady. They grow very nicely. They've generated 30, 40% in rates , and they've grown earnings per share at 20% a year for the last 25, 10, 15 years, however you want to look at it. But over that period, since 1995, I think, they've taken their DIY share from 7% to 14%. The market's grown, they've grown share, but they grow steadily.

第二点是，这个行业仍有大量整合空间。这些公司运营稳健，增长良好，回报率达到 30%–40%，过去 25 年（或 10、15 年，取决于统计口径）每股收益年复合增长约 20%。自 1995 年以来，他们在 DIY 市场的份额从 7% 提升到 14%。市场扩大了，他们的份额也在提升，但整体增长相对平稳。

At the moment, the three largest players, well, three and a half, four largest players make up 40% of the market. 40% of the market is still independents, who are much, much smaller, and we've seen a huge number of doors closing in the US in the last two years, some meaningful proportion of those by our maths we'd estimate almost 1000, 750, maybe a 1000 auto parts stores that have closed and won't reopen. That allows for a bit of a bump in the short term in terms of market share growth. But we believe that over time, a very, very large portion of that unconsolidated piece of the market, the sales will move into the hands of the larger consolidated team players. Even if the market doesn't grow from here, there's room to double your sales. If the market carries on growing, as we know it will to a large degree from the car park maths over the next decade, your sales could be on 150%. That's before inflation.

目前，排名前三或前三四位的企业仅占市场 40%，仍有 40% 的市场由规模远小得多的独立门店把持。过去两年，美国已有大量门店关停——我们的测算大约在 750 到 1000 家之间——且不再重新开业。短期来看，这给龙头企业的份额增长带来了一些“跳升”机会。长期而言，我们相信未被整合的那部分市场最终会大规模转移到大型整合玩家手中。即便行业规模不再增长，销量仍有机会翻倍；而若按保有量测算，未来十年市场仍将大幅扩张，则销量有望增长至 150%（未计通胀）。

I think another read on that gross margin point that we've made a couple of times, this call is the gross margins are very high. This is not a price sensitive industry, and they will be able to push through meaningful inflation if inflation remains steady. Nominal returns could actually move up even higher. We see it as very attractive.

关于我们反复提到的高毛利率，我想再补充一点：这一行业对价格并不敏感，因此在通胀维持时，他们完全有能力向下游转嫁成本。名义收益甚至可能进一步提升，从投资角度看，这非常有吸引力。

I think this bear case has been around for a long time, and I would highlight the 1991 annual report to anyone who is digging into the stock in a little bit more detail because it was around their IPO. They put out a note talking about two different publications, which had two extreme bear cases, saying, with the complexity of cars, no one's going to be doing anymore DIY. The average American man can't handle what's going on under the hood anymore. There were articles from 1908 and from 1968, 10 years before he even founded the business. I think this story has been around for a while. It doesn't mean we're complacent, but I think when you work the maths through, there's a huge runway for growth for these businesses. Frankly, when a major source of capital return of value creation is through buybacks, I'm very happy if the market continues to trade these stocks at a discount due to this concern.

关于电动车威胁的空头论点已经存在很久了。若有人想更深入研究该股票，我建议翻阅 1991 年的年报，那正值其 IPO 前后，他们在报告中引用了两份极端看空文章，声称汽车愈发复杂，DIY 将不复存在，普通美国人已搞不懂引擎盖下的东西。这类文章早在 1908 年、1968 年就出现——甚至早于公司创立十年。我认为这种说法由来已久，但这并不意味着我们可以自满；从数据测算来看，这些企业仍拥有广阔增长跑道。坦率地说，既然回购是价值创造的重要手段之一，那么如果市场因这一担忧而持续给予其折价，我反而乐见其成。

Zack

Then the second arrow in the quiver of the bear thesis would probably be online, pure plays, and then Amazon impacts every specialty retailer. I know that it's been a debate that's been both disproven, and then others will argue proven over time. But how do you consider the risk of an Amazon or an Amazon-type behemoth coming into the space in a meaningful way?

第二支可能被看空论点锁定的箭矢或许就是线上纯电商，以及亚马逊对每一家专业零售商的冲击。我知道围绕这一点的争论时而被证伪，时而又有人声称得到验证。那么，你如何评估亚马逊或类似巨头以实质性方式进入这一领域的风险？

Freddie

There's going to be more eCommerce penetration. It's been picking up a little bit in the last few years. There was a huge concern in 2017 that Amazon was going to come along and had been really driving in the auto parts space, but they actually didn't manage to make any inroads at that point. That's not to write off Amazon. It's quite a good business. I think they'll probably be trying again in the future. I think it depends on how you look at the business. I take the levels of margin, the sustainable levels of growth and the incredible high rates as a sign that people are paying for something other than the goods. They're not just buying the battery, they're coming into the store and they're getting that service. They're getting that instant availability, and I think only five or 10% of Amazon's products are available same day or next day. They're still mostly two-day delivery.

电子商务渗透率肯定会进一步提高，过去几年已开始加速。2017 年曾有巨大担忧，认为亚马逊将大举进军汽车零配件领域，但他们当时实际上并未取得任何进展。这并不是否定亚马逊——那仍是一家出色的公司，我相信未来可能会再次尝试。问题在于你如何看待这门生意。我把可持续的高毛利、高增长率和惊人的高回报视为一个信号：顾客付费买的不仅是商品本身。他们不仅仅是在买电池，而是走进门店，获得服务，享受立即可得的体验。而据我所知，亚马逊只有约 5%–10% 的商品能实现当日或次日达，其余大多仍需两天配送。

Now, that can change. Of course, they can move to same day or next day delivery on some of these very heavy, expensive to transport parts, stock the huge wide level of SKUs that you need to have. They can have the same setup where you enter your registration number, your plate, and it tells you what sort of product you need. Perhaps for some people that will win out, but that is a much lower level of service. I just do believe that when 85% of your category sales of the failure and maintenance, it's all people locally coming to buy it because they need it now, and they get that service alongside it. It's going to be a much slower transition to online than elsewhere. These guys have every right to compete in that as the specialty retailers with well invested online eCommerce of their own. They already have the DCs. They already have the trucks driving around. They already have mega hubs where they could do local distribution from, so they have hub and spoke built out already. Even if eCommerce does penetrate faster than we'd anticipate, I think they'll be meaningful players in that marketplace.

当然，这一点可能改变。他们完全可以将部分又重又难运的零件升级到当日或次日配送，囤积你必须拥有的超宽 SKU，并提供同样的系统——输入车牌号即可告诉你需要的零件类型。或许对某些人来说，这会更具吸引力，但这提供的服务水平要低得多。我坚信，当你的品类销售有 85% 来自“故障与维护”零件，顾客都是因为“现在就需要”而就近买，并同时获得服务体验时，线上化的转移速度将远慢于其他领域。作为专业零售商，这些公司完全有能力在电商战场竞争——他们的线上业务已投入大量资金，拥有配送中心、行驶中的货车，甚至有能够承担本地配送的超级枢纽，完整的“枢纽-辐射”体系已建成。即便电商渗透速度超出我们的预期，我认为他们仍会是该市场的重要玩家。

独特的资本分配方式

Zack

I don't think we've spent enough time talking about how truly amazing the capital allocation of this business is. Clearly, any business has the opportunity to reinvest in their business, organic growth or acquisition, they could buy back stock, repurchase debt or pay a dividend. These guys have taken a pretty unique approach to capital allocation. And I think it's important to spend a lot of time talking about it. Ultimately, the way that shareholders make money is capital gets returned. Can you talk a bit about tact this business has taken to return capital to shareholders?

我们似乎还没有花足够时间来讨论这家公司令人惊叹的资本分配方式。显然，任何企业都可以选择把资金再投资于自身的有机增长或并购，也可以回购股票、偿还债务或支付股息。这家公司在资本分配上采取了相当独特的做法，我觉得很有必要深入探讨。归根结底，股东赚钱的方式就是资本回馈。你能否介绍一下这家公司向股东回馈资本所采取的策略？

Freddie

I think buybacks are still contentious with some investors. Whereas, we see them as highly attractive arrows in the quiver of the capital allocation team, the CEO and his team. In this instance, it's one of the best examples of how to use it in a mature yet growing industry. Where if you manage all the other levers of your business well and intelligently, including your capital allocation, your working capital allocation, your in-store efficiency and invest everything you need to invest first, in building out your competitive position. So, whether that's technology, whether that's starting your own brand, whether that's training your staff to be absolutely customer focused, building out your online presence when required, testing and building out your distribution setups to enhance your commercial business.

在某些投资者看来，股票回购仍然颇具争议；而在我们看来，它正是资本配置团队——即 CEO 及其团队——箭袋中极具吸引力的一支。在这一案例中，它展示了在一个成熟且仍在增长的行业中如何运用回购的最佳范例。只要你智慧地管理好业务的其他杠杆，包括资本与营运资金配置、门店效率，并且首先把所有必要投资——无论是技术、自有品牌、客户至上的员工培训，还是在需要时建设线上业务、测试并完善分销网络以强化商用业务——都投入到巩固自身竞争地位中去。

Spend every penny you can on just defending your existing business model and enhancing it. But everything that's left, after that efficiency, reinvest back in your own business through share buybacks, it's been a phenomenally successful story. It's hard to do the analysis, but we've worked through it a number of ways. And they've made at least a 20% return on capital, on the actual investments they've made in their own business. Which is very, very solid over time. And the effects as a shareholder are huge. If you are one of the few shareholders who holds on, through this period, the actual level of absolute net-income over the last 25 years has gone from just over \$200 million, \$250 million to, well, we think it'll be reaching two and a half billion. So, 10 times that in the next few years. And the share counts down by nearly 90%. And this is the funny one about the compounding power of things on the upside people understand, but the compounding power of things when you are reducing the number, it seems to lose people.

把每一分钱都花在捍卫并强化现有商业模式上，而将效率提升后剩余的全部资金通过股票回购再投向自身，这一路径已取得巨大成功。虽然分析起来并不容易，但我们用多种方法测算，他们在自家业务上的实际投资资本回报率至少达到 20%，长期来看非常稳健。对股东而言，这一效果惊人。如果你是极少数一直持有股票的投资者，在过去 25 年里，公司的绝对净利润从略高于 2 亿美元增至我们预计的 25 亿美元左右，增长了 10 倍；而股本数量却减少了近 90%。有趣的是，人们往往理解正向复利的力量，却忽视在减少分母时同样强大的复利效应。

Because a 90% reduction in share count, obviously doesn't drive a 90% pickup in EPS, it drives a 10 times pickup in EPS. A 10 times pickup in net-income and a 10 times pickup from the buyback maths has driven a hundred times pickup in earnings per share, in our view, over the past 25 years and looking out the next few, they used to make a \$1.50. We think they'll be making \$150 in the next few years, per share. That's the power of it. And this business still has a reasonable level of debt. It's not over indebted. It has a fantastically invested asset base. It has a great and motivated team. It's playing into a market that is still growing dependably and predictably for the next decade. It has been a fantastic use of capital. And you could have made a hundred times your money if you knew about this in 1998.

股数减少 90% 并不会“仅仅”带来 90% 的每股收益提升，而是推动 EPS 提升 10 倍。净利润增加 10 倍、回购带来的分母收缩再增 10 倍，合计推动过去 25 年每股收益增长约 100 倍，并且未来几年我们预计仍将延续——公司过去每股盈利 1.50 美元，而我们认为未来几年将达到 150 美元。这就是其威力所在。而且这家公司仍保持合理的负债水平，并不过度举债；其资产基础投入极佳，团队积极进取，所处的市场在未来十年仍将稳定可预测地增长。如此高效的资本运用令人赞叹。如果你在 1998 年买入并持有至今，理论上可以把本金变成 100 倍。

Zack

Yeah, just looking at the market cap today, the business close to \$40 billion. I believe that they've retired, but they took the share count from 125 to 25. If you think about the pure dollar amount that they have repurchased over the course of the last 20 years relative to today's market cap, the numbers are pretty striking.

扎克

是的，仅看今天的市值，公司已接近 400 亿美元。我记得他们一直在回购，将流通股数从 1.25 亿份降至 2500 万份。如果把过去 20 年用于回购的总金额与当前市值相比，这个数字相当惊人。

Freddie

It's been a huge, huge story for these guys and it'll continue. We use it as a use case for other stocks when we're engaging with management teams, we show them this that there's no shame in retiring some of your stock. In fact, quite the opposite. You can generate superior outcomes, the alternatives available in slow-growth industries like this, are excessive acquisitions or potentially excessive pricing. Which drives customers away or not investing to try and drive efficiencies in your business, but actually therefore eroding your moat.

弗雷迪

这对他们来说一直是一段了不起的发展故事，而且还将继续。我们与其他公司管理层交流时常用它作示范，告诉他们大规模回购并不丢脸，反而能带来更高回报。在这种增速缓慢的行业里，替代方案往往是过度并购或过度提价——前者容易失控，后者会把客户推走或减少效率投资，从而侵蚀护城河。

This makes the behavioral side of it much, much better. And also buybacks have this wonderful behavioral piece, which is that they allow management teams to make the right decision at all times. They're not looking at EPS every year. They're not looking at one single metric. They're looking at long-term value creation, and they know that if the share price falls for any given reason, that will accrue more value to them, when they buy back shares. So, they can tell the truth, they can be more frank with their investors when times are good and times are bad. Because the share price moves don't affect them in the same way. In fact, a negative share price move in this stock is pleasing, for long-term shareholders because you tend to buy back more stock at that point.

这也让公司的行为激励更健康。回购的妙处在于，它让管理层始终做出正确决策——他们不会只盯着年度每股收益或单一指标，而是关注长期价值创造，并且明白若股价因任何原因下跌，回购反而能带来更大价值。因此，他们在顺境逆境都能坦诚地与投资者沟通，因为股价波动对他们影响较小。事实上，长期股东往往欢迎股价回调，因为那意味着可以用更低价回购更多股票。

Zack

Be remiss if I didn't ask about the COVID impacts on the business, clearly durable categories are seeing massive demand pull-forwards. We're seeing prices in used automobiles skyrocket, which I presume is good for the business in the short term. How are you thinking about the COVID benefits and detriments to the business over the short term and the longer term?

扎克

如果不谈谈 COVID 对业务的影响就太失职了。显然，耐用品类出现了巨大的提前需求，我们看到二手车价格飙升，我想这短期内对公司有利。你如何看待 COVID 在短期和长期给公司带来的利弊？

Freddie

Yeah. I've tried to steer away from the short term. But the short term is incredibly exciting. And it's been a great benefit to this industry and this business in particular. Do-it-yourself has been a huge, huge category of growth for them. And it's really helped supercharge their commercial business, as well. Comps last year were very strong in the end. I think Motor Zones got a slightly funny financial year, but it did an 8% comp, whereas an average would be two to 3% like-for-like sales. They tend to do well in recessionary periods, people fixing up their car instead of buying a new car, driving more instead of taking public transport or trains, things like that. So, we would've expected it in any ordinary recession, but this is obviously not an ordinary recession to see a pickup in same-store sales.

弗雷迪

是的，我尽量不关注短期因素，但短期表现确实令人振奋，对这一行业、尤其是本公司帮助巨大。DIY 品类实现了爆发式增长，也显著带动了他们的商用业务。去年同店销售最终表现强劲，我记得 AutoZone 的财年有点特殊，但仍实现 8% 同店增长，而正常年份通常只有 2%–3%。在经济衰退时期，人们更倾向于修车而非买新车，选择开车而非公共交通，这对他们通常有利；在这次非典型的衰退中我们也看到同店销售飙升。

That started coming through and then we saw this supercharged, same-store sales coming back through. As is now clear the consumer is far wealthier than they would have been. Household net worth is up 30% from the lows in March 2020. It took about six years to recover that level in the financial crisis when we had austerity as to result it. So, fiscal tightening instead of fiscal loosening. And this has been a huge boon for all consumer stocks. And yes, you're dead right, in turn it's driven up the price of used cars. I think 35% from trend and that in itself drives volumes. People buy more cars, selling more cars. At that point, you buy a car, it's similar with houses. You tend to put a lick paint on it, or you sell it, you wash it, you wax it before you sell it. You fix it up a little bit to sell. There's been a real pickup from that. So some of it feels like it could have been one-offs. Certainly, you won't see this as a continued level of growth, but I think you do see the trend having jumped up and will accelerate from there still in the future.

随后同店销售进一步“加速”。如今很明显，消费者比预期富裕得多：家庭净值自 2020 年 3 月低点已反弹 30%，而在金融危机时期用紧缩政策恢复同等水平花了约六年。宽松财政为所有消费股带来巨大红利。没错，这也推动了二手车价格上涨，较趋势水平高出约 35%，进而拉动交易量——人们买车卖车增多。像卖房前刷漆一样，卖车前通常会清洗、打蜡、做些小修，这对零件需求也有明显提升。有些增量看似一次性，但趋势抬升后仍可能在未来加速。

Because again, all these categories, all these items, they are needed day in, day out. They're mostly there to repair something that's broken people. Haven't suddenly fast-tracked that. And the final one was a lot of cars were idled in the lockdowns. And so when you came out of lockdowns, battery sales were huge because they'd gone flat and people just wanted to replace them because they hadn't replaced one for a while. So COVID's been a huge boon from the demand side, but an even bigger boon, if I can get even more excited, from the supply side. Because I'm afraid this has been a difficult time to get parts for people. It's been a difficult time to find financing. It's been a difficult time to find staff. And that's for large firms, but the larger firms have found a way through that. And AutoZone has absolutely found a way to maintain in stocks, to maintain staffing levels, while still looking after their team. But the smaller chains I'm afraid are going to struggle much, much more in that dynamic. The sourcing parts, if your order size is smaller is just going to be preferenced on allocation to the larger clients.

毕竟，这些品类的零件天天都要用来修复损坏部件，不会因疫情而被“提前消费”完。再者，封锁期间大量车辆停驶，解封后电池销量激增，因为电池亏电，人们也久未更换。 COVID 在需求端已是巨大利好，而在供应端利好更大：疫情期间零件采购难、融资难、招工难，尤其对小企业；但大公司找到了解决之道，AutoZone 成功保持库存与员工队伍，同时照顾好团队。相比之下，小型连锁在这一环境中艰难得多，订单规模小意味着分货优先级低。

And finding staff and finding teams and having that ability to pay higher minimum wages or higher skilled wages for manager level people. It's something that is only really there for the larger players. So, I think the demand side's very high at present and will probably likely be so for the next few years, given the level of household net worth. And the supply side has gone massively in their favor, as well. Because that consolidation will speed up from here. The greatest thing about that one is that actually, they probably don't need to open a store for every store that goes out of business, because a lot of the sales will come to them, collectively as a group anyway. So, it should be a huge boon for densities and therefore efficiencies at a business level. But it does give them more opportunity to spend more capital, which is something we're always keen to see in high ROIC businesses too.

再加上雇人、组建团队并支付更高底薪或管理层更高技能工资的能力，也只有大玩家才做得到。因此，在家庭净值高企的背景下，需求端目前非常旺盛，未来几年也大概率如此；与此同时，供应端优势也倾向于他们，因为行业整合将加速。更妙的是，他们未必需要为每一家倒闭门店再开一家新店——失去的销量往往会自然流向龙头们，提高门店密度与效率，进一步提升经营杠杆。同时，这也让他们有更多机会投入资本，这正是我们在高 ROIC 企业中最乐见的。

Zack

Awesome. And the final question we ask is, given your studies and the time you've spent with this business as a shareholder of record for many years, what have you learned from both an investor's perspective and an operator's perspective that can be taken away from the AutoZone story?

扎克

太棒了。我们最后一个问题是：鉴于你多年来作为登记股东对这家企业的研究和投入，从投资者和经营者的角度，你从 AutoZone 的故事中学到了哪些经验教训？

Freddie

This stock's taught me a lot of things. It's been a long-term shareholding of mine. I think the few things that stand out are get a deep understanding of your business, the competitive environment in which it operates, the customers—the customer economics is key. You've asked a few questions around that. I think that's absolutely key, and really distribution. Distribution is true for every industry. Whether it's podcasts, auto parts, investor management, you need to look at how this business truly distributes and what it really sells. It's not just selling a battery, it's selling a service and inventory availability. So, I think digging into that competitive environment, which is often ignored because it's so qualitative and so hard to really pin down, I think that's something we do on every stock and sector we now look at, really understanding that. I think culture is something that can often be quite dismissed. And often when you hear about culture, it's in some Harvard Business Review write-up or something along those lines. And actually it can ring the bell of the top of that culture and it can be much worse than it sounds underneath. This is a company that doesn't really champion their own culture in too many press reviews. It's a bottom-up way of trying to lend their service a better hand. And they make sure that their staff are well trained to look after customers. And that's what culture really means to this business.

弗雷迪

这只股票给了我许多启示。我长期持有它。我认为最突出的几点是：深入了解你的业务、它所处的竞争环境以及客户——客户经济性至关重要。你刚才提到过几次这一点，我认为这确实是关键；另外就是分销。分销对任何行业都适用，无论是播客、汽车零件还是资产管理，都要审视企业真正的分销方式及其真正出售的东西。它不仅在卖电池，更在卖服务和库存可得性。因此，深入研究常被忽视、难以量化的竞争环境，是我们现在分析每只股票、每个行业时都会做的事情。我认为文化常被低估，人们谈文化时常引用《哈佛商业评论》之类的文章，可能将文化夸大到顶点，而实际情况却不及其表面。这家公司并未在媒体上大肆宣扬文化，而是自下而上地提升服务，确保员工经过良好培训以照顾顾客——这才是文化在这家企业中的真正意义。

Freddie

On the floor and in the C-suite it's obviously much more around that capital allocation. And I think this is the business that has taught me the benefits of buybacks, as a shareholder. It's something we look for—not in every industry; in many industries, it would be a poor idea to be doing buybacks. But industries that are characterized by wide moats, explicable and demonstrable trends in the underlying business—these mature-sounding industries are ripe for buybacks. And I think this business has demonstrated that the best it can. And the final one I think is when you are faced with a bear case, we are very long term in the way we think and the way we invest. But bear cases come along a lot. You should be challenged by them; you can't be dismissive of them, but likewise, you have to look through your own modeling, your own numbers, your own expectations. And I think if you've done that qualitative work on the structure of the industry and you understand how they're going to deploy capital, you have the ability, at least, to look through bear cases where it's right.

弗雷迪

在门店一线和公司高层层面，更重要的显然是资本配置。我作为股东正是从这家公司学到了回购的好处。并非所有行业都适合回购，许多行业这么做反而糟糕。但对于拥有宽护城河、基本面趋势明确可验证的成熟行业，回购正当其时，而这家公司已将这点展现得淋漓尽致。最后一点，当你面对空头论点时——我们始终以长期视角思考和投资——空头观点常常出现，你应该接受挑战，不能草率否定，但同样要检视自己的模型、数据和预期。我认为，只要你完成了对行业结构的定性研究，弄清楚他们如何部署资本，至少就有能力在适当情况下透视空头论点。

And I think the EV threat and the online threat are real and present and dangerous. But we understand them. We believe—famous last words—and we believe that this business can manage very, very well through them for the next decade and beyond. And I think having that willingness to think slightly differently comes from that understanding of, frankly, a very simple business in a very simple industry, just executed really, really well.

我认为电动车威胁和线上威胁确实存在且具危险性，但我们理解它们。也许这是“临终名言”，但我们相信这家公司在未来十年乃至更久都能很好地应对这些挑战。我想，这种敢于稍微不同思考的意愿，源自对一个本质上非常简单的行业、极其简单的业务模式的深刻理解——只是执行得极其出色。

Zack

Well, Freddy, this was fantastic. A fascinating story of continuing to execute and being incredible capital allocators. And if you run your business incredibly well and allocate capital well, the returns to shareholders are generally fantastic. Thanks for taking the time. That was great.

扎克

好的，弗雷迪，这太精彩了。这是一个持续执行、卓越资本配置的迷人故事。如果你把业务运营得极佳、资本配置得当，股东回报一般都会非常出色。感谢你的时间，分享很棒。

Freddie

Thanks very much.

弗雷迪

非常感谢。