Toronto, Ontario — This week, Uni-Select reports its second-quarter financial results, Toyota Canada claims record-breaking July sales numbers and U.S. President Joe Biden says he plans for 50 percent of the nation’s new vehicle sales to be electric.
Uni-Select says up, up and away
Uni-Select reported its second-quarter financial results last week, reporting “strong market recovery from the worst of the pandemic” as well as “sequential improvement in business,” according to the company’s press release.
Uni-Select says revenues increased 38 percent to $416 million, while EBITDA more than doubled to reach $34 million, or a margin of 8.2 percent.
“This strong profitability combined with active cash management translated into cash flow from operations of $43 million which we used primarily to reduce our total net debt,” said Brian McManus, Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Uni-Select. “In June, we successfully amended our credit agreement providing us with increased flexibility while meaningfully reducing our cost of borrowing. Had we amended the credit agreement at the beginning of the second quarter, we estimate our net finance costs would have been about $2 million lower.”
As for the immediate future, Uni-Select is poised to align its three businesses—FinishMaster, Canadian Automotive Group and The Parts Alliance—with its vision while identifying growth opportunities.
“We expect 2021 to be a good year, but remain cautiously optimistic as we progressively recover from the continued uncertainty surround the pandemic.”
Toyota Canada touts successful sales
Toyota Canada set an overall July sales record last month, with 23,845 vehicles sold, up 19.4 percent from July 2020 and 10 percent from July 2019, the automaker said last week in an online statement.
Toyota reported 21,237 units of its own brand-bearing vehicles sold, led by the RAV4, Highlander, Tacoma and C-HR, all of which recorded record months.
The OEM’s luxury division also reported record sales—its fifth consecutive month of doing so, apparently. The luxury division sold 2,608 units in Q2 2021, with sales led by the Lexus UX, NX and RX, and RX Suvs.
Electrified vehicles accounted for 27.9 percentnt of Toyota’s overall sales in July, including new July records for Corolla Hybrid and Highlander Hybrid.
Toyota was recently touted as one of the only mainstream automakers with a North American presence to voice its resistance against an all-electric lineup. Japan-based CEO Akio Toyoda called zero-emission vehicles “overhyped” last year, and has also said Japan would run out of electricity in the summer if all cars were running on electric power.
“When politicians are out there saying, ‘Let’s get rid of all cars using gasoline,’ do they understand this?” he said at a year-end news conference in December 2020.
Biden to let off the gas in 2030
United States President Joe Biden has voiced a goal for 50 percent of all new U.S. vehicle sales to be electric by 2030.
Last Thursday, the White House outlined its plan to tackle the climate crisis by cutting emissions from vehicles, with Biden set to sign an executive order demanding that 50 percent of all new cars and trucks sold by the end of the decade be powered by electric batteries.
At the White House with carmakers and unions on Thursday, Biden said the future of the car industry is “electric, and there is no turning back.”
“The question is whether we will lead or fall behind in the race for the future,” said the president, who stood in front of two electric SUVs. “We used to lead in this technology and we can lead again, But we need to move fast. The rest of the world is moving ahead, we’ve just got to step up.”
