AutoNation lowers Q2 EPS estimate after accounting for cyber incident

AutoNation (NYSE:AN) informed on Monday about the impact of the cyber incident at a third-party provider. The retailer said it had immediately taken precautionary containment measures to protect its systems and data, implemented business continuity plans and conducted a review of possible impact of the incident. The incident resulted in outages at AutoNation (A) DMS and core functions, which can lead to disruption and negative impacts on the business, including productivity.

While access to AutoNation (AN)’s DMS and core functionality has been restored, certain add-on systems and integrations remain unavailable or have limited availability, such as those that help automate ordering, scheduling, payment and reporting processes. AutoNation (AN) expects to complete the restoration of all of these systems and integrations before the end of July. The unavailability or limited availability of these add-on systems and integrations has not had, and is not expected to have, a material impact on AutoNation (AN)’s business.

In terms of financial impact, AutoNation (AN) currently estimates that second quarter earnings per share will be negatively impacted by approximately $1.50 per share, not including any potential recoveries related to the incident. After accounting for the negative impact of the cyber incident, AutoNation (AN) currently estimates that GAAP earnings per share for the quarter will be between $3.15 and $3.30, versus consensus of $4.52.

AutoNation (AN) will release its second quarter results on July 31.