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Sonic Automotive

SAH on NYSE. Auto dealers & gasoline stations. Market value $1.6bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Some use the latest annual report instead, as marked. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

Capital spending looks too small to be complete, so we leave free cash flow out.

Recent profit includes a big one-time charge, so we price the company excluding that charge.

Should I look at this?

Not a fit for our list right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See Retail & consumer stocks that passed both tests

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
annual report to December 2025
n/a

We could not compute this from the filings.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026, without the one-off
5.0×cheap

You pay 5.0 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
11.9%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 12 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 61 of 100. Price score: 83 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$61.00 a share, 13% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $54.11 to $113.67.

Dividend: 2.2% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
20212022202320242025
Revenue
$12.4bn$14.0bn$14.4bn$14.2bn$15.2bn
Operating margin
4.3%2.2%2.9%3.2%2.4%
Debt to equity
1.632.222.181.831.87
Shares outstanding
0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn0.03bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positiveNot enough data
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)6 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt1.87× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 9.2% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 20% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $3.9 billion last quarter, up 8% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $57 million, after a loss of $46 million a year ago.
  • It keeps 3 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, about the same as a year earlier.
  • 6% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
  • Debt is $2.1 billion more than cash, up from $1.8 billion a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in 3 of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$3.5bn
December 2024$3.9bn
March 2025$3.7bn
June 2025$3.7bn
September 2025$4.0bn
December 2025$3.9bn
March 2026$3.7bn
June 2026$3.9bn
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$74m
December 2024$59m
March 2025$71m
June 2025-$46m
September 2025$47m
December 2025$47m
March 2026$61m
June 2026$57m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
23 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
29 October 2026

Who owns it

4 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 4 last quarter. 237 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26

Sold out this quarter

Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

3 investors own more than 5%.

  • David Bruton Smith
    at least 42.3%
    (filed with 4 related holders)
    Since 12 June 2026
    What they said

    Item 4 of the Schedule 13D is hereby amended and supplemented by adding the following: The Reporting Persons filed an initial Schedule 13D on November 19, 1997. The Schedule 13D was amended from time to time to reflect, among other things, additional purchases and sales of…

    Read the filing
  • BlackRock, Inc.
    Passive investor
    10.2%
    Since 31 March 2025
  • 6.1%−1.4 pts
    Since 30 June 2025
  • The Vanguard Group
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 13 March 2026

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 2 sold $10m, $10m of it under preset trading plans.

  • DYKE JEFF
    President, Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    10 June 2026
    Shares
    35,114
    Price
    $85.22
    Value
    $3m
  • DYKE JEFF
    President, Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    9 June 2026
    Shares
    14,886
    Price
    $85.13
    Value
    $1m
  • DYKE JEFF
    President, Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    8 June 2026
    Shares
    50,000
    Price
    $82.97
    Value
    $4m
  • Byrd Heath
    EVP and CFO
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    2 June 2026
    Shares
    5,061
    Price
    $85.00
    Value
    $430,185
  • Byrd Heath
    EVP and CFO
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    28 May 2026
    Shares
    9,526
    Price
    $85.00
    Value
    $809,710

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.