Group 1 Automotive, Inc., an international, Fortune 300 automotive retailer with 204 dealerships located in the U.S. and U.K., announced its board of directors increased the company’s common stock repurchase authorization by $130 million to $250 million, and also declared an increase to the quarterly cash dividend.   

“Our strong cash flow and balance sheet continues to enable significant capital deployment in 2022.  Growing our U.S. and U.K. businesses while also returning capital to our shareholders remain our top capital allocation priorities,” said Earl J. Hesterberg, Group 1’s president and chief executive officer.

The company announced that its board of directors increased the company’s common stock share repurchase authorization by $130 million to $250 million. The company also updated their year-to-date repurchase activity of 1,546,856 shares of common stock at an average price of $176.80 for a total of $273.5 million, which represents 9.0 percent of Group 1’s outstanding share count at Jan. 1, 2022. Purchases may be made from time to time, based on market conditions, legal requirements, and other corporate considerations, in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions. The company expects that any repurchase of shares will be funded by cash from operations. Repurchased shares will be held in treasury.

Group 1’s board of directors also declared a cash dividend of $0.38 per share for the second quarter of 2022. The dividend represents an increase of 2.7%, or $0.01 per share, from the first quarter of 2022, and will be payable on September 15, 2022, to stockholders of record as of September 1, 2022.