In a presentation expected to describe why sales are on the rise, AutoNation chairman and chief executive officer Mike Jackson is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the annual luncheon of the Washington Area New Automobile Dealers Association.

The event is set to begin at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in the nation’s capital.

WANADA officials indicated Jackson’s speech titled, “The Auto Recovery Has Begun,” will detail the reasons for a projected upswing in sales and dealership activity.

Jackson began his industry career as a technician at a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Cherry Hill, N.J., and after stops at Euro Motorcars and MBUSA, joined AutoNation as CEO in 1999 and rose to chairman in 2002.

Though still challenged by Japanese inventory issues in the third quarter, AutoNation’s net income from continuing operations soared more than 20 percent, and the retailer achieved its best-ever third quarter for earnings per share from continuing operations.

AutoNation said it pulled in operating income of $144.1 million, which marked a 19.2-percent increase from the year-ago period. This was thanks largely to hefty gross margins for new-vehicle and F&I sales,

Net income from continuing operations totaled $71 million, up 20.3 percent year-over-year.

“This quarter, we once again demonstrated that our diversified business model is the right strategy as well our ability to rapidly adapt to change and institute effectively in a changing marketplace,” Jackson said during an earnings conference call. “In light of the Japanese supply constraint, we adjusted our operating plan to optimize our inventory maximize gross profit.”

Jackson noted in the earnings release that AutoNation “continued to deliver solid double-digit growth in operating income in the third quarter, which was driven by strong gross margins in new vehicles and finance and insurance.”

“While shipments from the Japanese manufacturers improved in the third quarter, inventory levels of these vehicles remained constrained,” he continued. “We would expect that the improving supply environment will result in lower margins on these vehicles in the fourth quarter.”

The retailer is scheduled to get a shipment of more than 30,000 Japanese units in the fourth quarter. Ordinarily, Jackson said, the company would have been happy with 27,000. In the third quarter, the company received less than 20,000 Japanese vehicles “and even less than that in the second quarter,” Jackson stressed.

New-inventory levels for Japanese brands at AutoNation are expected to hit “normal” levels in the first quarter, possibly into the second, “depending on how the selling rate goes,” Jackson said in the call.

“The point is we’ll have shipments, we’ll have good, fresh inventory that’s aligned with what customers want. But to really restock is going to take some kind of shipments above 100 percent of market demand,” he added.

In addition to Jackson’s presentation and industry discussion, there will be a dealer association report on the industry and WANADA activities led by association chairman George Doetsch.

WANADA’s annual luncheon draws hundreds of dealers from across the metro region and keynotes from such luminaries as James Carville and Mary Matalin, George Will and Knight Kiplinger.

Headquartered in the District of Columbia, WANADA is the new-vehicle dealer group in the metropolitan Washington area. WANADA’s mission is to promote the business and the success of its dealer members and advocate on its behalf before the industry, in the media and in the public policy process at all levels. It does this with large-scale annual events, such as The Washington Auto Show, a premier event known as the “public policy show” on the global auto show circuit.

WANADA trains and develops dealership personnel under the auspices of its educational foundation, Automobile Dealer Education Institute (ADEI). Through The Community Support Foundation, WANADA has been a major supporter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and Greater Washington Boys and Girls Clubs, The Washington Regional Alcohol Program for sober driving and The Greater Washington (Capitol Hill) Soap Box Derby.

For more details, visit WANADA.org.