LKQ Transformed Into a Steady Eddie: How Seizert Capital Continues Building a Value Position

Seizert Capital Partners has made another substantial move in auto parts supplier LKQ, a company that has evolved from a high-growth enterprise into what many investors view as a steady eddie—a reliable, predictable investment generating consistent returns through dividends and share buybacks. According to a recent SEC filing dated February 2, 2026, the investment firm expanded its LKQ holdings during the fourth quarter of 2025, signaling continued confidence in the company’s value proposition even as the automotive industry navigates significant structural changes.

The Latest Investment Move: Seizert Expands LKQ Stake in Q4

Seizert Capital Partners increased its position in LKQ by 503,998 shares during the fourth quarter, with an estimated transaction value of approximately $15.20 million based on quarterly average pricing. This expansion brought the fund’s total LKQ holding to 2,178,703 shares, valued at $65.80 million as of December 31, 2025. The quarter-end stake grew by $14.65 million overall—a figure reflecting both the additional shares purchased and price fluctuations in the stock over the period.

This accumulation represents a 0.64% change relative to Seizert Capital Partners’ 13F reportable assets under management, though the move underscores the firm’s deliberate strategy. Despite growing from $50 per share to $33 over seven consecutive quarters of buying, the fund has stayed the course, adding to its position consistently. LKQ now accounts for 2.78% of the fund’s total portfolio AUM, placing it outside the fund’s top five holdings but still representing a meaningful conviction bet.

Building a Reliable Income Stream: LKQ’s Dividend and Buyback Strategy

LKQ exemplifies the steady eddie archetype—a company that has fundamentally shifted its value proposition from growth to capital returns. What makes this transition compelling is the combination of shareholder-friendly policies: management has been aggressively repurchasing shares at these depressed valuations, reducing the share count by 3.6% annually over the past five years. Simultaneously, the company maintains and grows a dividend that now yields a substantial 3.63%, providing investors with both price appreciation potential and current income.

At the February 2, 2026 closing price of $32.52, LKQ trades at just 1.3 times book value and a multiple of 12 times free cash flow—valuations that leave room for the company to validate its price without requiring significant growth. For a steady eddie investor seeking predictable returns rather than explosive upside, these metrics offer reassurance that the downside risk is contained by underlying asset value and cash generation capability.

Valuation Makes the Case: Why LKQ Fits a Steady Eddie Portfolio

The investment case for LKQ rests on recognizing that it has matured into a different kind of opportunity. Historical context matters: LKQ generated annual sales growth averaging 8% over the past decade, but that rate decelerated to 3% in 2025. While still outpacing market averages, this slowdown reflects broader industry headwinds—headwinds that explain both the stock’s decline and why Seizert continues to accumulate at lower prices.

For investors who view LKQ as a steady eddie play, the valuation is the critical lever. The company doesn’t need boatloads of growth to justify its current price. Instead, steady eddie investors are banking on LKQ maintaining its market position, continuing share buybacks at attractive levels, and distributing growing dividends to shareholders. This is capital efficiency, not capital growth—and in a mature, cyclical industry, that distinction matters enormously.

Seizert’s top five holdings—Goldman Sachs ($86.08 million, 3.6% of AUM), Wells Fargo ($77.81 million, 3.3% of AUM), Qualcomm ($76.33 million, 3.2% of AUM), JPMorgan Chase ($75.37 million, 3.2% of AUM), and Alphabet ($74.50 million, 3.1% of AUM)—suggest a value-focused approach across financial services, technology, and selective industrials. LKQ fits that philosophy: it’s trading at depressed multiples, throws off cash, and has management aligned with shareholders through aggressive buyback programs.

The Business Behind the Stock: LKQ’s Market Position

LKQ operates as a dominant distributor of replacement parts, components, and systems serving the vehicle repair and maintenance ecosystem across North America and Europe. The company’s multi-segment model generates revenue through wholesale distribution to collision repair shops, mechanical repair facilities, dealerships, and retail customers. Its diversified product portfolio spans body panels, glass, salvage parts, and specialty components—all products with steady underlying demand regardless of broader economic conditions.

This business model provides the backbone for steady eddie characteristics: the company serves essential, recurring functions in vehicle maintenance and repair. Whether the economy is booming or slowing, vehicles need repairs, and repair shops need parts. LKQ’s scale and multi-channel distribution network create competitive moats that protect market share and pricing power—particularly in the aftermarket and recycled parts segments where LKQ is the acknowledged leader.

The company generated $13.96 billion in revenue (TTM) and $697 million in net income (TTM), providing context for the profitability and cash generation that funds both dividends and buybacks. For a steady eddie investor, these scale metrics and profitability demonstrate that LKQ isn’t a turnaround story—it’s an established, cash-generative business offering modest but reliable returns.

The Risk Factor: Autonomous Vehicles and Market Uncertainty

Yet the steady eddie thesis faces a meaningful long-term threat: the potential disruption of autonomous vehicles. This is not a near-term concern, but it casts a shadow over LKQ’s long-term market size. The company’s business fundamentally depends on vehicles requiring repair, maintenance, and parts—activities that could be dramatically curtailed if autonomous vehicles become the dominant form of transportation in major cities across North America and Europe.

To be clear, this disruption is not imminent. Autonomous vehicles have not mastered wintertime driving conditions in northern climates—a fact that will preserve demand for human-driven vehicle repairs for years to come. Furthermore, the transition to AV-dominated transportation will occur gradually, if it occurs at all at the scale currently imagined. Still, LKQ’s deceleration from 8% annual sales growth to 3% already reflects early-stage concerns about the company’s addressable market.

For a steady eddie investor, the key question is whether LKQ can carve out a sustainable niche in an evolving automotive landscape. Given current valuations, the company doesn’t need explosive growth to reward shareholders—but it does need to maintain its market position and avoid a more precipitous decline in repair demand. Seizert’s continued accumulation suggests the fund believes this threshold is likely to be met, at least over the medium term.

The steady eddie appeal of LKQ ultimately rests on the simplicity of its value proposition: a profitable, cash-generative business trading at depressed multiples with management actively returning capital to shareholders. For investors seeking reliable income and moderate capital appreciation rather than outsized upside, the case for viewing LKQ as a steady eddie has strengthened as growth slowed and valuation compressed.