Advance Auto Parts

Advance Auto Parts is a North American retailer and distributor of automotive replacement parts, accessories, batteries, and maintenance items serving both professional repair shops and do‑it‑yourself customers. The company sells through its Advance Auto Parts stores, Carquest locations, and Worldpac branches, which together give it coverage in everyday retail corridors as well as in trade areas heavily used by professional installers.

The business began in 1932, when Arthur Taubman bought three stores in Roanoke, Virginia and began operating them as Advance Stores. From that small regional base, the company grew across the Mid‑Atlantic and Southeast over the following decades. A pivotal milestone came in 2001, when Advance Auto Parts completed its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker AAP. The IPO followed a series of expansion moves, including the 1998 acquisition of Western Auto’s Parts America stores, which significantly increased the chain’s presence in the Midwest and set the stage for a national footprint.

Growth continued through large acquisitions in the 2000s and 2010s. In 2001, Advance Auto Parts acquired Discount Auto Parts, adding more than 670 locations and deepening its coverage in Florida and the broader Southeast. In 2014, the company acquired General Parts International, parent of Carquest and Worldpac, in a transaction that created a combined business of roughly 5,300 locations and more than 70,000 employees across the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. That deal firmly established Advance Auto Parts as one of the largest automotive aftermarket parts providers in North America and gave the company a multi‑banner platform that serves both walk‑in retail customers and professional garages.

As of February 2024, Advance Auto Parts operated approximately 4,777 stores and 321 Worldpac branches across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and select Caribbean markets. The network includes neighborhood retail stores that sell directly to consumers, commercial delivery operations that supply independent repair shops and fleets, and professional‑focused distribution branches. This mix allows the company to support both quick‑turn retail demand and frequent, high‑volume orders from professional installers.

Over roughly the past five years, the brand has shifted from aggressive unit expansion to a more selective and profitability‑focused approach. Management has emphasized a strategic transformation that includes improving margins, strengthening the professional business, and optimizing the existing store base. In practice, that has meant closing underperforming locations, relocating stores within trade areas, and investing in higher‑productivity markets rather than pursuing rapid net new store growth. At the same time, Advance Auto Parts has leaned into its Carquest and Worldpac banners to deepen penetration in established automotive corridors and to better serve professional repair customers in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Caribbean markets.

For landlords, brokers, and developers, Advance Auto Parts functions as a long‑tenured, publicly traded tenant with a standardized automotive retail format and a clear focus on core trade areas. The chain typically occupies single‑tenant buildings or end‑cap spaces in neighborhood centers and auto‑oriented corridors, often clustering with other automotive and value‑driven concepts. Its current strategy of refining the portfolio, reinforcing its professional distribution capabilities, and maintaining a selective growth posture supports ongoing interest in visible, easily accessible corner and inline locations in markets with strong automotive repair demand. Ownership of the company is widely held among institutional and public shareholders through its NYSE listing, which adds a layer of transparency and financial reporting that many real estate stakeholders value in a national tenant.