March 28, 2025 — After months of speculation and delays, President Trump’s 25% automotive tariffs on all imported vehicles are set to take effect at 12:01 am Thursday, April 3. President Trump cited national security concerns in Wednesday’s White House proclamation as the reason for the tariffs. According to information from the Department of Commerce… Continue Reading
August 18, 2024 — CDK Global has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by 25 dealers seven years ago as part of a series of antitrust allegations. The lawsuit alleges that the DMS vendor conspired with competitor Reynolds and Reynolds to eliminate competition in the Data Integration Services market,… Continue Reading
August 13, 2024 – A group of 10 VC firms participated in a $3.7 million seed round in Chaiz, the industry’s first comparison marketplace for extended car warranties. Auto and tech industry veterans Ryan Hartman, Philippe Koenig, and Reto Bolliger, launched the Austin-based startup which is focused on bringing transparency, choice, and digitization to the extended car warranty market. It is… Continue Reading
August 8, 2024 — Tomball, TX-based 1876 Partners acquired Maverick Document Signings, Inc. (Mavsign) this week. Founded in 2007, Mavsign, led by CEO Jeff Eichelberger, grew into one of the country’s leading solutions for remote document closing, ID technology, fraud detection and mitigation services for automotive and recreational dealerships. The company has managed more than… Continue Reading
August 5, 2024 — The world’s economy looks much different than it did last Wednesday. Overnight, Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock index plunged more than 4,400 points – 12.5% – the biggest drop since 1987, forcing a suspension of trading. The Nikkei’s Monday decline follows a series of troubling economic news in the U.S. at the… Continue Reading
July 9, 2024—Impel is announcing this morning that it has acquired Outsell for more than $100 million cash plus equity. The deal, closed in late June, capped off a busy month of acquisition and investment activity in the auto retail space, during which nine transactions were announced. The acquisition pairs Impel, an early pioneer in… Continue Reading
June 30, 2024 — As expected, automotive software vendor Solera filed publicly Friday for an initial public offering with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The Vista Equity-owned company filed confidentially in May indicating a likely IPO later this summer. Friday’s paperwork did not disclose the price or number of shares Vista plans to sell… Continue Reading
June 27, 2024 — Late Thursday afternoon, CDK Global began rebooting the systems for a test group of dealers, following a two-pronged cyber attack more than a week ago. (UPDATED July 11 — According to a CNN report, CDK likely paid a ransom of $25 million to the hackers on June 21 — in numerous… Continue Reading
June 26, 2024 — Here we go again. We’re nearly 25 years into this century, and already, the industry has had to grapple with at least five events that have severely impacted operations at U.S. dealerships and the vendors serving them. And again, dealers and the industry will survive. Not since 1918 – 1945, when… Continue Reading
May 31, 2024 — Automotive News recently published its annual list of the industry’s top 150 dealer groups. Each year, I study the list to see the trends, and to determine whether any seismic industry changes may be lurking beneath the radar. Until a couple of years ago when Ward’s stopped publishing it, the annual… Continue Reading