December 16, 2015 — McLarty Automotive acquired four dealerships this week from the Asbury Automotive Group in Little Rock, AR. The purchase gives the McLarty group 13 dealerships — 11 that have been acquired since the end of October. The four dealerships are North Point Nissan (McLarty Nissan of Little Rock); North Little Rock Nissan (McLarty… Continue Reading
October 28, 2015 — The Banks Report has confirmed the McLarty Automotive Group has acquired seven stores selling 16 franchises of the Joe Machens dealership group in Columbia, MO, from owners Gary and Rusty Drewing. Charles Oglesby, the former chairman and CEO of the Asbury Automotive Group, has been named the CEO of the group. The… Continue Reading
October 24, 2015 — AutoNation is on a buying spree this year. It is set to announce early this next week that is acquiring the Allen Samuels Group in Texas. The acquisition follows its August purchase of 16 stores — 13 from Carl Gregory in Georgia and three in Maryland owned by Charles Fenwick. (TBR has…
October 15, 2015 — Fremont Private Holdings is acquiring Morrie Wagener’s 11 dealership-group in Minnesota. Partnering with Fremont is Karl Schmidt, who has run Morrie’s Automotive Group since 2009 as its CEO. Fremont, which is the investment firm established by the family that owns construction company Bechtel Corp., has been rumored for about two years to… Continue Reading
September 18. 2015 — Following up on July and August’s torrid pace of 40 dealerships each month changing owners, the first 18 days of September has had at least 20 stores with new owners — including 11 this week alone. (That does not include the 11 Sam Swope stores AMSI is expected to close on in the…
September 9, 2015 — A torrid July and August in the dealership buy-sell market saw 81 rooftops change hands bringing the 2015 total to 322 through the first eight months of the year — just two shy of all of 2014’s total. Averaging about 40.25 buy-sells a month this year, the industry is on pace to…
September 4, 2015 — We’re putting the finishing touches on the July and August dealership buy-sell updates. It has been a vibrant and active summer, and as we enter the fall months, several large deals are rumored to be nearing the finish line, including the AMSI’s pending acquisition of 11 stores of the Sam Swope… Continue Reading
August 18, 2015 — AutoNation announced this morning its biggest acquisition by revenue since 2001. The nation’s largest dealer group is acquiring 16 dealerships — 13 from Carl Gregory Enterprises and three stores owned by the Valley Motors Auto Group. Combined, the stores generated more than $600 million in revenue in 2014 on nearly 20,000 new and used…
July 13, 2015 — The Holman Automotive Group acquired Princeton BMW MINI in New Jersey today from the Asbury Automotive Group. It is Holman’s second acquisition in the last several weeks as it acquired Audi of Willow Grove outside of Philadelphia in June. Holman operates approximately 22 franchises located in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida. The… Continue Reading
July 11, 2015 — Headlines in the trade press in January hyped the increasing involvement private equity would play in automotive retail — specifically in the acquisition of dealerships. On the heels of Warren Buffett’s announcement of that Berkshire Hathaway was buying the 81-store Van Tuyl automotive group (a deal that ended up being for… Continue Reading