September 8, 2023 — Asbury Automotive is acquiring the Jim Koons automotive dealership group for $1.2 billion. The transaction is expected to close late this year or in early 2024.

(Read TBR’s analysis of the deal and the pricing – written September 7th).

The deal, which will be the third largest in history, includes $740 million in goodwill (Blue Sky) and another $417 million for real estate. The total enterprise value of the deal will go up once the new and used inventory and fixed assets are added in at a price to be determined at the transaction’s closing.

We wrote about the pending deal earlier this week and had pegged the price to be between $1.1 billion and $1.5 billion accounting for a wide spread due to the uncertainty of the real estate.

Asbury is buying all of the assets including new-car 20 dealerships located in in Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia selling Buick, GMC, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Lexus, Mercedes Benz, and Volvo brands. Asbury is also getting six collision centers and one of the highest volume Toyota and Stellantis dealerships in the US.

Koons ranks 23rd on the 2022 Automotive News Top 150 Dealer Groups list — which is based on total new car volume — and generated $3.2 billion in total revenue last year. Based on total revenue, Koons is the 12 largest group in the country. Asbury, which generated $15.4 billion last year, ranks fifth on the Automotive News list — both in new car sales and total revenue.

Kerrigan Advisors represented Koons in the transaction.