July 2, 2015 — It’s stock price has more than doubled since October, yet CDK is transforming its company. Executives recently announced a series of moves that will have a long term effect on the company’s future. The moves include an ambitious financial plan to return value to shareholders; a new board member who could end…
June 29, 2015 — Over the next several months, we believe the automotive industry will see a more aggressive Cars.com at play in the acquisitions market as its parent company, the newly minted Tegna begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TGNA this morning. Gannett Co., the giant newspaper publishing and…
June 11, 2015 — Since October of 2014, when asked which automotive brands I like during the Q&A sessions following presentations I’ve given, my advice has been to “Sell your Chrysler store today.” Often the response is incredulous — “Sales are through the roof, and we’re making money, why would we sell?” is the question.…
June 7, 2015 — There have been 13 automotive retail vendor acquisitions through the first week of June far outpacing 2014’s total of 19 transactions. The difference this year is that the transactions are much smaller. While last year’s acquisitions, mergers and IPOs involved more than $30 billion in equity in changing hands, according to…
May 22, 2015 — Yesterday, Autobytel announced the acquisition of competitor Dealix for $25 million from CDK Global, confirming a prediction The Banks Report made in February. We have the inside story and a full analysis of the deal and what it means for the industry and Autobytel’s future. Meanwhile, numbers show the leads business may…
May 8, 2015 — The public dealer groups are off to a slow start in 2015 on the acquisition front. Asbury Automotive Group announced its first purchase of the year last night, acquiring Capitol City Nissan in the Atlanta area. The transaction is only the ninth this year completed by the six public groups according to data…
May 7, 2015 — With all the chatter of private equity and names like Warren Buffett getting into the automotive retail space, there have been few large deals completed. Only two transactions for more than eight stores and only six that have been for five or more have been signed since January 2013, according to data compiled… Continue Reading
May 7, 2015 — Audi is testing different car sharing models throughout various international markets, the latest being piloted in the U.S. The Banks Report first reported on March 26, 2014 that Audi was putting together a pilot program in San Francisco similar to its Audi Select initiative in Berlin that allows people to pay a monthly…
January 26, 2015 — Sitting in the San Francisco airport waiting for a flight (after missing my morning flight) and going through nearly 50 pages of notes from last week’s NADA convention and related conferences. I’m not a big theme guy, but on the last day of the convention, that seemed to be the question I heard the… Continue Reading
January 15, 2015 — It’s time for some perspective now that some of the dust has settled from Elon Musk’s explosive appearance in Detroit on Tuesday during which he managed to casually drop at least three bombshells about Tesla. When he first got on stage at the Automotive News World Congress, Tesla’s founder and CEO appeared…
