April 27, 2015 — Solera Holdings announced last week it has acquired marketing firm DME Automotive. It’s the latest in a series a acquisitions and investments in the service and repair space for the industry. It’s a market that has been heating up since Solera jumped into it in late 2013 with an investment/acquisition of AutoPoint…
April 25, 2015 — This week, Gannett Co. announced the new name of the digital and broadcast company that will be created as part of the split with its newspaper business. The split should be completed sometime in the late second quarter or third quarter of this year. Meanwhile, the move likely will position Cars.com as a significant…
This is Section Three of our post 2015 NADA Report. In this section, Cars.com, DealerSocket, Solera Holdings and ELead1One are covered. The entire report, which we will be published in different sections is now over 10,000 words. We decided to break the report into different sections to make it more readable after talking with several subscribers. Section… Continue Reading
This is Section Two of our post 2015 NADA Report. In this section, we evaluate the leading vendors — primarily those in the technology space. Companies covered in this section include CDK Global; DealerTrack Technologies; Cox Automotive; Reynolds and Reynolds; Dominion Dealer Solutions. Section Three will cover Cars.com; DealerSocket; Solera Holdings and ELeadOne. Section Four… Continue Reading
Vendor acquisition activity in the automotive retail space this year will not come close to the mind-blowing $30 billion in equity that changed hands in 2014. So far, through the first week of March, there have been four deals announced ranging from $5 million to more than $190 million. This is Section One of our post…
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 11, 2015 — CDK Global suddenly is attracting the attention of Wall Street investors and analysts following two prominent hedge funds taking activist positions in the company since its IPO and spinoff from ADP in early October. The early returns have been strong — a stock price that began trading in the mid-twenties hit…
December 18, 2014 — DealerTrack today announced it has acquired the international DMS firm incadea for $190.3 million (about $63 million more than incadea’s market cap) using cash on hand and cash from existing credit facilities. The company was once owned by Reynolds and Reynolds from 2003 to 2007. It’s an important deal — and…
December 5, 2015 — DealerTrack apparently likes to make surprise announcements in December. Last year, it announced the acquisition of Dealer.com in what turned out to be a $987 million deal. Yesterday, the Long Island-based dealer technology firm confirmed it is in preliminary discussions to make another acquisition and will announce its decision by or on January 1,…
November 24, 2014 — Teachers in Texas apparently like the financial prospects of franchised car dealerships. One of the country’s largest pension funds, the Teachers Retirement System of Texas is investing in Capital Automotive, a firm that provides sale-leaseback capital to car dealers, through an investment fund established by Capital’s parent Brookfield Property Partners. Brookfield…
