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 28, 2015 — The acquisitions in the automotive retail space keep coming. The latest is J.D. Power and Associates’ acquisition of NADA Used Car Guides, announced minutes ago. It’s a move that will shake up the used vehicle pricing guides space, which includes Hearst Corporation’s Black Book and Kelley Blue Book, which is owned by…
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…
April 27, 2015 — So far this year, there have been nine (updated from eight) acquisitions in the automotive retail vendor space, the latest deal being completed today by Reynolds and Reynolds. Today’s deal comes on the heels of last week’s announcement that Solera Holdings had acquired DME Automotive. Meanwhile, we know of at least another three deals…
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
