November 5, 2014 — UPDATED WITH NEW REVENUE INFORMATION — Dealership website chat service firm Contact at Once! has been acquired by LivePerson Inc. (NASDAQ: LPSN) for approximately $65 million. Contact at Once! provides text and chat services for dealership websites in the automotive retail space. It acquired the chat solution of OutSell earlier this year.… Continue Reading
November 3, 2014 –The dealership buy-sell market remains hot through for the year with 200 acquisitions through the third quarter. While Warren Buffett’s announcement brought a renewed sense of energy to the market, it ultimately may dampen potential acquisitions for the next couple of quarters as buyers are content to wait out what is proving to…
November 1, 2014 — A dealership in Great Britain is going to try to sell cars without any salespeople. You read that right — no sales people. The dealership provides iPads located throughout the store for customers to use to complete the entire transaction online, including the financing. The dealership does have “product angels” available… Continue Reading
October 30, 2014 — Sadly, the automotive industry lost one of its shining lights this week when Joe Herman passed away early in the morning on Wednesday October 29. His career spanned more than 40 years, beginning with selling cars at Shrewsbury Volkswagen in New Jersey and ending on the other coast in Vancouver, WA… Continue Reading
October 29, 2014 — Autobytel’s next earnings call with analysts, slated for November 5th, could get interesting. A scathing letter last week from activist investor Ancora Advisors LLC reveals intense dissatisfaction with the current management team and likely will force a sale of Autobytel. The question is, who would buy it? The last month has…
October 29, 2014 — Dealers in the market for a Cadillac franchise may want to tread carefully. A month ago we wrote about what we believe will be a painful forecast for many of Cadillac’s 924 dealers. The brand has a new home in New York and as many as 10 new products coming in…
October 28, 2014 — CDK’s share prices jump as Wall Street welcomes the news of a new investor in the dealership technology vendor. Only trading on NASDAQ just under a month following its spinoff from ADP, dealer technology provider CDK Global already is being targeted by an activist investment group seeking to discuss with management how to…
Mitch Golub announced his retirement as president of Cars.com earlier today in a letter that was sent to employees a few minutes ago. The Gannett Co.’s acquisition of Cars.com was completed a couple of weeks ago at which time Dan Jauernig was named as CEO of Cars.com. Jauernig had been CEO of Classified Ventures, the parent company of Cars.com… Continue Reading
Whatever bounce the automotive retail stocks received from Berkshire Hathaway’s announcement 12 days ago that it was entering the car sales space disappeared quickly on Monday as several firms watched their shares plummet led by Lithia Motor’s drop of more than 20% — from more than $80 to under $64 in less than a day. Lithia’s…
The Hendrick Automotive Group today closed on the acquisition of Sandy Springs Toyota Scion in Atlanta, GA. Barry, Mike and Brad Jackson ran the 35 year old dealership for the family. It’s Hendrick’s 94th dealership — the group just closed two weeks ago on Ted Linhart’s Dominion Chevrolet Buick GMC in Short Pump,, VA. So far… Continue Reading