February 12, 2016 (UPDATED February 15 – in bold) — The U.S. junk-bond market may be giving the folks at Vista Equity Partners and Solera Holdings some heartburn this week. According to a report in Reuters this morning, Solera is having trouble convincing investors to participate in $4 billion debt sale to back its acquisition…
February 6, 2016 — Group 1 Automotive continues to trim its presence in the Northeast divesting of three dealerships there within the last several weeks. Meanwhile, the nation’s third largest dealer group announced this week it has completed the acquisition of the 12-store Spire Automotive Group located in metro London in the United Kingdom. At the end of… Continue Reading
January 28, 2016 — The nearly three-year patent dispute between Westlake Financial and the Credit Acceptance Corporation is finally over. And the news wasn’t good for CAC as the Patent Trial and Review Board ruled this week that several claims it makes regarding the disputed patent fall under the Cover Business Method (CBM) classification, essentially…
January 20, 2016 — The domains are going quick — more than 700 auto-specific domains have purchased from Cars Registry, a joint venture between XYZ and Uniregistry, since the “sunrise” period began on December 9 of last year. Today marks the beginning of public availability of urls with the .Car, .Cars and .Auto extensions. Several dealership… Continue Reading
January 16, 2016 — General Motors’ Factory Pre-owned Collection, announced last week during the North American International Auto Show, looks to be an intriguing opportunity for the automaker’s dealers, but it does raise questions. There are benefits, but numerous dealers have emailed TBR expressing concern that GM is trying to provide a solution to a problem that doesn’t…
January 18, 2016 — When the stock market closed Friday, shares of the seven publicly traded automotive retail companies (including Carmax) had lost on average, 27% of their value since the market’s opening for the year two weeks earlier on January 4. Wall Street finished the week with its roughest two-week opening of any year…
January 15, 2016 — Following several months of negotiations, Cox Automotive and CDK Global finally signed an agreement today securing Cox’s participation in CDK’s Third-Party Access (3PA) Program. The agreementt should eliminate any uncertainty in the market about whether Cox’s solutions would be able to integrate with CDK’s dealer management systems (DMS). The agreement also standardizes… Continue Reading
January 15, 2016 — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles came out fighting late yesterday in a strongly worded release rejecting the allegations of falsifying sales made in a civil lawsuit filed this week by dealer Ed Napleton. In the statement, FCA called the lawsuit “nothing more than the product of two disgruntled dealers who have failed to perform… Continue Reading
January 14, 2016 — Vendor acquisition activity in 2015 was brisk with 30 transactions getting across the finish line. But even though the number of acquisitions doubled what the industry saw in 2014, the total dollar figure was significantly less in 2015. More than $30 billion in equity changed hands in 2014 as several deals…
January 14, 2016 — (UPDATED JAN. 15, 2016 7:10 AM — FCA’s Response Below) Hang on to your seats — the latest automotive scandal is beginning to erupt, and this one is going to rock the automotive industry. The news broke yesterday that the Napleton Automotive Group filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Illinois… Continue Reading