August 10, 2022 — The Inflation Reduction Bill is not yet law, but it may be as soon as this weekend. The impact on dealers will be immediate. Members of the House of Representatives are slated to return to the chamber on Friday to vote on the version the Senate passed 51-50 on Sunday. The… Continue Reading
For Autovate 2018 Attendees September 20, 2018 — Two years ago, Amazon launched its Amazon Vehicles page setting off a flurry of industry predictions the tech giant was preparing to upend and take over the automotive retail space. Not so fast. Amazon is preparing a huge push into automotive, but it’s not going to be… Continue Reading
November 7, 2018 — More than 60 deals have been completed through October this year, making 2018 the most active year on record for investment and acquisition activity among vendors serving the automotive retail space. (NOTE: This is a partial report made available to attendees of AUTOVATE 2018). Despite the record activity this year, the total… Continue Reading
December 11, 2017 — This afternoon, Cox Automotive and several of its subsidiaries filed a $200 million lawsuit against CDK Global alleging ongoing antitrust and unlawful competition. The suit is the latest in a series of legal actions taken against CDK and Reynolds and Reynolds since February this year by competitors and dealers complaining about… Continue Reading
November 16, 2017 — CallRevu, a dealership call management software firm founded by Chip King and David Boice in 2010, will announce later today that it has entered into an investment relationship with Serent Capital. As part of the investment in CallRevu, Serent is acquiring the interest held by marketing agency Team Velocity, which is… Continue Reading
October 21, 2017 – On Friday, Scott Painter’s newest venture, an online used car leasing app called Fair, announced it has secured offers for nearly $1 billion in combined capital from two separate groups of investors. The $1 billion is in addition to a soon to-be-completed round of financing from a group that includes BMW i…
January 2, 2017 — Beck Chevrolet scored another big legal win last week in its five-year battle with General Motors over how it measures sales effectiveness of its dealers and the decision could have a far reaching impact on the overall relationship manufacturers have with their dealers. The ruling last week by New York’s Second… Continue Reading
Various media reports last week confirm Cadillac is offering buyouts to 400 of its smallest dealerships. The news isn’t a surprise as we speculated numerous times since September 2014 that Cadillac Chief Johan de Nysschen would try to reduce the number of 925 Cadillac dealers down to 400 to 500 stores. The buyouts follow Cadillac’s…
July 18, 2016 — Brian MacDonald’s turn around plan for CDK Global appears to be off to a good start, according to preliminary results for its fourth quarter fiscal year earnings (ending June 30, 2016). MacDonald, who was appointed president and CEO of CDK earlier this year, stepped up the company’s transformation plan that was… Continue Reading
September 30, 2015 — The Department of Justice yesterday approved Cox Automotive’s acquisition of Dealertrack provided Dealertrack completes the sale of its Inventory+ solution. The DOJ is requiring the divestiture of Inventory+ because it believes allowing Cox to own both vAuto and Inventory+ would provide Cox with too much of that market , and hence, limit… Continue Reading