July 29, 2015 — One lawsuit down, several more to go. In what is some much needed good news for online car buying platform TrueCar, it announces it has reached a settlement with Sonic Automotive in a trademark dispute dating back to August 2013. The Banks Report first reported the dispute in September 2013 (TrueCar… Continue Reading
July 7, 2015 — An investor in Dealertrack filed a lawsuit yesterday afternoon seeking to stop Cox Enterprise’s $4 billion acquisition of the Long Island, NY-based technology firm contending the deal prohibits investors from participating in Dealertrack’s projected growth while providing executives with golden parachutes. The suit claims the agreement is the “culmination of a…
July 6, 2015 — Two intriguing investments in recent weeks show that CDK Global and Cox Automotive are looking hard at the growing telematics and connected vehicle space — a sector that many analysts believe will explode in the next year or so. First, Cox Automotive in early June participated in a $6.5 million Series… Continue Reading
July 2, 2015 — In this report The Banks Report analyzes the financials of Cox’s pending acquisition of Dealertrack; why the deal makes sense; and its effect on the industry and other companies. Background Cox Automotive’s pending acquisition of Dealertrack is big on several levels. Not only is the $4 billion deal the biggest acquisition financially… Continue Reading
July 2, 2015 — Its stock price has more than doubled since October, yet CDK is transforming its company. Executives recently announced a series of moves that will have a long term effect on the company’s future. The moves include an ambitious financial plan to return value to shareholders; a new board member who could end… Continue Reading
June 29, 2015 — Over the next several months, we believe the automotive industry will see a more aggressive Cars.com at play in the acquisitions market as its parent company, the newly minted Tegna begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TGNA this morning. Gannett Co., the giant newspaper publishing and…
June 15, 2015 — The big announcement finally happened — Cox Automotive is buying DealerTrack for $4 billion — approximately $63 a share — up from the $39 a share DealerTrack was trading at on Friday. We’ll have our analysis in the next day or so. But this is the biggest deal in the vendor… Continue Reading
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 27, 2015 — UPDATED: First it was non-dealer customers, then it was its dealer customers in California suing TrueCar — now its investors have filed a lawsuit against the online vehicle shopping site. Is it just noise or do the lawsuits indicate a deeper problem for TrueCar? Following last week’s announcement that the California New Car…