April 4, 2018 — Acquisition activity in the dealer website world suddenly has become hot with the third deal since last November. This afternoon, fusionZONE Automotive LLC announced it is acquiring competitor MotorWebs Inc. The acquisition is the 18th automotive retail vendor deal this year and follows Primus Capital’s majority investment into fusionZONE last November.… Continue Reading
April 4, 2018 — A flurry of announcements during the week of the annual National Automobile Dealers Assn.’s convention in late March capped what has been a busy first quarter for M&A activity for automotive retail vendors this year. The 17 investments and acquisitions through March puts the industry on a pace to nearly double… Continue Reading
March 8, 2018 — CDK Global is launching a flexible pricing dealer management system aimed at dealer groups consisting of one or two stores. The new DMS, being called DriveFlex, will be built from the ground up on the Amazon Web Services Cloud platform and will come with a new user-interface while providing for a… Continue Reading
February 26, 2018 — We’re still not through February but there have been 14 investments, acquisitions and mergers already this year with vendors in the automotive retail space, up from two in the first quarter of last year. Seven of the deals have been in the online transaction space where investments have continued a frenzied…
February 14, 2018 — Cars.com announced this morning it is acquiring the Chicago-based automotive retail technology firm Dealer Inspire and its digital advertising agency Launch Digital Marketing (LDM). The acquisition, which is expected to close this month, is the first for Cars.com since it became a stand-alone company after completing its public spinoff from media…
February 6, 2018 — The hot rumor late Friday afternoon has the Carlyle Group and Silver Lake closing in on an acquisition of CDK Global. Company shares jumped in after hours trading Friday night on the news from $66 to $73 so the rumors likely have some teeth. It is possible a deal might not… Continue Reading
Februrary 9, 2018 — Welcome to our fourth annual TBR Automotive Retail Vendor M&A Report. Our M&A reports on vendor acquisition and investment activity are published quarterly along with an annual year-end report. The reports provide insight and analysis of each acquisition, investment and IPO from the previous year including an outlook for the upcoming…
February 1, 2018 — A judicial panel in Miami ruled this morning that five of the antitrust cases in which Reynolds and Reynolds and CDK Global are defendants will be classified under the multi-district litigation and transferred to the Northern District Court in Illinois. The panel issued the ruling after listening to oral arguments from… Continue Reading
January 30, 2018 — Cars.com continues to unwind its affiliate contracts with previous owners which include six major newspaper publishing firms, a relic from the company’s founding 20 years ago. The latest move, announced this morning, converting eight of newspaper publisher tronc’s affiliate markets into Cars.com’s direct sales channel effective February 1. As part of… Continue Reading
January 30, 2018 — Fair announced this morning a strategic partnership with Uber along with the acquisition of the lease portfolio of the ride-hailing firm’s XChange Leasing program. As part of the agreement, Fair will become Uber’s exclusive U.S.leasing partner for drivers leasing vehicles for a month or longer. Financial terms of the acquisition were… Continue Reading