DeBoer: Lithia Motors CEO altered buy-sell landscape

Bryan DeBoer's impact on automotive retail is easy to spot.

Just look at the bustling dealership buy-sell market. As Lithia Motors Inc. CEO, DeBoer accelerated the auto retail giant's acquisition pace last year and altered the buy-sell landscape with the April 2021 supersized purchase of Michigan's Suburban Collection and its 34 dealerships.

It was the first of four mega acquisitions by the publicly traded auto retailers in the U.S. in 2021, in what is considered the biggest year for acquisitions in auto retail industry history.

Stores continue to trade hands at a heightened clip, and DeBoer is considered so instrumental to this second wave of dealership consolidation that Automotive News named him the industry leader of the year in 2021. The first wave of dealership consolidation was in the 1990s, when a handful of operators bought up regional groups and went public.

"It's a fun journey," DeBoer told Automotive News in November 2021. "But it's just the beginning."

DeBoer, Lithia's CEO since 2012, has been the driving force in transforming the company founded by his grandfather, Walt.

In July 2020, DeBoer, who previously served as Lithia's COO and president, senior vice president of M&A/operations and general manager of a Honda dealership in Oregon, made his vision for the company's future clear.

The Medford, Ore., retailer revealed an ambitious five-year plan to reach $50 billion in annual revenue by 2025 — nearly quadruple 2019's revenue of $12.67 billion. Dealership acquisitions, its own captive finance unit and an online sales platform were seen as crucial to make Lithia's plan reality.

And Lithia has made significant progress toward that goal. In a third-quarter investor presentation, Lithia noted its annualized revenue run-rate is approaching $30 billion.

Lithia has remained an active player in the dealership buy-sell market in 2022, having bolstered its presence in Florida and the Midwest with multi-store purchases. Lithia bought 67 dealerships in the U.S. last year, entered Canada and bought its first Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia dealerships.

All of those dealership purchases also have grown Lithia's new-vehicle sales and propelled Lithia from one of the smallest publicly traded dealership groups to likely the largest new-vehicle retailer in the U.S. in 2022. Through the third quarter, Lithia leads longtime No. 1 AutoNation Inc. by 33,540 new-vehicle sales.

DeBoer doesn't appear to be letting off the gas. He targets Lithia having as many as 500 dealerships across the U.S. by 2025, up from 282 today.
"We will continue to be the consolidator of choice within our sector," he told analysts and investors in October.