Canada's Knight Automotive Group expanded in the U.S. for the third time in a year with its Tuesday purchase of four dealerships in Elk Grove, Calif., from Lasher Auto Group.
Knight Automotive bought Elk Grove Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep-Ram, Elk Grove Subaru, Elk Grove Acura and Elk Grove Audi-Volkswagen. The Audi store was renamed Audi Elk Grove, while the other dealerships retained their names. The Volkswagen-Audi dealership has separate showrooms. Elk Grove is south of Sacramento.
Braeden Mueller, Knight Automotive vice president, told Automotive News that the group loves the Sacramento market.
"We think it's a great place to live and a great place to do business," Mueller said. "We really like the brands and the synergy of having the five stores together in a row. It fit our business model."
Mueller said Knight also bought some property as part of the deal and plans to work with Subaru and Audi in the coming months to design new buildings for those stores.
With this week's purchase, the growing Knight group has seven stores in the U.S. Knight in June bought a Stellantis dealership in Claremont, Calif., from John Elway Dealership Group. And in December 2021, Knight purchased two Ford dealerships in southern California, its first foray into the U.S.
Scott Lasher, who co-owned Lasher Auto with his brother Mark, told the Sacramento Business Journal in a Wednesday story that they were exiting the car business. Their late father, Wes Lasher, opened a Volkswagen store in Sacramento in 1955, according to the group's website. Mark and Scott took over day-to-day operations in 1995, according to the Sacramento Business Journal.
Knight Automotive was started in 1981 by Ted Knight, father of company president Kevin Knight. The group also has eight dealerships in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, Mueller said. The group sold six Canadian dealerships in the past five months, Mueller said.
Kerrigan Advisers, a sell-side firm in Incline Village, Nevada, represented Lasher Auto in the sale.
