Lithia adds 2 dealerships in L.A.

Lithia Motors Inc. has added two more dealerships in the Los Angeles area, after buying eight dealerships in the market last fall.

The public auto retailer said Tuesday it purchased Center BMW and Center Acura in Sherman Oaks, Calif., from Dave Farguson. The BMW store transaction closed on May 23 and the Acura store deal closed on June 1, Farguson said.

Lithia said the dealerships combined are expected to generate $185 million in annual revenue.

"We are excited to add our first BMW store in Southern California and capture the significant potential that exists," Lithia CEO Bryan DeBoer said in a statement.

Terms of the transactions weren't disclosed, but Lithia said it paid for the stores using funding from its existing balance sheet.

No broker was used in either transaction, Farguson said. The stores have been renamed BMW of Sherman Oaks and Acura of Sherman Oaks.

Last fall, Lithia purchased nine dealerships from Keyes Automotive Group. Eight of the nine stores were in the L.A. area; another was in Arizona.

Lithia said it has acquired dealerships that are expected to generate nearly $7.1 million in annual revenue since July 2020. That's when it announced its five-year plan to grow annual revenue to $50 billion and earnings per share to $50. The retailer said it has a deal in the pipeline and is in discussions to acquire dealerships representing more than $15 billion in annual revenues.

"We are well ahead of schedule on the network development portion of our five-year plan," Lithia said in the news release.
Lithia, of Medford, Ore., ranks No. 3 on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S., retailing 171,168 new vehicles in 2020. But Lithia's April 2021 acquisition of Michigan's Suburban Collection makes it the second-largest group going forward.