Pendragon sells last U.S. dealership

Pendragon, a large publicly traded auto retailer in the United Kingdom, has sold its final U.S. dealership following a multiyear divestiture effort.

Pendragon, which announced in 2017 its plans to exit the U.S. after buying its first store here in 2000, got about $14.9 million selling Hornburg Jaguar-Land Rover Santa Monica in California.

Redwood Automotive of Los Angeles bought the store on March 29. It has been renamed Jaguar-Land Rover Santa Monica.

That deal follows Pendragon's January sale of Hornburg Jaguar-Land Rover in West Hollywood, Calif., to Triunity Automotive Group for about $22.3 million.

Pendragon's six stores were in Southern California and included Aston Martin, Chevrolet and Jaguar-Land Rover franchises.

Pendragon said last week it collected a total of about $146.1 million from the sale of all its U.S. dealerships.

Former AutoNation Inc. COO Bill Berman joined Pendragon's board in April 2019 and was named interim executive chairman in October of that year. He is now Pendragon's CEO.

The buyer of Pendragon's final U.S. store is a fresh face as a dealership owner with his own AutoNation connection. "We are a new group; this is our first dealership," Sudhir Sood, CEO of Redwood Automotive, told Automotive News. "But I have a lot of automotive experience."

Sood said he started in the industry as a salesman 35 years ago. Prior to purchasing the Santa Monica store, he was general manager at Land Rover Encino, an AutoNation dealership, for the past seven years, he said. Sood said he worked for AutoNation for about 20 years after starting as a general manager there in 2001.

Sood said he has business partners but declined to name them.

"I've been associated with the JLR product for a long time," he said. "I know the L.A. market. I've been in L.A. since 1988.

"Pendragon was selling all their stores, leaving the country, and this was the last store left. It has a lot of opportunity."