Two sizable dealership groups, along with two smaller auto retailers, expanded their holdings with first- and second-quarter transactions.
Here's a look at the deals involving import and domestic dealerships and stores in New Jersey, California, Washington and Idaho. One of the transactions involved an auto retailer ranked on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups.
Ciocca Dealerships of Quakertown, Pa., has purchased a Subaru-Kia dealership in Ewing Township, N.J.
Ciocca on June 7 bought Scott Harvey Subaru-Kia from dealer Scott Harvey of the Scott Harvey Auto Group. The dealership, which features separate showrooms and a combined service department, was renamed Ciocca Subaru-Kia.
Ewing Township is just across the Pennsylvania state line, near Trenton.
These were Harvey's only dealerships, according to the Ciocca group.
With the acquisition, the Ciocca group said it now has 27 dealerships, selling 18 vehicle brands. The acquisition also marked its fourth Subaru dealership and first store with the growing Kia brand, said Ciocca Dealerships CEO Gregg Ciocca.
The acquisition fits with a geographic growth strategy "to be in these high-populated, high-density markets that we're already in," Gregg Ciocca told Automotive News.
The group has a Chevrolet store in nearby Lawrence Township, N.J.
Ciocca said last month that he wanted to double his store count to 50 within five years. In 2021, his group bought what was then the highest-volume Chevrolet Corvette dealership, Kerbeck Corvette, as part of an acquisition of two General Motors dealerships in Atlantic City, N.J.
Ciocca Dealerships ranks No. 83 on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups in the U.S., retailing 12,080 new vehicles in 2021.
Future Automotive Group of Roseville, Calif., owned by the Pleau family, bought the former Maita Honda in Citrus Heights, Calif., on May 3, from Maita Automotive Group.
Renamed Future Honda, the dealership is the 13th for Future Automotive, according to its website.
"We are very excited to add our first Honda store to our portfolio," Bill Walsh, president of sales and service for Future Automotive in the greater Sacramento region, said in a statement. "Honda has been an outstanding manufacturer and the brand has a very loyal customer following."
The Honda dealership was established in 1970, according to a May 11 story in the Sacramento Business Journal.
Maita Honda will continue to operate its Chevrolet, Mazda, Subaru and Toyota stores in the Sacramento market, according to Erin Kerrigan, managing director of Kerrigan Advisors, an Incline Village, Nev., sell-side firm. Kerrigan represented the seller in the transaction.
The Honda store marks the fifth dealership acquired by Future Automotive in the past three years, according to the Sacramento Business Journal. The Pleau family has operated its company since 1963 and is among the largest dealership groups in the Sacramento and Northern California markets, the publication said.
A suburban Seattle group bought its second dealership with a first-quarter transaction.
Gilchrist Auto, of Tacoma, Wash., bought Grey Chevrolet in Port Orchard, Wash., from the Grey family on Feb. 16. It was the family's only store, according to Mark Topping of MD Johnson Inc., a Enumclaw, Wash., buy-sell firm. Topping represented Gilchrist Auto in the transaction.
The dealership was renamed Gilchrist Chevrolet of Port Orchard. Port Orchard is northwest of Tacoma.
Gilchrist Auto also owns a Chevrolet-Buick-GMC store in Tacoma.
Casey Wheeler has purchased the former Jensen-Wood Motor Co., a Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram dealership, in Montpelier, Idaho, according to Jonny Mecham, the broker who handled the sale.
Wheeler purchased the Stellantis dealership from Kirk and Lorrie Jensen on April 14, as the couple retired.
Jensen-Wood Motor Co. was established in 1955, according to Performance Brokerage Services, a buy-sell firm in Irvine, Calif. Kirk and Lorrie Jensen were third-generation owners and had operated the dealership for more than 20 years prior to the sale, the firm said.
Wheeler renamed the dealership Liberty Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram. The purchase brings Wheeler's total dealership ownership in Idaho to three, after he recently created his own group, Mecham of Performance Brokerage Services told Automotive News.
"Casey is just on a pattern of growth," Mecham said. "He's a sharp young guy and he's ready to expand and continue to grow his arsenal in the dealership world."
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