NADA ends public release of car dealership financial information

The National Automobile Dealers Association has stopped publicly disclosing its average dealership financial profile data, saying the information now is reserved for certain dealers.

NADA historically shared average data about sales and profitability, among other metrics, on a monthly year-to-date basis and annually on its website.

"Going forward, the NADA average dealership financial profile will be provided to NADA 20 Groups only for consulting and training purposes," Jared Allen, NADA's vice president of communications, said in a statement to Automotive News.

The association shared data through the first 10 months of 2021. Through October, dealership profitability was on track to shatter the record set in 2020, with the average U.S. dealership seeing a net pretax profit of roughly $3.4 million. That was more than twice the $1.6 million reported through October 2020, according to NADA figures, and also more than the $2.1 million in net pretax profit the average dealership recorded for all of 2020.

Net pretax profit includes operating profit and automaker incentives dealerships receive for meeting specific performance targets.

Erin Kerrigan, managing director of Kerrigan Advisors, a dealer advisory firm in Incline Village, Nev., in March estimated that the average U.S. dealership earned $4.1 million in pretax profit for all of last year — a number she calculated using NADA's data through October.

Patrick Manzi, NADA's chief economist, told Automotive News he was not part of those discussions. "I don't have a good explanation" for why the data is no longer being shared publicly.

Manzi said he could not say without checking the data whether dealerships' full-year 2021 profit results aligned with Kerrigan's estimate, or even whether full-year profits increased year over year. NADA said it would not be able to provide more information.

"It was just overall a solid year, and I think that even this year will be another solid year for most of our members, despite the challenges that they're going to be facing," Manzi said.