Cars.com chief executive officer and president Alex Vetter called it an “exciting week” as the company announced it would be spun off as a separate, publicly traded entity through a process expected to be finalized during the first half of next year.

For dealers who list their inventory on Cars.com, perhaps they should be excited, too, since Vetter described the company’s future by emphasizing one of the most intriguing segments of the spin-off announcement. It’s the part that stated, “As an independent company, Cars.com will be able to focus more sharply on its key strategic priorities, including rapid innovation within a growing marketplace and active evaluation and pursuit of acquisitions to open up new, adjacent opportunities.”

During an exclusive conversation with Auto Remarketing, Vetter began by highlighting the resources Cars.com already possesses, which includes DealerRater that was acquired earlier this summer.

“I think days like (this past Wednesday and Thursday) are really a testament to our employees and all they’ve done past and present to build this business into what it’s become. It’s also a testament to all of our customers and partners. We work with over 20,000 dealers and every OEM. It’s their partnership that drives us on a daily basis. It’s really a celebratory time for our young company,” Vetter said.

“Over the last two years as part of being singular ownership, we’ve really been investing in the business and preparing the business for continued growth,” he continued. “We’ve done that by largely investing in product, technology and innovation. Much of that will benefit our customers directly. As a distinct, independent company, we’re going to be much more positioned to focus on distinct strategic priorities, which will be great news for our users and business partners.”

The business progression Cars.com gets to develop as a publicly traded company is to establish a new leadership structure as well as roll out an initial public offering. Vetter again reflected on what Cars.com’s accomplishments have been and how they've set the foundation for what might happen next year and beyond.

“It’s great validation to all of the hard work that has taken place over the years to get Cars.com ready. I think it increases our focus on our mission and strategy. It allows us to bring more talent on board to help pursue strategic priorities,” Vetter said.

“For example, one of the things we’re excited about is forming our own board of directors that will be exclusively focused on helping Cars.com realize its strategy,” he continued. “In addition, it will give us higher evaluations for the business because we know both automotive and technology companies tend to trade at higher multiples, which gives the ability to access more capital to be able to strategically invest in the growth of the business.

“It will take us several months to finalize the board. But clearly we’ll be adding people who can bring strategic and industry insights as well as rich and diverse narratives to the business that helps us look broadly at the opportunities that are in front of us,” Vetter went on to say.

While Cars.com has at least the remainder of the third quarter as well as the fourth quarter of this year to navigate before the ticker symbol CARS appears on Wall Street, Vetter emphasized what’s now directly in front of the company, including expanding on the recently launched enhancements to its mobile platform.

“We’ve been very focused on innovating on the mobile front. We continue to innovate there at a faster clip,” Vetter said.

“We have a number of product and technology investments that we’ve been aggressively pursuing to grow our overall site experience. And we’ve also been deploying new solutions for our business partners as well as operationalizing our newest acquisition, DealerRater,” he continued.

“We have a number of key initiatives that we’re pursuing as a business. In addition we’ll be adding more talent and growing our workforce to better prepare us for the growth that we anticipate on happening in 2017,” Vetter concluded.