OpenRoad Auto Group — one of the province’s largest dealership groups with more than 900 associates representing 15 brands at 19 full-service dealerships — is expanding once again. But this time, it’s in the United States.
On Friday, OpenRoad announced the acquisition of an established luxury dealership in Bellevue, Wash., that represents some of the most iconic brands in the world — Bentley, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.
“This is an incredible opportunity to grow our luxury lineup and expand our dealership group by entering into a new, world-class market that’s only about a three-hour drive from Vancouver — or less if you’re driving a Lamborghini,” said Christian Chia, president and chief executive officer of OpenRoad Auto Group.
“We look forward to working with general manager Mark Maakestad and getting into the spirit of the Seattle Seahawks with the rest of his team,” Chia continued.
The acquisition of Bentley, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Bellevue was completed on Jan. 19 and will be OpenRoad’s first foray into the U.S. market. The addition of the Bellevue dealership follows OpenRoad's corporate strategy to expand existing relationships in key markets.
OpenRoad already owns and operates a Rolls-Royce dealership in Vancouver, while Bentley and Lamborghini are part of the VW Group of companies along with Audi and Porsche — three brands OpenRoad has proven to be successful with in Burnaby and Langley, British Columbia.
As demand for luxury and ultra-luxury brands continues to grow, so will production of exclusive new Bentley, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce models.
In 2018, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is slated to launch its flagship, Phantom Sedan and soon after an SUV code-named Cullinan. Lamborghini, the iconic Sant’Agata-based exotic car brand known for their V12 power plants and the iconic Miura sports coupe will continue to produce some of the best super cars in the world. Bentley Motors will mark its centennial anniversary in 2019 along with the company’s celebrated history as the ultimate British luxury automobile icon.
OpenRoad’s newest dealership is located in an urban center just 16 kilometers outside of Seattle in a region that’s home to many of the world’s leading companies, including Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Nordstrom, Paccar, Costco and Amazon.
Endras Automotive Group announced a new chief operating officer this week.
Joining the dealership group earlier this month as COO was Shawn Morris, whose background in the car business goes back more than 25 years.
For most of the past decade, he has worked in general manager and vice president of operations roles for dealerships.
“We are truly excited to have Mr. Morris join our team during this time of rapid growth of our business and exciting job creation for the Greater Toronto Area. We look forward to sharing more exciting details of our expansion in the near future,” Endras Automotive Group president Chris Endras said in a news release.
Morris’ experience includes time as director of sales planning at Nissan Canada and vice president of sales at Volvo Canada.
In other news from Endras, the group — which operates under the Lakeridge Auto Gallery banner for its premium brands — is opening a Lexus of Lakeridge facility this month and plans to open Volvo Cars Lakeridge, and Jaguar Land Rover of Lakeridge next month.
"This is a tremendous opportunity and exciting times for us all. When was the last time an auto group opened four great brands within 30 days? That's amongst the great brands the group already represents… and they are all located in one area at the 401 and Salem Road,” Morris said.
Lakeridge Auto Gallery is also planning to construct a 40,000 square-foot OEM-certified collision repair center over the next couple years. It will be located on the dealership campus.
On Monday, Dilawri Group of Companies, announced the opening of Heritage Honda, expanding its franchised dealership count to 61.
"We are thrilled to expand our relationship with Honda Canada Inc. with the opening of Heritage Honda," said Dilawri co-principal director Tony Dilawri in a press release. "Our success with this highly-regarded brand is a testimony to the reliability and quality of their products."
The newly constructed Heritage Honda is a 67,000-square-foot facility that includes a 15-car showroom, 27 service bays, and an indoor service drive-through that can hold more than nine vehicles.
The dealership is also dressed with amenities such as a surround sound theater room, a café area and a customer lounge featuring USB charging ports.
AutoCanada announced it purchased all of the operating assets of Ontario Limited, which manages Guelph Hyundai.
"We are extremely pleased to welcome Guelph Hyundai into our Ontario dealer group. The dealership recently owned and operated by Graham Dennis has a long history in the Guelph community, serving their customers for decades,” said Steven Landry, AutoCanada chief executive officer. “AutoCanada is pleased to add to our cluster dealership model in the Guelph area and increase our business in Ontario.”
The dealership includes a 29,726-square-foot facility newly constructed in 2014 as well as a 14-car showroom and 14 service bays. It was also the first Hyundai dealership in Canada to echo the new Global Dealership Space Identity (GDSI) of Hyundai.
Last year, the newly acquired dealership retailed 673 new vehicles, 173 used vehicles and had an annual revenue of approximately $31 million, according to Auto Canada.
OpenRoad Auto Group — the largest dealership group in British Columbia —announced in mid-October that in support of continued growth within the company’s 18 dealerships, two of its general managers will trade responsibilities.
Dimitri Kotsalis is the new general manager of BMW Langley and MINI Langley, and Aly Jiwani is the new general manager of OpenRoad’s The BMW Store, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Vancouver and MINI Yaletown.
In 2011, Kotsalis became general manager of The BMW Store, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Vancouver and MINI Yaletown, where Jiwani is now responsible for operations. And Jiwani took on the role of general manager of BMW Langley and MINI Langley in 2010.
Kotsalis became Western regional manager of BMW Canada in 2009. His experience also includes time as general manager of Mercedes-Benz Richmond and Mercedes-Benz Markham.
He won the Mercedes-Benz Retailer of the Year award three times.
For nearly three years he also managed three factory-owned dealerships, including Australia’s flagship Mercedes-Benz of Sydney, as a dealer principal.
Since 2004, Jiwani has served in different positions at OpenRoad and earned multiple Honda Canada Senior Sales Master Awards and Grandmaster Awards. He was promoted to general manager of North Shore Acura in 2008 where he was later honored with two Acura ACE Awards. Jiwani is also the first Canadian to accept the Automotive News Top 40 Under 40 Automotive Professionals award.
Change is in the air for HGrégoire.
With John Hairabedian now at the helm of the company his father, Greg, founded more than 25 years ago, HGrégoire has embarked upon a total revamp of its business approach and launched a fully integrated, online transactional platform.
The company’s revamped website aims to facilitate today’s shopping habits, where store visits become an extension of — or the conclusion of — the online experience.
The website features a “magnifying glass” tool to inspect every angle of the vehicle via a high-quality 360-degree image. At HGrégoire, interactivity is a top priority: Potential buyers on its site can chat in real time with online customer service representatives — aka “customer satisfaction agents” — who are trained to answer questions on the spot.
Also, contrary to the traditional practice of sending car buyers to the dealer for complete details, HGrégoire.com immediately provides customers with relevant information, a look at a vehicle's complete history and an easy way to schedule appointments, encouraging them only to go to a store and test drive the car.
"After studying the consumption habits of our customers who prefer to first shop online, we adapted to their needs, offering a user-friendly digital platform, along with friendly, professional service on the floor," said Fady Bouras, vice president of operations. “The customer experience is now so well integrated into our culture that consumers cannot help but respond very favorably to this approach.”
This summer HGrégoire acquired two new-car dealerships: Hyundai in Vaudreuil and Chrysler in St-Jérôme. These acquisitions, along with the three Nissan new car dealerships HGrégoire already owns, bring the company's total number of superstores to 17 in North America.
HGrégoire touts itself as the first and only dealership open seven days a week, with the largest inventory of pre-owned vehicles in Canada.
John Hairabedian was named Auto Remarketing Canada’s Independent Dealer of the Year this spring.
The Serpa Automotive Group has acquired Toronto’s Agincourt/401 Kennedy Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM.
Since 2012, Serpa has operated Serpa BMW in Newmarket and from 1995 to 2015 owned Richmond Hill’s Avante Mazda. The new dealership will be known as Serpa Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM.
“We will now transform the new Serpa-branded dealership into the finest customer-oriented retailer in the GTA,” said Frank Serpa, dealer principal, Serpa Automotive Group, who added that the acquisition fulfilled the auto group’s goal of operating a high-volume, domestic, multi-brand dealership. “There are many synergies between the dealership we currently operate and ones we will acquire in the future, and we look forward to putting those to work immediately.”
Frank Serpa announced that Stefano Serpa, sales director, Serpa BMW, will become vice president of the Serpa Automotive Group, overseeing both current dealerships.
“Stefano’s leadership has proved itself over and over again and it is time for him to take even greater responsibility for organizing our new high volume multi-brand operation,” Frank Serpa said.
Gautam Shah, formerly of Serpa BMW and Avante Mazda, has been named general sales manager at the new operation.
Frank Serpa thanked the previous owners, SF Auto Group’s Mike Stollery and Ryan Finch, for helping to provide a substantial core of loyal customers at the Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM dealership.
“As a result of Mike and Ryan’s excellent management, we can now institute the Serpa style of customer service and start at a higher level,” he said.
“My Mazda and BMW dealerships have concentrated on one notable brand with only automotive products,” he added. “But now at our new location, we offer Jeep, which pioneered all-wheel drive and remains its leader today and the incredibly popular RAM trucks in addition to the historic Chrysler and Dodge vehicles.
“There are many models and configurations within those groups. It’s something I’ve sought to be involved with in my more than 30 years in the automotive industry.”
The Automotive Properties Real Estate Investment Trust has agreed to a deal with a third-party vendor to buy the Pfaff Audi dealership property in Vaughan, Ontario.
The purchase price of the property is $17.2 million, REIT said in a news release Monday.
“Pfaff Audi will be a strong addition to the REIT,” REIT president and chief executive officer Milton Lamb said in the release. “Not only does it bring another great Audi property to our portfolio, it complements our strong presence in the key GTA market.
“This transaction is also noteworthy in that the tenant is the highly-regarded Pfaff Automotive Partners, one of Canada's leading automotive groups, thereby continuing to diversify our tenant base. Two-thirds of the capital we have deployed in our four acquisitions since our IPO have resulted in new, third-party tenancies,” Lamb said.
The Toronto-area store is a 69,000-square-foot dealership built in 2006.
Mercedes-Benz Laval’s new GM
Denis Bellemare, formerly the regional manager of the Eastern region for Mercedes-Benz Canada, is now the general manager of Mercedes-Benz Laval, a move that became effective Thursday.
Karen Zlatin is now the regional manager for the Eastern region. She was previously the sales operations manager of the Eastern region.
Neal Bodack, vice president of national sales, said in a news release: “When we faced management challenges at our West Island store in early 2013, we felt that Denis was a perfect candidate to take over the helm as general manager of this corporately-owned retail facility. Under his three-year leadership, dealership results soared in each and every department.
“When the dealership was sold at the end of 2015, Denis was elated to come back to his previous position as regional manager, Eastern region and to work once again with the entire regional dealer group. His experience in a retail environment gave him exceptional knowledge of the overall business and allowed him to become a stronger business advisor to the dealers in every facet of their operations. He now has the opportunity to once again put all of his skills to good use; we wish him well in his new endeavour,” he said.
Bellemare added: “I guess it won’t be entirely surprising for anyone to see me take on this new challenge at Mercedes-Benz Laval. As much as I still truly loved working with all of the dealers at the wholesale level, I have to admit that I missed the day-to-day minutiae and fantastic, adrenaline-charged environment that accompanied managing a fast-paced and vibrant dealership like our West Island location.
“I am, however, extremely grateful for having had the opportunity to work for Mercedes-Benz Canada in two highly exciting capacities for so many years; I am proud of what I achieved with the excellent colleagues I worked with during that time. At this point in my seasoned automotive career, I am thrilled to be joining Carole and Louise Leblanc’s team at Mercedes-Benz Laval.”
OpenRoad VW holds grand opening
Earlier this month, OpenRoad Auto Group held a grand opening celebration for the OpenRoad VW store. The company said the 45,000-square-foot Burnaby, British Columbia store is the largest in the region.
It opened in May.
You book a plane ticket online. Maybe the night before the flight or at a kiosk once you arrive at the airport, you check in and get a boarding pass.
The boarding pass includes things like your name, flight number, gate number, boarding time and so forth.
The boarding pass serves as a re-confirmation of your flight details and gives you the information you need to make your flight.
And the Weins Canada dealership group is providing something similar with the “boarding cards” they give customers when they book an appointment with the dealership.
The card lists things like the customer’s name, who the product advisor is, the car the shopper is interested in and the time of the appointment.
It’s part of the group’s effort to make the online shopping to in-store visit a smooth transition, which Auto Remarketing Canada discussed with Amin Tejani, the vice president dealership operations at Weins Canada (formerly the Don Valley North Automotive Group).
Weins calls what would ordinarily be referred to as a business development center or customer development center a “customer experience center.”
There’s an emphasis on the “experience” part of that phrase — that is likely the first interaction the customer is having with the dealership, so it needs to be a positive one.
So, when a consumer submits a lead online, Tejani said, the aim is to respond in a timely fashion, answer the shopper’s primary question and share the offers on that vehicle and others like it.
And schedule an appointment.
The information gathered is put into the CRM, and once the appointment is made, the process transitions to the dealership level.
Within the various Weins dealerships are product advisors, some of whom are internet sales specialists, Tejani said.
These are a select group of folks who have to maintain a certification on things like their understanding of the CRM to grammar and phone skills.
This is meant to improve the transfer process from the CEC to the sales floor, he said.
And prevent the following scenario when a shopper — who has already gone through the CEC and booked an appointment to discuss a specific vehicle —arrives at the store.
“Mr. Jones shows up and the first question out of the salesman’s mouth is, ‘Oh, hi, how can I help you today?’” Tejani said.
“Where it should be, ‘Oh, hi, Mr. Jones, we’re expecting you. You were looking at this particular vehicle, you picked a great car, I’ve got it right over here for you, let me show you. And I know you wanted your trade appraised while you’re here, so let’s take a few minutes and get that done to save you some time.’
“So, it just flows with what the appointment coordinator does,” he said. “We have a better closing rate because the experience online matches the expectation of what the guest was supposed to get.”
The customer also gets a confirmation call from the advisor prior to the appointment, he said, which helps to break the ice a bit.
‘The backing of why the number is what it is’
We also talked to Tejani about the top challenges in pre-owned, which he pinpointed as being supply hurdles.
At Weins Canada, the group aims to overcome supply challenges by “winning more cars through the front door,” Tejani said.
And that comes about by a stronger appraisal process and providing a more “transparent appraisal,” he said.
“What I mean by that is, we don’t just give the salesman a number. We give them the backing of why the number is what it is, with the reconditioning charges laid out properly, other vehicles like that one, what they’re being sold for in the market,” he said. “What the customer has already done is, they’ve likely gone online anyways and done their homework; so when they come in, we’re just giving them the assurance that, ‘Hey, we’ve done our homework, too, and it should match with what you’re seeing.’”
That approach has helped boost the “win ratio,” Tejani said.
Certified pre-owned
The certified pre-owned market is another point of emphasis for Weins Canada.
In fact, the group’s Don Valley North Toyota store was named the 2016 Auto Remarketing Canada CPO Dealer of the Year.
The group’s Don Valley North Toyota location was Toyota’s top CPO dealer in Canada for 2016, and its Don Valley North Lexus location has been the top Lexus CPO store for two years in a row.
Tejani has found CPO to be gaining traction in the Canadian market, as the concept has now gone through a few ownership cycles.
“People have gone through the CPO purchase once. They liked it, they’re coming back and doing it again, because they liked it,” he said. “So we’re having repeat buyers, because they’ve had success and good luck with their CPO purchase their first time out. I think that cycle continues to help brand CPO.”
AutoCanada, which is based in Edmonton, announced an executive shift this spring as the company found itself in a sales slump amid ongoing recessionary conditions in western Canada.
Joining the country’s only publicly traded dealer group as chief executive officer was Steven Landry, whose background includes 27 years with Chrysler Group, where he held various global and executive positions.
Landry took over for Tom Orysiuk, who remains as president.
Additionally, company founder Pat Priestner left his executive chairman position to become nonexecutive chairman — a move in anticipation of his retirement next year. And Steve Rose, chief operating officer, is set to retire in the fall.
As the country continues to feel the economic ripple effect of depressed oil prices, exacerbated by May’s Fort McMurray wildfire, AutoCanada — which has a heavy concentration of dealerships in western Canada — has an eye on diversifying across the country in an effort to relieve itself of economic pressure in Alberta.
The company operates 53 dealerships, nearly half of which are in Alberta.
Landry had some upbeat news when the company released its first-quarter earnings report: All of the company’s stores have been profitable thus far in 2016, with the exception of one recently owned dealership.
“AutoCanada continues to have significant earnings potential and we have the ability to generate increased cash flow when the economy improves in western Canada, where we have a heavy concentration of same stores,” he said.
The company reported revenue of $666.9 million for the quarter, a 5.3-percent year-over-year increase, and gross profit of $111.7 million, a 5.9-percent increase.
During a conference call with members of the media to discuss first-quarter results, Christopher Burrows, chief financial officer for AutoCanada, attributed these upticks to acquisitions made subsequent to the end of the fourth quarter of 2015.
He also noted a decrease in same-store sales and gross profits.
“Lower same-store sales and same-store gross profits are a result of reduced economic activity, particularly in Alberta,” Burrows said. “As a group, our same-store new-vehicle retail unit sales were down 17.8 percent quarter over quarter.”
While same-store new retail unit sales were down almost 18 percent, with 3,353 units sold for the quarter, same-store used vehicle retail unit sales were down only 6.9 percent, with 2,468 units sold.
Same-store used-vehicle revenue rose 12.9 percent, while same-store new-vehicle revenue fell 6.3 percent.
“On the same-store side, what you’ll find is that some of our bigger stores we’ve owned for quite a while are in Alberta and BC, and they are the areas that are being impacted,” Orysiuk said. “We’ve got a lot more focus on the used side, on the parts and service side. … We are seeing in this economy a lot of consumers coming in and perhaps they would have been new-car buyers a few years ago and now they’re in that ‘nearly new’ place.
“And I think that’s reflected in the increase in our new numbers, the increase in growth we’re getting on our new, and it’s just a sign of the market that we’re in.”
Taking a ‘fresh look’
Landry laid out three areas in which he would be taking a “fresh look” and “keen focus” in the coming months: central office, dealerships and relationships with OEMs.
“I will be spending the next several months looking closely at each of these areas to ensure that we are able to unlock potential in the processes that we have,” he said. “I’ll also be looking specifically at our sales and operations processes in order to identify opportunities for improvement and areas that may require further focus.”
Additionally, Landry elaborated on three levers of focus for the remainder of 2016: operational excellence (includes same-store sales and dealership integration); cost reduction and capital efficiency; and growth through acquisition.
“We will continue our theme of growth with specific focus on the acquisition of large dealerships in metropolitan areas,” Landry said.
“We are still heavily weighted in Alberta. We are doing a very good job in diversifying into Ontario and eastern markets, which have a stronger industry at the moment. We’d like to diversify by brand.
“And so we are also — and even I in my first month — have had an opportunity to see four OEMs and have discussions on our future as AutoCanada and the growth plan that we would like to structure over the next 100 days or so in terms of ‘what do we want to look like three to five years from now’ and put the planning down on paper now,” Landry continued.
During the conference call, one member of the media asked for insight regarding which metropolitan areas AutoCanada was eyeing.
“Well, the GTA (Greater Toronto area),” Orysiuk said. “I think we will do very well in that market over the next few years, and we’re working with small OEMs now to look at that.
“I still like Alberta,” he continued. “Long term, I mean, it’s a good, good place to do business. I really like BC. We like Winnipeg. We like Saskatchewan. So we’ve done well on the East Coast. Would we look at another one in Quebec if it was close proximity to the BMW stores? I think we would. So obviously, we’re very open.”
