Here’s another update to start 2021 from our busy mergers and acquisitions desk. Protective Life Corp., overseer of Protective Asset Protection and a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Dai-ichi Life Holdings, announced this week it completed the transaction to acquire the Revolos family of companies. Revolos offers a suite of F&I products, including vehicle service […] [Read More]

Consignment-to-retail used-vehicle marketplace CarLotz nominated four individuals to its board of directors, with the company’s chief executive officer and co-founder Michael Bor describing them as “pioneers in their industries.” CarLotz recently announced it would become a public company via a merger with special purpose acquisition company Acamar Partners Acquisition Corp. The company said it nominated […] [Read More]

The digital retail space continues to evolve. But because of the pandemic, many manufacturers were forced to speed up the process, says Jon Sundberg, who is senior manager of digital solutions at J.D. Power. Sundberg was discussing the new J.D. Power 2021 U.S. Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study, which found that overall satisfaction of automotive manufacturer websites […] [Read More]

Credit Acceptance founder Don Foss created his own dealership group 10 years ago. And now a decade later, that operation — CARite — has 26 locations with the two newest ones coming into the group this week. According to a news release, CARite added locations in Stratford, Conn., its second lot in the state, as […] [Read More]

Sometimes, too many cooks in the kitchen can be a recipe for disaster. But Agora Data championed a financial dish with several buy-here, pay-here operators and smaller finance companies that the tech firm says “represents a quantum leap” for their access to capital markets funding. This week, Agora Data announced the successful closing of what […] [Read More]

A 2019 study published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research examined how vehicle ownership and income are directly related to poverty, coining the term, “Poverty of the Carless.” During the past 60 years, the study indicated all advances in society in the U.S. have been made on the premise of universal private vehicle […] [Read More]

Motional, a driverless vehcle technology company, will utilize Cox Automotive Mobility's Pivet program as its fleet service provider — a collaboration the companies say lays the foundation for Motional's path to market for robotaxis in major U.S. cities. The partnership starts with Motional’s self-driving fleet in Las Vegas. To allow Motional to work toward serving passengers and […] [Read More]

Teams from CarOffer and Asbury Automotive Group have collaborated to build a group trade platform that allows dealers within the same group to buy, sell and trade vehicles between one another, thereby tailoring inventory distribution to the specific needs of individual stores within the group. CarOffer’s Group Trade platform gives dealers the ability to utilize […] [Read More]

The financing metrics Edmunds compiled and shared this week might have reinforced why more budget-limited consumers likely made a used-vehicle purchase rather than going for a new model. According to Edmunds data, December financed new-car purchases represented the highest average monthly payment of the year at $587 and the highest average down payment of the […] [Read More]

Be prepared to be flexible.  That’s something in which many dealers are well-versed, and it was part of a message that 2020 National Automobile Dealers Association chairman Rhett Ricart emphasized during a virtual presentation to the Automotive Press Association back in November.  Auto dealers, who were already adjusting their operations and business practices amid an […] [Read More]