I am about to lease another Honda Civic, so I’ve been especially attuned to stories about lease practices in the news this week. For one, while there isn’t a return to the bad leasing practices of the late 1990’s, when subvention was out of control and dealers got stuck with a lot of used cars they lost money on, the captives are getting very aggressive in their lease deals, says Tom Webb of Manheim.
Dealerships must keep an eye on that as they are the ones who will be stuck in three years with cars without the residuals they had hoped for. Of course, I want to take advantage of one of those good deals ….
In this week’s issue, I profile a family-owned group that is expanding. I’ve heard many stories about how a particular buy sell deal come about, and one theme arises over and over again – relationships. Dealership owners would prefer to sell their business to someone they know and trust. They want someone who will take care of their customers and their employees.
Our dealership profile this week, of Melloy’s Auto Group, is a great example of that. It just acquired a Honda dealership that is across the street from one its existing stores. When the owner of the Honda store wanted to sell, she didn’t have to look very far.
Also this week Ken Rosenfield considers some of the trends he is seeing in the buy sell world, which include some sloppy accounting practices that could end up costing needless dollars when a deal is being done.
And we have Transaction News, of course.
Enjoy!
