Early this month, the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family closed on its acquisition of Mercedes-Benz of Fort Mitchell. It is the first foreign luxury brand for the dealership group based in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was a rare find, David Wyler, president of the Jeff Wyler Auto Family, tells Automotive Buy Sell Report.
“We have been actively looking for luxury stores in markets we currently serve, but none were available in the last decade,” says Wyler.
David Wyler
The Jeff Wyler Automotive Family is a Midwestern dealership powerhouse, with an emphasis on Midwestern. It aims to keep growing, but does not have national ambitions. Rather, it aims to expand in its area, and offer a menu of options that keep customers coming back to the Jeff Wyler Family.
“Within 100 miles of Cincinnati is our wheelhouse for stores and acquisitions,” says Wyler.
Fort Mitchell is a suburb of Cincinnati. Wyler already knew Bernie Moreno, the previous Mercedes-Benz franchise owner. They met at an OEM meeting when Moreno first came to the Cincinnati area four years ago, says Wyler.
Since then, they have been on several OEM dealer trips together, and their families vacation in the same area in Florida. So it was natural that when Moreno wanted to sell, “I was the first guy he called,” says Wyler.
He won’t disclose how much he paid other than saying, “I paid way too much, adding “Bernie is going to say I didn’t pay enough.”
The acquisition was a bit unusual for the Jeff Tyler group in that it usually acquires stores that “haven’t been operating at the highest level,” says Wyler.
The Mercedes-Benz store, on the contrary, was doing very well. It had been awarded the Mercedes “Best of the Best” honor for the past four years. The challenge, says Wyler, isn’t to make the store run better. It is not to “screw it up.”
He retained the general manager, who is also a managing partner. That will be useful as the Jeff Wyler organization learns about the foreign luxury brand clientele, and working with Daimler, the Mercedes-Benz manufacturer, says Wyler.
A Cincinnati way of thinking
There aren’t many manufacturers the Jeff Wyler Auto Family isn’t familiar with. It owns 33 franchises, including nearly every major domestic and foreign mass market brand, as well as the Cadillac luxury brand. There is a glaring hole in that franchise mix – no Ford.
Jeff Wyler stores are in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, but all within 100 miles or so of Cincinnati, where the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family was founded in 1973. Those roots are at the heart of its success, feels Wyler.
The auto business in Cincinnati, which is in southern Ohio, is mainly a multi-generational family business, he says. Even Cleveland, 250 miles away in northern Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie, is a different market.
“I don’t know Cleveland,” says Wyler. “Cincinnati is similar to Columbus and Louisville, [they are] more conservative than the Cleveland area.”
That’s why Moreno’s success with the Mercedes-Benz store was a surprise, says Wyler. Moreno is from Cleveland.
“Bernie is the only person I can recollect in the last 30 years who is not from Cincinnati and has been successful” as a dealer here,” he says.
The Jeff Wyler Auto Family is “actively pursuing” a Ford franchise, says Wyler. Other than that, it really doesn’t have specific franchises in mind that is wants to acquire. “If there is an opportunity, we will look at it,” says Wyler.
It looks for businesses that offer its customers – “clients” is the term Wyler uses – something they might want or need. Hence a foreign luxury brand. “This will allow our clients to go to that luxury level,” he says.
The Jeff Wyler Auto Family also owns nine collision centers, all strategically located near Jeff Wyler dealerships.
“[The collision centers] service multiple dealerships,” says Wyler. “They are absolutely an extension of our service departments. We need to provide those for our clients.”
The Jeff Wyler group also owns three Allstate insurance agencies and is the second largest volume automobile policy Allstate insurer in the country, says Wyler. The Allstate agencies are separate businesses and sell all insurance policies, not just automotive.
Again, it is offering clients a service they would otherwise have to go outside the Jeff Wyler Family to obtain, says Wyler.
David Wyler is optimistic about the retail car business. He figures the sales rate is about as high as it is going to get, and that interest rates are going to creep up. But the average age of the consumer’s car is also creeping up. Business should be good for the next 24 months, says Wyler.
The group isn’t placing all its eggs in the retail sales basket, however. It is preparing to launch Cox Automotive’s Clutch car subscription service out of the Jeff Wyler corporate office. The customers for the service – which allows subscribers to pay a flat fee that includes insurance to have access to vehicles and the ability to change vehicles frequently — are 45 to 60 years old, according to Cox Automotive, says Wyler.
“They are folks who have families that need accessibility to different brands of cars. Families that want flexibility,” says Wyler.
The service, known as Wyler Fast Lane, “gives our clients another option to stay in our family,” he says.
