A Tennessee-based automotive group sold its last dealership after more than 30 years in business.
The last of Memphis-based Sunrise Auto Group’s three stores, Sunrise Buick GMC Covington Pike, to Jim Keras Automotive, also based in Memphis.
Sell-side firm Kerrigan Advisors represented Sunrise in the transaction, in addition to the sale of its other two stores.
Sunrise was founded by Bob Berkheimer. Before the recent deal, Keras Automotive had six dealerships between Tennessee and Missouri among Chevrolet, Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram, Nissan and Subaru.
The growing market of Memphis is the Southeast’s third biggest metropolitan area, Kerrigan said, and the Sunrise store generates its second highest sales volume of any Buick GMC dealership.
“Based on our analysis, we expect the strength in the Southern buy/sell market to continue,” said Kerrigan founder and Managing Director Erin Kerrigan in a press release on the sale. The firm said it’s handled 85 dealership sales there since 2020.
Kerrigan Advisors is the leading sell-side advisor and thought partner to auto dealers nationwide. Since its founding in 2014, the firm has led the industry with the sale of over 275 dealerships representing nearly $9 billion in client proceeds, including the third largest transaction in auto retail history – the sale of Jim Koons Automotive Companies to Asbury Automotive Group. The firm advises the industry’s leading dealership groups, enhancing value through the lifecycle of growing, operating and, when the time is right, selling their businesses. Led by a team of veteran industry experts with backgrounds in investment banking, private equity, accounting, finance and real estate, Kerrigan Advisors does not take listings, rather they develop a customized sales approach for each client to achieve their personal and financial goals. In addition to the firm’s sell-side advisory services, Kerrigan Advisors also provides a suite of consulting and investor services including growth strategy, market valuation assessments, capital allocation, transactional due diligence, open point proposals, operational improvement and real estate due diligence.
Kerrigan Advisors monitors conditions in the buy/sell market and publishes an in-depth analysis each quarter in The Blue Sky Report®, which includes Kerrigan Advisors’ signature blue sky charts, multiples, and analysis for each franchise in the luxury and non-luxury segments. To download a preview of the report, click here. The firm also releases monthly The Kerrigan Index™ composed of the seven publicly traded auto retail companies with operations focused on the US market. The Kerrigan Auto Retail Index is designed to track dealership valuation trends, while also providing key insights into factors influencing auto retail. To access The Kerrigan Index™, click here. To read the 2023 Kerrigan Dealer Survey, click here. To read the 2024 Kerrigan OEM Survey, click here. Kerrigan Advisors also is the co-author of NADA’s Guide to Buying and Selling a Dealership.
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