Estero Bay Chevrolet celebrated 15 years in business in 2022.
Estero Bay Chevrolet in Lee County, one of the largest new vehicle sales volume Chevrolet dealerships in Florida, has been sold.
Houston-based Group 1 Automotive, a publicly traded, Fortune 300 automotive retailer with 205 dealerships in the U.S. and U.K., acquired the business, according to a statement. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
“We want to welcome the team at Estero Bay Chevrolet to the Group 1 family and are pleased to further expand our brand footprint and scale in Florida,” Group 1 President and CEO Daryl Kenningham says in the release. “Our strong cash flow and robust balance sheet continues to enable aggressive capital deployment through acquisition while also returning capital to our shareholders.”
Estero Bay Chevrolet is expected to generate $150 million in annual revenue, the release from Group 1 states. The dealership was founded by business partners Charles Winton and Pat Denson in 2007, according to a separate statement from Kerrigan Advisors, which represented Estero Bay Chevrolet in the sale. Estero Bay ranks No. 6 in Florida and No 44 in the nation in new unit sales. The dealership has won the highly coveted Chevrolet Dealer of the Year award every year since 2018, the Kerrigan release adds.
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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