Founded in 1919 by Maurice “Moe” Beardmore, Beardmore Auto Group operated in Kansas and Nebraska for over 100 years, serving the Omaha market for 60 years. In 2026, fourth-generation dealer Carey (Beardmore) Hamilton and her husband Brian hired Kerrigan Advisors to sell Beardmore Subaru, Chevrolet and Hyundai in Bellevue, Nebraska to Minnesota-based Morrie’s Automotive Group, the 74th largest dealership group in the US, marking the group’s entrance into the Nebraska market. Carey and Brian will continue to own Midway Auto Group (Chevrolet, Buick GMC and CDJR) in Kearney, Nebraska.
Carey: We have been in the car business for over 100 years, which is amazing. I’m fourth generation. My great-grandfather and great-uncles started in small towns in northern Kansas. After World War II, my dad and uncle joined them in Mankato, Kansas, and then eventually moved to Nebraska. My dad bought and sold a number of dealerships so he could move into larger markets, eventually settling in Bellevue in 1971. After I graduated from college and our daughters were born, Brian and I bought our first store on our own in Grand Island, Nebraska in 1982. We used everything we had: cashed in our 401(k), sold our house. We started with nothing other than $100,000 my dad loaned us and loans from Motors Holding.
Carey: I was only 29 when I became a dealer and one of the very few female dealers in the country—I didn’t know how much I didn’t know, but it was a success and I loved the business, which I think was key. My dad really shaped my career in the dealership world. My father commanded such respect in the industry and a lot of that respect carried over onto me. As a result, I think I was lucky and it was easier for me than perhaps many others.
Carey: Brian loved his time on the NADA Board. The different trips to Washington, D.C. to talk to our congressional delegation, knowing that you have an impact in keeping strong dealer networks in every state—that was important. And I loved sitting on dealer councils because you can let the manufacturers know what’s right and wrong about many of their policies and products. It’s good to have their ear and they need to hear from the dealers, so it was an important role to play.
The good news is that because of our Kearney stores, we will remain in our 20 Group. We have lifelong friends there—third-generation members—so we get to keep that. I feel very fortunate to be able to maintain my connection to the car business, even after the sale of Beardmore.
"We felt that the best thing to do for our family is not to force them—after we are gone—to sell the dealerships themselves, because it’s a complex process. " — Carey Hamilton
Carey: The challenges are not small. Having the Chinese potentially come into the U.S. will create a huge amount of competition because their price point is so much lower than our OEMs. But the fact that they would not necessarily use a dealer network—with dealerships there to serve the customers—is something I believe would not be good for customers or the industry.
Government regulations also continue to increase. You spend so much of your time as a dealer just complying with legislation, going to workshops and seminars to make sure you’re on top of everything. The ever-increasing regulations are extremely burdensome on the dealer and a challenge to keep up with.
Dealers always are ready to face challenges, but the challenges ahead are going to be bigger than the challenges of the past in my opinion. I think they will be more difficult to manage with just a few dealerships. It will take a much larger organization to manage, particularly if you operate in a major metro market and are facing large dealership groups as your competitors.
Carey: There are so many AI tools vendors are selling to us that make our jobs easier, and that’s going to continue. It will streamline administrative jobs and standardize communication. I don’t see how AI can replace the most valuable employees you have. To me, one of the most precious assets you have in the dealership is your technicians. They are wonderful, and they will continue to have a job because we need their expertise and their hard work. On the sales side, there are different ways we can streamline the process so the time burden customers have is shortened—making it more efficient, making sure the onerous regulations we have to comply with are automatically teed up to show to our customers. That will be helpful to the customers and helpful to us in making sure we do things correctly. And customers already love going online and shopping for and comparing cars, so I think AI will be an extension of that. I expect AI will make the sale process a lot better, but different for sure.
Carey: I think the lack of scale will be a disadvantage for smaller dealership groups—not only in AI, but in HR, the financial side, and the marketing side. To have that kind of expertise, you need to spread those costs and expenses over quite a number of dealerships for it to make sense. Consolidation is really happening in a big way in the major metros like Omaha, but not as much in the smaller rural towns like Kearney, which sits in a county of about 50,000 in population. That’s actually one of the reasons we decided to sell our Omaha platform and keep our Kearney stores—it’s a smaller market that’s less impacted by consolidation, so we can stay in the business and have the best of both worlds. We do not see the Kearney stores being as affected by the changes coming to our industry as we expect the Omaha stores will be.
Carey: We ultimately decided to sell because we have two lovely, wonderful daughters who have no interest in taking over the operations of three dealerships as the fifth generation. We felt that the best thing to do for our family is not to force them—after we are gone—to sell the dealerships themselves, because it’s a complex process and it would not be fair to them to leave them with that burden. It was a very difficult decision because I love this business so much. I love doing what my family has done for so long and it gave me a lot of pride to carry my family legacy. But it was the right decision for our family, and I feel very comfortable with it. I know that very few family businesses make it to the fifth generation.
Carey: We have sold and purchased quite a number of dealerships through the years, but they’ve always been single dealerships. We’ve never sold a group before. So what was most surprising to me was the sheer amount of work and due diligence that was required for a group sale. It was very burdensome. I have to say a huge thanks to Kerrigan Advisors, to Erin Kerrigan, and her team, Chris Gempton, Max Clark and Juan Lacouture, and how they so lifted up that burden and helped us so much every step along the way.
Aside from the diligence aspect, one of the other things that surprised me about the sale process was how long it took for the OEMs to complete the buy/sell. One OEM, in particular, was much slower than the others in the approval process, which we hadn’t anticipated. It pushed out the closing, which was frustrating. I was very thankful for Erin’s connections with that OEM’s executives which helped to get the approvals expedited.
Carey: We are happy to be in the Midwest—we like dealing with Midwest people. We wanted someone who had transparent pricing, who valued their employees, and who was very active in the community. When Kerrigan brought forward Morrie’s, I did a lot of research. I felt that they embodied the same values—the same Midwestern values—that were so important to Brian and me. We are thrilled they are going to be the steward of our company going forward and feel confident they will do a good job maintaining the “Beardmore Way” of providing the highest level of customer service.
Carey: A mutual friend introduced us to Erin and Ryan Kerrigan at a lovely dinner in California—I think it was not long after Erin had started the business, back in 2014. Brian and I liked them both and we felt comfortable with them as people. The Kerrigans have the same straightforward, friendly values that we have. I kept track of their firm’s success since that dinner and am nothing but impressed by their industry leadership over the last 12 years. So it made sense to only talk to Kerrigan Advisors when we decided to sell. We are very happy with that decision and know that we made the right choice hiring Kerrigan Advisors to manage the sale process for us. They did an exceptional job.
Carey: We are just so much more relaxed and so happy! From being able to go out and enjoy the day, enjoy the sunshine, travel, spend more time with friends and family—just enjoying life even more. And I’m staying in the business, which is wonderful. We already have general managers, a fixed operations manager, and a CFO in place at our Kearney stores, and we’ve been regularly visiting that operation and it is going well. So we really feel that we have the best of both worlds. We have sold our major operation and yet we still remain in the business that we love in a much smaller way. It is a blessing.
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 more than 300 dealerships generating more than $10 billion in client proceeds, including two of the largest transactions in auto retail history – the sale of Jim Koons Automotive Companies to Asbury Automotive Group and Leith Automotive to Holman. 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 is the only firm in auto retail exclusively dedicated to sell-side advisory, providing its clients the assurance of a conflict-free approach.
Kerrigan Advisors monitors conditions in the buy/sell market and publishes an in-depth analysis each quarter in The Blue Sky Report®, the industry authority on dealership buy/sell market trends and valuations and 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 The Kerrigan Index™ comprised 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 2024 Kerrigan Dealer Survey, click here. To read the 2025 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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