Car Pros Automotive Group sold its three Washington dealerships to Go Auto of Edmonton, Canada, according to Kerrigan Advisors, the advisory firm that represented the seller in the deal.
The transaction, involving stores selling Hyundai and Kia, closed Dec. 3.
Car Pros Kia Tacoma is now Go Kia Tacoma, Car Pros Hyundai Renton is now Go Hyundai of Renton, and Car Pros Kia Renton is now Go Kia Renton.
“It was a strategic decision on the part of Car Pros,” Ryan Kerrigan, managing director of Kerrigan Advisors, told Automotive News. “The Washington platform is a smaller percentage of their business than California.”
Car Pros owned Kia Renton for about 10 years, the Hyundai store for more than 10 years and Kia Tacoma store for “multiple decades,” Kerrigan said.
Car Pros Automotive, of Renton, Wash., will continue to operate its six California dealerships selling Kia, Honda, BMW and Mini, according to a Dec. 4 post on CEO Matthew Phillips’ LinkedIn page.
“This sale was not an easy decision as my dad, Ken Phillips, started selling cars 31 years ago in Tacoma, but it opens up new opportunities for Car Pros Automotive Group to put greater focus on the growth we have been experiencing with our six California dealerships,” Phillips said in a statement. “California is the U.S.’s largest, and most dynamic car market, a bellwether for industry innovation, and we look forward to focusing our resources on further growth in the region.”
Car Pros in August 2023 bought two Los Angeles dealerships, Nick Alexander BMW and Nick Alexander Mini, from the Alexander family.
Go Auto owns more than 70 stores in Canada and Washington. The group entered the U.S. in 2023 with its purchase of a joint Toyota and Mercedes-Benz dealership near Seattle in Bellingham, Wash.
“These acquisitions represent key steps in our long-term strategic plan: strengthening our presence in the U.S., growing in major Canadian markets, and continuing to strengthen our position across key market segments,” Go Auto President Phil Abram said in a Dec. 4 LinkedIn post.
Kerrigan said his firm is seeing Canadian dealers look seriously at U.S. stores.
“There was a real surge in activity across the border a few years ago that got quiet in the last five years, so we’re starting to see more of that activity,” he said.
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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