2:44 pm, April 15, 2014
BRITISH Car Auctions (BCA) is looking to join the London stock market in the coming months, according to Sky News.
The broadcaster says that BCA’s owners, the private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CDR), has appointed Rothschild to prepare the company to ‘make its debut on the public markets later this year’.
In preparing for flotation, BCA will be looking to take advantage of the current strength of the UK car market – March 2014 provided the strongest set of registration figures for 10 years.
BCA is expected to be worth more than £500m, according to Sky News. The company recorded a pre-tax profit of £30.4m on sales of £262.5m during 2012. And the following year, 2013, was a record year for the company, which sold well above 600,000 units for the first time in a 12-month period.
BCA currently sell more than 12,000 vehicles a week in physical and online auctions – a far cry from its humble beginnings as Southern Counties Car Auctions, when it sold 14 cars at its first sale in the 1940s.
The company, which has been in existence for more than 60 years, is the UK and Europe’s largest vehicle auction company. It has 19 UK auction centres across the UK, from Scotland to South-West England.
Sky said it was still a possibility that the company would be sold, although flotation seems the more likely option.
Car Dealer contacted a BCA spokesperson but their response was ‘no comment’.
