9:06 am, January 16, 2020
VERTU Motors has bought four Volkswagen car dealerships in West Yorkshire from Goodman Retail Ltd, a subsidiary of Sytner Group.
The £8.8 million purchase of the leasehold businesses in Leeds, Huddersfield, Harrogate and Skipton represents further expansion of the group’s Vertu Volkswagen brand.
The acquisitions also complement the company’s existing 13 outlets in Yorkshire comprising the Nissan, Renault, Jaguar, Land Rover, Vauxhall and Honda brands.
After the acquisition, the group will operate a total of nine VW car dealerships.
For the year ended December 31, 2018 the combined management accounts of the four newly-acquired dealerships showed that they achieved revenues of £112m and a profit before tax of £0.6m.
In other Vertu news, the group has relinquished its Volvo franchise in Derby with the business being transferred to a subsidiary of Marshall Motor Holdings.
The premises were retained by the group, however, and are currently being refurbished with a new franchise operation due to start in the coming months.
The group has also opened two new franchise outlets for Hyundai in the north-east of England.
Hyundai has started trading at Silverlink, North Tyneside in the group’s former Infiniti dealership.
In addition, Hyundai has been added to the existing Ford and Honda operation in Morpeth, Northumberland.
This adds to the group’s existing Hyundai representation in the adjacent territories of Peterlee and Edinburgh and brings the number of Hyundai outlets operated by Vertu to 10. The group is now one of the manufacturer’s largest UK partners.
Robert Forrester, CEO of Vertu Motors, pictured, said: ‘We are delighted with these changes to our portfolio, especially the Volkswagen acquisition. The addition of these excellent dealerships augments the group’s representation of the Volkswagen brand and expands our operational footprint in Yorkshire.
‘These portfolio changes reflect the group’s strategy to continue to grow a significantly scaled franchised dealership business built on the back of a strong balance sheet, scalable operational systems and excellent relationships with its manufacturer partners.’
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