Auto Dealer Valuation Insights

Regular updates on issues important to the Auto Dealer industry

Special Topics

Meet the Team

Harrison Holt

In each “Meet the Team” segment, we highlight a different professional on our Auto Dealer Industry team. This week we highlight Harrison Holt, Financial Analyst. We hope you enjoy getting to know us a bit better.

SAAR

October 2022 SAAR

The October 2022 SAAR was 14.9 million units, up 12.7% from October 2021 and up 9.8% from last month. This month’s SAAR comes as a bit of a surprise, as the last three months’ sales pace settled at around 13.4 million units and seemed to have stabilized at a short-term equilibrium. However, meaningful improvements in inventory balances and other tailwinds like natural disaster-related demand contributed to the second-highest monthly SAAR total this year. For perspective, from 2014-2019, there were zero months where SAAR was below this recent high in the inventory-constrained 2022.

Special Topics Valuation Issues

Market Insights on Auto Dealer M&A Activity

A few weeks ago, I sat down with Kevin Nill of Haig Partners to discuss the current state of the M&A market and other timely trends in the auto dealer industry.  Specifically, we discussed some of the movements in Blue Sky multiples for various franchises and interpret the range of multiples that Haig Partners recently published with the release of their Second Quarter 2022 Haig Report.  

Special Topics

Regulatory Update: Amendments to FTC Safeguards Rule

Impacts to Auto Dealerships

NADA estimates that auto dealerships could face up-front costs of up to $294,000 per rooftop to comply with the FTC’s Safeguards Rule. If you are not familiar with the Safeguards Rule, this post discusses it and the amendments that must be complied with by early December 2022. 

SAAR

September 2022 SAAR

The September SAAR was 13.5 million units, up 2.3% from last month and up 9.6% from September 2021 when the industry had less than one million vehicles available for sale. While this month’s SAAR highlights a year-over-year improvement and gives us context around how low inventory managed to fall in 2021, this month’s data release does not indicate a “return to normal” by any means.

Special Topics

Book Review:  The Future of Automotive Retail (Part 2)

Discussions and Predictions of Changes to Auto Dealers in the Next 30 Years

In this week’s blog, we continue our review of the book The Future of Automotive Retail by Steve Greenfield.   It covers the changing trends of consumer behavior and technology that will likely continue to shape the automotive retailing experience for decades to come.  In part one of the series, we discussed the “convenience economy,” including predictions of changes to power sources and vehicle production.

In Part two of this series we discuss vehicle ownership, autonomous vehicles, connected cars, service and repairs, and the proposed future of the auto dealership.

Special Topics

Book Review: The Future of Automotive Retail (Part 1)

Discussions and Predictions of Changes to Auto Dealers in the Next 30 Years

Over the next two blogs, we will review the book The Future of Automotive Retail by Steve Greenfield.  This book discusses changes in trends of consumer behavior and technology that will likely continue to shape the auto dealer retailing experience for decades to come. In part one of this Blog series, we review the discussions and predictions caused by the “convenience economy,” including changes to power sources and vehicle production.

Blue Sky Mergers, Acquisitions, & Divestitures

Blue Sky Multiples Remain Flat as Earnings Plateau

Dealers Continue to Perform through Negative Economic Indicators

Interest rates are up, gas prices are volatile, inflation is rampant and vehicle affordability, GDP, and the stock market are down. How have auto dealers belied all of these negative headwinds to produce strong earnings? The simple answer is that dealers have been able to pass on price increases to consumers and have benefitted from more lean cost structures in the wake of the pandemic when they had to cut all costs possible to the bone. In this week’s blog, we consider these trends and analyze Blue Sky values and multiples over the past few years thanks to info provided by Haig Partners.

SAAR

August 2022 SAAR

The August SAAR was 13.2 million units, down 1.1% from last month but up 0.7% from August 2021. This month’s data release, marks the third month in a row that the SAAR has been in the low 13 million-unit range, with the metric seemingly having stabilized in the short term. To illustrate this trend, over the last four months the average SAAR has been 13.1 million units.

Now that the August data has been released, we have much more visibility to what the full year SAAR might look like.

Auto Dealerships

Mercer Capital provides business valuation and financial advisory services to companies throughout the nation in the auto dealer industry.