Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m

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Mon 6 Dec 2021 11:48
Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m - Falkirk Bairn

110 years old firm sell up

WBAC also own Cinch as well as auction sites

64% of the shares are family owned shares!

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Mon 6 Dec 2021 13:02
Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m - The Gingerous One

Yes I had been following this as I bought into MMH during the early stages of the pandemic. It might have knocked a year off my retirement.....

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Tue 7 Dec 2021 19:02
Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m - Miniman777

Given most franchises are part of much larger organisations, I would really like to see a who owns whom chart, as many have their entities hidden, such as Lincoln Audi (JCT600?), Leicester Audi (Sytner), Evans Halshaw and Stratstone (both Pendragon).

What is happening is a further decline of independent retailers, most are now part of big retail groups spanning a number of marques, and this is eroding customers' negotiating powers. It's embarking on market domination, reducing consumer choice.

Also provides puts Cinch in a very strong position as online sales increase. In my book, there is still no substitute for a proper test drive. I'm dead against the click and deliver online selling process.

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Tue 7 Dec 2021 19:27
Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m - RT

Given most franchises are part of much larger organisations, I would really like to see a who owns whom chart, as many have their entities hidden, such as Lincoln Audi (JCT600?), Leicester Audi (Sytner), Evans Halshaw and Stratstone (both Pendragon).

What is happening is a further decline of independent retailers, most are now part of big retail groups spanning a number of marques, and this is eroding customers' negotiating powers. It's embarking on market domination, reducing consumer choice.

Also provides puts Cinch in a very strong position as online sales increase. In my book, there is still no substitute for a proper test drive. I'm dead against the click and deliver online selling process.

I've always separated the "choosing" and "buying" parts of the process - enforced when I had company cars which I could choose but were provided by leasing companies - and just carried on keeping the two functions separate when I retired.

As far as I'm concerned, the buying/selling process is just an administrative function - demonstrated by my present purchase through an online broker and the only dealer contact was a clerk in accounts.

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Tue 7 Dec 2021 20:59
Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m - sammy1

It cannot be good for consumers shrinking franchises owned buy fewer companies and then also beginning if not already taken over the second hand market with the likes of WBAC.etc. They are not buying because of product shortage it is to make profit. We can already see the effect in the 20% plus uplift new and old and it is not down to shortage of processors. It now seems to be there's the price take it or leave it. I am content to leave it

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Tue 7 Dec 2021 20:56
Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m - mcb100
Audi Lincoln is JCT600 - scroll to the bottom of the dealership website and all the information is there. Jack Tordoff - the JCT in JCT600 - died within the past couple of weeks.
There is a move within the industry towards an agency model, whereby the manufacturer, in essence, becomes the retailer and the dealer facilitates the transaction. Some manufacturers already own some of their own dealerships - Renault Retail and Robins & Day spring to mind.
We will see changes in how cars are bought, in that the pandemic has given some customers the confidence to buy online, and it has demonstrated to dealers that people will buy online.
We will have a combination of the two approaches - clicks and bricks - for the foreseeable future.
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Tue 7 Dec 2021 21:36
Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m - Engineer Andy

110 years old firm sell up

WBAC also own Cinch as well as auction sites

64% of the shares are family owned shares!

Is this the Marshalls that run loads of Cambridge's franchised dealers on one supersite? That IMHO was bad enough, but this?

This sort of thing doesn't look good for competition. I thought it was a bad idea in my own industry (Construction Engineering consultants) for the big boys to hoover up all the littlun's - what next - big US coprorations or the Chinese buying them up?

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Tue 7 Dec 2021 23:11
Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m - Energyman
The same Marshall’s. The one that when my wife took her manual discovery in for service gave her an automatic free lander as a courtesy car, refused to help her with the controls, so she said give me my keys back and I will go elsewhere.
This same Marshall’s a few years later that when we were looking for a Volvo XC60 wouldn’t come out of the showroom as it was raining, unlocked the car with the remote from the dry and said come back if we ere interested, we walked off and bought from Larters at Bury st Edmunds.
The same Marshall’s that when my i30 went in for a one hour recall fix, I asked politely after 90 mins if it would be much longer was told it would take as long as it takes, it was there first job of the day. As I took the keys eventually I told the receptionist they would never see me again due to her attitude,and later told the salesman.
Hopefully the new company will have some good staff training, or any training!
One day these mergers could trigger a monopolies investigation.
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Wed 8 Dec 2021 09:11
Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m - daveyjp

I genuinely believe the glass palace dealers don't know which way to turn. They have invested millions over the years in expensive real estate which buyers simply don't appreciate and I suspect many of the showrooms don't cover their annual running costs.

Tesla are currently 'selling' cars from a tent at the Trafford Centre, people are happy to take delivery there having purchased online without even driving one. This will be a growing trend and as EVs require so little ongoing servicing and repairs at actual premises the need for showrooms and service centres will reduce further.

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Wed 8 Dec 2021 11:33
Multiple New car Franchises - WBAC buys 160 Marshall Motor Holdings for £326m - Brit_in_Germany

A good strategic move by the Marshall family. The end of the showroom cannot be far away and getting out now with a reasonable ROI is sound business sense. In the pandemic we have bought two cars without sitting in either of them first, just an order placed via email to the local dealer offering the lowest quote via CarWow.

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