Vertu buys dealers
June 29th, 2010 by Richard Aucock
VERTU Motors Plc has announced that 2 Vauxhall franchises have today been acquired by its subsidiaries.
The company has acquired the Vauxhall franchises from Baker Limited, which is in administration.
Consideration of the deal is expected to be £1.5m – that’s £1.3m for freehold property and £0.2m for fixed assets.
Vertu has also, in a separate deal, acquired the working capital of the firms; this works out to be around £2m annually.
The main deal includes franchise property and operations of Crewe Vauxhall, plus the leasehold premises and operations of Macclesfield Vauxhall.
Vertu says cash from existing resources will fund the acquisition. After an initial start-up process, the dealers are expected to be making money in the year to February 2010.
Chief executive Robert Forrester said: ‘We are delighted to have acquired these businesses in one of our developing geographical areas.
‘Vertu will benefit from building a stronger regional concentration and there is considerable scope to integrate these dealerships onto Vertu’s scalable platform.
‘This acquisition provides us with excellent opportunities to strengthen the Group’s relationship with Vauxhall, one of our key manufacturer partners.’
The deal takes Vertu’s total Vauxhall holding to 9. Want to hear more of the latest deal? Then get along to Vertu’s AGM, to be held on 22 July in Newcastle. Doors open early prior to a start at 11am.