With the divestiture of its Brazil operations, Group 1’s global dealership count will fall to 174, subject to the addition of about 30 Prime dealerships that Group 1 anticipates buying in a separate transaction expected to close in the current quarter.
“Over the past eight years we developed a successful automotive dealer group in Brazil representing Land Rover, BMW, Honda and Toyota,” Group 1 CEO Earl Hesterberg said in a release. “Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to attain critical mass or meaningful scale. Therefore, we decided that redeploying the capital invested in our Brazilian operations to other near-term growth opportunities is in the best interest of our shareholders.”
Group 1 ranks No. 4 on Automotive News‘ list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S., with retail sales of 140,221 new vehicles in 2020.
