Graham’s holdings range from TV stations, tech firm Code3 and education company Kaplan Inc. to manufacturing and health care businesses.
Pinkie Mayfield, chief communications officer for Graham Holdings, declined to comment on the daily operations and acquisition activity related to its dealership portfolio.
The Jeep store helped Graham’s automotive unit’s revenue rise in the third quarter, as did sales at its other two dealerships, Graham said this month in its third-quarter earnings report. The dealership unit’s operating earnings also rose in the period, the company said, though specific figures weren’t provided.
Ourisman Jeep Bethesda’s showroom operates in a 14,000-square-foot space on the ground floor of a mixed-use building in a “high-rent district of downtown Bethesda,” Ourisman said. A service facility is in an industrial space about a mile away. Ourisman declined to say how much capital the companies invested for the dealership, which began generating sales in January.
Ourisman said he and Graham actively are seeking and reviewing prospective dealership acquisitions.
“D.C., Maryland, Virginia certainly feels a lot easier for everybody,” he said. “But as a partnership, we’re talking about opportunities in specific locales that make sense for us.”
Ourisman said he and Graham haven’t discussed a maximum number of acquisitions. And growth could come with other auto-retail products and services, Ourisman said.
“We’re very interested in the development of different systems that can be implemented within a marketplace to take advantage of other automotive-related opportunities,” he said. “And so using our platform as sort of a test bed for it, with the ability to ultimately roll out some of this technology — software, hardware, whatever it may be — in other locales as well.”
