Manheim has announced the acquisition of Dealer Auction, the UK’s largest and electronic trade-to-trade vehicle remarketing channel, in an undisclosed multi-million pound deal.
The acquisition comes only six months after Manheim bought Motors.co.uk, the UK’s second largest online classified portal from the Daily Mail.
Dealer Auction’s electronic sales cater mainly for vehicles arising from franchised dealers.
The e-auctions operate on a rolling basis and allow registered trade buyers exclusive online access to this massive source of quality part-exchanges and other non-required stock.
Unlike traditional remarketing channels, buyers and sellers deal directly with each other and it is only the online bidding and listing platform which Dealer Auction provides to its customers.
John Bailey, Manheim’s chief executive, said: “The industry is in a period of sustained change and our remarketing business is simply moving with the times.
“Inter-dealer wholesaling is an age-old practice and still thrives completely outside the traditional remarketing arena.
“Dealer Auction provides franchised dealers, who prefer to wholesale directly to the trade, with a very effective solution.
“In essence, it modernises vehicle trading by bringing together the previously disparate wholesale community and creates a very exciting online trade marketplace.
“This sits very naturally alongside our main remarketing business which continues to remain as strong as ever, but we now provide our dealer buyers and sellers with even greater choice.”
The two founders of Dealer Auction, Clive Colyer and Gavin Smith, will remain at the helm of the business. They will remain as joint managing directors reporting directly to Bailey who will take up a position of chairman on the Dealer Auction Board.
Colyer said: “Since we founded the business three years ago it has grown dramatically. This success has been achieved despite facing the fiercest competition we’ve ever seen in the industry and it has really underlined the demand for our type of service.
“However, we needed major scale and investment to fully exploit our true potential and, to now be part of Manheim, gives us just that”.
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