BCA owner buys Aston Barclay to secure long-term future of business

The owners of BCA, Constellation Automotive Group, has bought Aston Barclay, including its subsidiary The Car Buying Group, for an undisclosed sum. 

Aston Barclay has five auction centres, located in Chelmsford in Essex, Prees Heath in Shropshire and Westbury in Wiltshire, and so-called mega centres at Donington Park and in Wakefield.

Aston Barclay had itself had acquired The Car Buying Group, one of the largest independent consumer car buying companies in the UK, in 2018.

In a statement, Constellation Automotive Group said: “Aston Barclay has recently been experiencing difficult market conditions and, as a result, closed its Leeds remarketing centre in January. 

“The acquisition aims to secure the longer-term viability of the Aston Barclay network of centres and avoid further closures by bringing further investment into the business, along with incremental volume from the Group’s growing WeBuyAnyCar business.”

Last July, it appointed a new chief operating officer, Eddie Thomson, who was once sales and operations director at BCA.

Several other members of the Aston Barclay leadership team have extensive remarketing experience gained at BCA, Manheim and Scottish Motor Auctions.

At the time its executive chairman Greg MacLeod said that “with 40 years of auction heritage, Aston Barclay is poised for growth”.

That was a year after it had undertaken a senior management restructure which created new leadership roles and drove the exit of its chief executive Tom Marley, who subsequently joined Cox Automotive.

Aston Barclay was once owned by the Scarborough family, after it was founded by Les Scarborough in 1984.

A multi-million pound management buy-out of the Aston Barclay Group was led by Neil Hodson in 2017. The exact details of the deal were not disclosed.

At the end of 2023, Aston Barclay announced the sale-and-leaseback of its Chelmsford, Westbury, Prees Heath and Leeds owned sites, with long-term leases across all four of the sites.

Three of the properties were acquired by a London-based multi-asset manager, with the other being purchased by a private investor. Neither had any links to the remarketing sector. 

The sale-and-lease-back of these four properties was seen as a strategic move, which aimed to improve Aston Barclay’s ability to focus on profitable growth. 

The Wakefield and Donington sites remained unaffected by the announcement as they were already on long-term leases. 

In its most recent company accounts, Aston Barclay reported revenues of £34.8 million, up from £29.3m the prior year, but a slump in pre-tax profit from £997,000 to £298,000.

The Constellation Automotive Group, which also operates Webuyanycar.com, Cinch and Marshall Motor Group, declined to comment further at this stage.