Lithia announced on Sept. 18 its plans to acquire Pendragon’s dealership and fleet businesses for $350 million. As part of the deal, Pinewood, Pendragon’s dealership management system, will be rebranded as Pinewood Technologies, an independent software company. Lithia will hold a one-sixth ownership stake in the new entity. Additionally, Lithia and Pinewood will collaborate on introducing a dealership management system to the North American market.
Pendragon recently disclosed that it will convene a shareholders meeting on Oct. 6 to vote on Lithia’s proposal.
Bill Berman, the former AutoNation COO, currently leads Pendragon and if Lithia’s proposal is accepted, he will remain as the CEO of Pinewood.
Mere days after Lithia announced its deal, Pendragon received a joint offer from Penske Automotive Group Inc., through its subsidiary PAG International, along with Sweden’s Hedin Mobility Group. However, Pendragon decided to decline this offer.
Subsequently, Penske and Hedin submitted a revised offer to purchase Pendragon, raising the price from the previous 35 cents per share to 39 cents per share. Reuters estimated the value of the second Penske-Hedin bid to be around $548 million. Pendragon is currently evaluating this proposal.
Unlike the Penske bid, AutoNation seems to have made an individual offer.
If successful, AutoNation would become the fourth publicly traded auto retailer with dealerships in the U.K., joining Lithia, Penske, and Group 1 Automotive.
Pendragon operates 160 retail locations across the U.K., primarily consisting of new-vehicle dealerships.
A spokesperson from Lithia declined to comment on the matter.
Rob Kurnick Jr., president of Penske Automotive Group, also refrained from discussing the details of Penske’s pursuit of Pendragon, stating, “Obviously, that’s not something I can talk a lot about.” Kurnick mentioned that Penske conducts a significant portion of its business in the U.K. and acknowledged that Pendragon has been a long-standing peer of the company. He further added, “We closely monitor all of those companies.”
AutoNation, headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., holds the second position on Automotive News’ list of the top 150 dealership groups in the U.S., based on retail sales of 229,971 new vehicles in 2022. Lithia tops the list, and Penske ranks third.
Mark Hollmer and Reuters contributed to this report.
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