Marshall Motor Holdings has bought Volkswagen and Skoda car and CV businesses from Jardine Motor Group for £9.3m.
The deal, for £22.3m cash with £13m of inventory, includes six Volkswagen car franchises in Aylesbury, Harlow, Letchworth, Loughton, Milton Keynes and St Albans, a Volkswagen commercial vehicle franchise and bodyshop in Loughton and a Skoda passenger car franchise in Milton Keynes.
The acquired businesses generated losses of £2.8m on turnover of £212.8m in 2018.
MMH first partnered with Volkswagen in 2012. It is now the second largest partner in the UK for Volkswagen cars with 14 retail centres and the largest partner for Volkswagen commercial vehicles with six dealerships. It is also now the largest Skoda retailer in the UK with 12 retail centres.
In September Marshall bought two Honda dealerships from Jardine in Reading and Newbury.
Marshall CEO Daksh Gupta said: “I am delighted that we have further strengthened our already excellent relationship with Volkswagen Group UK with this acquisition.
“While the acquired businesses are currently loss making, we are confident in their future potential.
“The businesses are in excellent locations that are contiguous to our existing Volkswagen and ŠKODA franchises and each site is fully compliant with the latest brand requirements.”
Alex Smith, managing director of Volkswagen Group UK, said: “We are pleased to have extended our relationship with Marshall, a trusted partner of Volkswagen Group here in the UK, demonstrated by the fact that it is now our largest partner in the UK by number of locations.
“Marshall has demonstrated its commercial and customer focus capabilities over the long term and we are confident in its ability to maximise the operating performances of these businesses.
“The Volkswagen Group is investing significantly in its future product portfolio and having strong retail partners such as Marshall is key to delivering these exciting new products to our customers.”
Marshall said today that it was performing in line with expectations despite a deterioration in trading conditions in Q4.