“The Mysterious American Giant Bidder Pendragon”

The bid was blocked by Hedin Motors, which is Pendragon’s largest shareholder with 53%. (Photo: Shutterstock)
US dealership giant Lithia Motors is the mysterious “big international company” that reportedly made a €550m bid earlier this month for UK holding company Pendragon. Sky News reports it.

This bid was reportedly blocked by Hedin Motors, which is Pendragon’s largest shareholder with 53%. It is not yet known whether Lithia Motors will give up its efforts at this stage.

Big in the USA

Within a few years, Lithia Motors had become one of the largest car dealerships in the United States. In the first three months of this year, the listed company with 21,500 employees and three hundred branches traded 65,000 cars. The quarterly turnover amounts to 6.7 billion dollars (6.6 billion euros), that is to say an annual turnover of more than 24.5 billion euros.

For comparison: Hedin Mobility Group achieved an annual turnover of 2.6 billion euros in 2021.

In a recently announced strategic plan, Lithia aims to double its turnover in five years. “We think it’s something we can achieve. We have other plans on top of that that we’re all focused on internally,” said CEO Bryan DeBoer, grandson of the man who founded Lithia in 1946 in Medford, Oregon. So far, the company has no business outside of the United States.