Tennessee Dealership Changes Hands
Sale is last of auto group that operated Memphis-area stores for decades.
The recently sold Memphis store is the second-highest volume Buick GMC store in the metro area.
General Motors
A Tennessee-based automotive group sold its last dealership after more than 30 years in business.
The last of Memphis-based Sunrise Auto Group’s three stores, Sunrise Buick GMC Covington Pike, to Jim Keras Automotive, also based in Memphis.
Sell-side firm Kerrigan Advisors represented Sunrise in the transaction, in addition to the sale of its other two stores.
Sunrise was founded by Bob Berkheimer. Before the recent deal, Keras Automotive had six dealerships between Tennessee and Missouri among Chevrolet, Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram, Nissan and Subaru.
The growing market of Memphis is the Southeast’s third biggest metropolitan area, Kerrigan said, and the Sunrise store generates its second highest sales volume of any Buick GMC dealership.
“Based on our analysis, we expect the strength in the Southern buy/sell market to continue,” said Kerrigan founder and Managing Director Erin Kerrigan in a press release on the sale. The firm said it’s handled 85 dealership sales there since 2020.
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