Victory Automotive buys one Honda store, sells one
Victory Automotive Group, which has been both a dealership buyer and seller in 2022, purchased a Honda store in Northern California last month, while it also sold a Honda dealership in Southern California in June.
Victory Automotive, of Canton, Mich., on Aug. 8 bought Kastner Honda in Napa, north of San Francisco, from William Kastner Jr., Rodger Olson, the group’s COO, confirmed to Automotive News in an email. The dealership’s name remains.
It marks the first acquisition for Victory Automotive since it bought two Ohio dealerships representing four total franchises in June, Olson said.
Meanwhile, Victory Automotive on June 22 sold Ocean Honda of North Hollywood, north of Los Angeles, to partners Joe Shuster and Ted Bessen. That store was renamed Honda North Hollywood.
For Shuster and Bessen, the acquisition is a return to ownership of a Honda dealership.
In July 2020, Shuster, Bessen and a third partner, Sean Wolfington, sold Honda of Downtown Los Angeles to Brandon Steven Motors for $80 million. The trio of partners originally bought the assets of Honda of Downtown Los Angeles out of bankruptcy for $3 million in 2011 and later invested in a new $38-million dealership.
Shuster, who stayed on at Honda of Downtown Los Angeles as dealer principal until May 2021, said the Los Angeles market has been good to him and Bessen.
“We’ve always loved L.A.,” Shuster told Automotive News. “And we’ve done very well in L.A. And we thought this was a store that was perfect for us. It’s in a great market, something we’re very, very comfortable with.”
Shuster said that he and Bessen, along with a third partner, Carolyn Olavarria, were awarded an Acura open point and will be opening Acura of Los Angeles in the fourth quarter. Shuster added that he and Bessen also are set to purchase a New York dealership “very shortly,” though he didn’t offer specifics.
Bessen also owns three dealerships in New York, Shuster said.
The North Hollywood transaction was the latest sale by Victory Automotive this year. In two separate May transactions, it sold a Honda store in Alabama and a Honda dealership in New York.
Bill Scrivner and Mike Sims of Pinnacle Mergers & Acquisitions, a Frisco, Texas, buy-sell firm, handled the North Hollywood transaction.
Victory Automotive ranks No. 14 on Automotive News‘ list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S., with retail sales of 36,958 new vehicles in 2021.