Ford sells 9 European dealers to US-based private equity firm

Ford Motor has sold its factory-owned dealers in Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium to a US private equity group.
    
The sale has nothing to do with the financial problems faced by Ford Motor, which lost $12.7 billion (about ？.2 billion) worldwide last year, said Chris Hayden, CEO of Ford Retail.
    
Hayden said Ford Retail will concentrate on developing its dealerships in the UK, which is the carmaker’s second-largest market after the US.
    
“We own 60 sites in the UK and have achieved critical mass,” Hayden told Automotive News Europe.
    
Ford Retail has sold four dealerships in Vienna, three in Amsterdam and two in Brussels to MVC Capital, a business development company traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
    
Ford Retail was founded in 2004 to consolidate Ford-owned dealers and joint ventures the carmaker had with UK dealer groups. Ford also included the nine non-UK dealerships in the new company. Ford bought those dealers to support the brand in cities where operating costs are high.
    
Focus on the UK
    
A Ford spokesman said: “From a strategic standpoint, it makes more sense to focus our resources on our locations and dealerships in the UK.”
    
Ford Retail says it sold 39,160 new cars and 10,012 commercial vehicles in the UK last year. It is the country’s second-largest Ford dealer after the independent car-retail group Pendragon. Ford Retail did not disclose how many cars its Continental dealers sold.
    
Ford Retail and MVC Capital did not disclose financial details of the sale of the Continental dealers.
    
MVC Capital is shifting the focus of its automotive retail operations from eastern to western Europe. In June, it sold Baltic Motors Corporation and SIA BM Auto in Latvia to UK-based car retailer Inchcape for about ？4 million.
    
The company has set up MVC Automotive Group in Amsterdam to run the Ford dealerships it bought and funded it with $19 million of bridge finance and $21 million of equity.