Morgan Automotive buys 9 Miami dealerships with $1B in revenue

The Morgan Automotive Group has bought nine dealerships and two collision centers in the Miami area, expanding its reach in South Florida and bringing the number of dealerships it owns to 76.

The deal was for the South Motors and Vista Motors dealer groups.

South Motors’ roster includes South Motors BMW, South Motors MINI, South Motors Honda, South Motors Infiniti, South Motors VW and a collision center. And Vista Motors’ includes Vista BMW of Coconut Creek and its satellite location Vista BMW of Pompano Beach, Vista MINI of Coconut Creek, Vista VW and a collision center.

Combined, the dealerships sold about 19,000 new and used vehicles in 2023, employed about 1,100 people and generated over $1 billion in revenue.

Details of the deal were not disclosed. A spokesperson for Haig Partners, which represented the sellers and announced the sale, says in an email that “we are not able to disclose the sale price.” Brett Morgan, Morgan’s CEO, did not respond to an email.

Haig, which advises on the purchase and sales of automobile, RV and heavy truck dealerships, does say in a news release that “it is believed that the values paid for Vista BMW and South Honda exceeded any previous values paid for those franchises.”

South and Vista motors were owned by the family of founder of Charles Dascal who became a Ford dealer in 1974. The story, according to the release, was that 13 years after landing in the U.S. from Cuba, he cold-called Henry Ford II. He went on to buy other dealerships along with a partner, local attorney Larry Hoffman.

Dascal also founded Continental National Bank, which grew to seven locations before being sold in 2019.

He died in 2013 and is survived by three daughters and their families.

For Morgan, this buy continues an aggressive trajectory that’s made it one of the largest dealership groups in the country since buying Precision Toyota in 2004.

In 2023 Morgan generated over $8 billion in revenue and retailed 162,000 vehicles through 67 dealerships — all in Florida. The industry publication Automotive News has ranked it No. 8 on its list of the Top 150 Dealership groups.

Larry Morgan, chairman of the auto groups, says in the statement that the deal, along with the purchases of Al Hendrickson Toyota in Coconut Creek in June and Genesis of Kendall and Kendall Hyundai in the Miami suburbs in April, “solidifies our presence in Southeast Florida.”