17 Best Automotive M&A Advisors: Dealers, Suppliers & Aftermarket in 2026

17 Best Automotive M&A Advisors: Dealers, Suppliers & Aftermarket in 2026

Last updated: September 2026 · Last verified: September 2026

TL;DR. "Automotive M&A" is three markets sharing one keyword, the Three-Currency Automotive Market. Franchised dealerships price on blue sky, a multiple of adjusted pre-tax earnings with real estate valued separately: Sonic Automotive's SEC-filed deck, citing the most recent Haig Report, puts high-line luxury at 6.0x-10.0x and domestic at 3.0x-4.5x (Sonic Automotive 8-K, July 30, 2026). Suppliers price on EV/EBITDA off program awards: Dana sold Off-Highway to Allison at a stated 7x expected 2025 adjusted EBITDA, closing January 1, 2026 at about $2.664B (Dana 8-K/A, January 2026). The aftermarket prices on sponsor roll-up economics, 50.6% private equity by year-to-date volume in October 2025, the first sponsor majority since 2022 (Capstone Partners, October 2025); a car wash cleared at 5.0x in the month a quick-lube chain cleared at 10.7x (Mister Car Wash DEFM14C, April 2026). Only dealerships carry the OEM Gate: 60 days for the factory to approve your buyer and, in California, 45 days to take the deal itself (Cal. Veh. Code § 11713.3). Ranked on adviser-of-record evidence: Kerrigan Advisors, Lincoln International, Tim Lamb Group, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Haig Partners, Brown Gibbons Lang, Piper Sandler, Schwartz Advisors, Focus Advisors, Amplify Car Wash Advisors, Jefferies, The Presidio Group, Performance Brokerage Services, Capstone Partners and Car Wash Advisory. I run Peony, a data room used by 6,800+ customers, the room the process runs in, not an adviser.

Why is "automotive" three M&A markets rather than one?

Because a dealership, a supplier and an aftermarket operator are priced in three currencies, sold to three buyer sets and advised by three benches that barely overlap. I'm Sean Yu, co-founder of Peony, a data room company used by 6,800+ customers. I work on the layer that decides who may read a confidential document. This guide is for one owner in three situations: a franchised dealer with one to six rooftops fielding a consolidator's call; a Tier-2 supplier at $30M-$300M of revenue with tariff exposure and an under-shipped EV award; and an aftermarket operator at $10M-$200M whose inbound came from a private-equity-backed platform.

An automotive M&A advisor is an investment bank, buy-sell firm or boutique that runs the sale, recapitalization or capital raise of an automotive business on the owner's behalf: blue sky valuation and the manufacturer's approval in the dealership lane; an EBITDA bridge by program and a strategic-and-sponsor auction in the supplier lane; positioning against the platform that will buy you as an add-on in the aftermarket. For the label distinctions see M&A advisor vs broker vs investment bank; this post sits under the best M&A advisors hub and deepens the automotive section of our industrial M&A advisors guide.

I built the bench on one standard, the Adviser-of-Record Ledger, a Peony-original evidence standard: a firm earns a rank only if I could find a dated automotive adviser-of-record credit in a primary source, an SEC filing, a counterparty's release, a dated trade-press report naming the role, or the firm's own dated tombstone; where evidence is thin the profile says so. Peony is the room the process runs in, not an adviser; the full line is in the confidentiality section. Buyers should start with how to acquire a company and our automotive investors directory.

Which advisers actually closed the automotive deals on the tape, 2021-26?

A short, repeating set of banks and one dealership firm. The Adviser-of-Record Ledger below is every 2021-2026 automotive transaction where I could read the adviser roster in a primary document, with the value as the source states it.

Bottom line: ten deals and nine advisory banks in the table, plus Lazard on Superior Industries' lender-led restructuring and Bank of America on LKQ's pending Specialty sale process. Kerrigan Advisors is the only dealership buy-sell firm named in any counterparty's SEC filing, and it is named in three.

Most automotive deals disclose no bankers at all: Boyd Group's roughly $1.3B purchase of Joe Hudson's Collision Center (closed January 2026), the collision and tire roll-ups, and nearly every dealership sale under $500M name no adviser in any primary source I could reach. A list that says a firm "advised on" a private dealership deal without a filing, a dated tombstone or a party's release behind it is asserting, not reporting.

Which dealership buy-sell firms have closed the most transactions?

Nobody can tell you, because dealership buy-sell has no audited league table and five firms claim first place on five different metrics. Call it the Five-Number-Ones Problem, a Peony-original diagnosis. Verbatim from each site on September 14, 2026: Kerrigan Advisors has sold "more dealerships on behalf of the Top 150 Dealership Groups than any firm in the industry"; Haig Partners has represented "33 of the Automotive News Top 150 Groups, more than any other firm"; Performance Brokerage Services is "North America's Highest Volume Dealership Brokerage Firm"; Tim Lamb Group is "the #1 choice of auto dealership brokers in the United States and Canada"; Bel Air Partners is "the country's foremost" dealership adviser. Kerrigan and Haig each claim primacy over the same Top-150 population on two different counts, dealerships sold versus groups represented, so both can be true, and neither publishes the number.

The ledger resolves it. Kerrigan wins on adviser-of-record deals: three counterparty SEC filings plus dated 2026 tombstones (Tommie Vaughn Ford, August 24; Car Pros, August 19) and a dated June 9, 2026 Tameron-to-AutoNation release. Haig wins on research a public counterparty adopted: Sonic Automotive's investor deck carries the note "Multiples are based on the most recent Haig Partners Report" in seven consecutive SEC-filed quarterly exhibits from February 12, 2025 to July 30, 2026, a research citation rather than an adviser credit, with no equivalent for Kerrigan's Blue Sky Report. Tim Lamb Group is the correction most lists miss: three dated 2026 sell-sides with named sellers and buyers, more than Haig, Performance Brokerage, Bel Air and Nancy Phillips publish combined.

Which M&A adviser should I hire to sell a 4-rooftop dealership group?

The firm whose evidence matches your franchise mix and your buyer, and Haig's data says who that buyer is: premium luxury was 36.1% of Top-20 dealer-group acquisitions over the last 24 months, up from 22.8% in 2020-21, while domestic fell to 15.1%; among non-Top-20 groups, domestic was 48.3% (Haig Partners, Q2 2026). Lexus, Toyota and BMW points sell to a Top-20 group or a public consolidator, so you want the firm named in those buyers' filings, Kerrigan, with Presidio the alternative that owns its broker-dealer. Chevrolet, Ford and Stellantis points in a secondary market sell to a regional private group, where Tim Lamb Group's 2026 record is the relevant evidence.

Which are the best investment banks for automotive suppliers?

Lincoln International and Brown Gibbons Lang in the middle market, and Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and BofA Securities at the top. Lincoln International runs a named Automotive & Mobility Technology group across six sub-sectors. Brown Gibbons Lang fields three separately named automotive coverage teams, more than any other mid-market firm. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley advised Dana on the $2.7B Off-Highway sale at a stated 7x; BofA Securities sat opposite them for Allison.

For a $30M-$300M revenue Tier-2 seller the practical choice is Lincoln or BGL, layered with the Detroit-rooted boutiques in our Detroit M&A advisors guide when the buyer list is the OEM corporate-development ecosystem; a generalist bank runs a trailing-EBITDA process that flattens program life, awarded volumes and tooling ownership.

Who are the top auto aftermarket M&A advisers?

Focus Advisors for collision, Amplify Car Wash Advisors and Car Wash Advisory for car washes, Schwartz Advisors for parts distribution, Capstone Partners for lower-middle-market processes, Piper Sandler across all three lanes and Jefferies above $300M: this is the one automotive lane where single-vertical specialists exist. It is also the one automotive sub-market where sponsors are the majority of buyers: private equity was 50.6% of aftermarket deal volume year to date as of Capstone Partners' October 8, 2025 update, the first sponsor majority since 2022, on 194 transactions, 15.7% below the 230 in the same period of 2024, with strategic activity down 21.3%. Dealerships are bought by consolidators and family groups; building products cleared 87.5% strategic.

The evidence by sub-lane: Schwartz Advisors' engagements name Genuine Parts Company, Parts Authority, XL Parts, Transtar and Kinderhook as repeat acquirers, and the structural story in parts distribution is a break-up, Genuine Parts Company's September 9, 2026 filing to separate its Global Automotive and Global Industrial businesses into two public companies. Focus Advisors is "the only Investment Bank that specializes in selling collision repair MSOs"; Amplify carries the dated car wash record and Car Wash Advisory the disclosure; Jefferies was exclusive adviser to Mavis on the ~$700M Pep Boys purchase completed August 20, 2026; Capstone Partners closed two dated December 2025 deals.

The specialists take single shops and three-location groups; the banks in the ledger take platforms, and the platforms set the scale: Mister Car Wash's roughly 550 locations went private at $3.1B, Boyd bought 258 shops for about $1.3B, Mavis added nearly 800 Pep Boys locations for about $700M. A five-shop MSO is an add-on to one of those, and the specialist's job is to make two platforms compete for it. If you calibrate ADAS in-house, say so early: 74% of the U.S. car parc has some form of ADAS and only 11% of repair and collision shops offered in-house calibration in 2024, worth $500 to $2,000 per repair (Capstone Partners, October 2025).

Who are the 17 automotive M&A advisors on this bench, and how are they ranked?

By automotive adviser-of-record evidence first and by relevance to an owner-seller second. Within a lane, a counterparty's SEC filing outranks the firm's own dated tombstones, which outrank undated tombstones, which outrank research without deals. Across lanes, repeat, recent, sell-side evidence at the size this guide's readers sell at outranks a single bulge-bracket credit above $1B, which is why Tim Lamb Group's three dated 2026 sell-sides sit above Goldman Sachs's one Dana credit, and why Jefferies, with three SEC-filed roles but two of them buy-side at platform scale, sits where it does. Each profile carries the evidence, the registration line and a verdict.

Positions 4, 5, 6 and 13 are large-cap banks ranked on the strength of one or more SEC-filed credits above $400M; below roughly $500M of enterprise value they are the bank across the table, not your hire.

1. Kerrigan Advisors: the only dealership adviser named in a counterparty's SEC filing

Kerrigan Advisors, "the only buy/sell advisor to exclusively represent sellers in auto retail," is named in Group 1 Automotive's July 30, 2026 release as transaction advisor to Hennessy on the pending ~$1.3B sale and in Asbury's filings on the ~$1.2B Koons sale and on Stevinson, and publishes the Blue Sky Report. Registration, verbatim: securities "offered through BA Securities, LLC. Member FINRA SIPC. Kerrigan Advisors and BA Securities, LLC are separate, unaffiliated entities." No street address is published. Verdict: the best-evidenced dealership adviser in the country.

2. Lincoln International: the best-evidenced mid-market supplier platform

Lincoln International, Chicago, runs a named Automotive & Mobility Technology group across six sub-sectors and carries a titled client quotation from Félicie Burelle, Strategy & Development Director of Plastic Omnium Group on a heavy-duty truck sale; undated deals include Neapco's purchase of IFA Holding and the Android Industries and Avancez merger with Detroit Manufacturing Systems. No automotive tombstone carries a date. Verdict: the first call for a $30M-$300M supplier with a cross-border buyer list.

3. Tim Lamb Group: the dated 2026 record most lists dismiss

Tim Lamb Group, Columbus, Ohio, since 2006, publishes the best dated 2026 flow of any pure dealership broker: Mercedes-Benz of Billings to Ed Morse Automotive Group, closed July 8, 2026; Wheeling Subaru Volkswagen to Crown Auto Group, July 16, 2026; Firelands Automotive Group's seven Northern Ohio dealerships, April and May 2026. Registration: none published; its "#1" claim names no ranking body. Verdict: second only to Kerrigan on evidence, first for domestic and import stores in secondary markets.

4. Goldman Sachs: the sell side of the largest supplier carve-out on the tape

Goldman Sachs, with Morgan Stanley, advised Dana on the sale of Off-Highway to Allison Transmission, announced June 11, 2025 and closed January 1, 2026, the $2.7B carve-out at a seller-stated 7x in the ledger above. Verdict: the template for a public-company carve-out; no evidence below $1B.

5. Morgan Stanley: co-adviser on Dana, and why carve-outs run two banks

Morgan Stanley co-advised Dana alongside Goldman Sachs on the Off-Highway carve-out above, with EY as transaction advisor and Paul, Weiss as counsel: a carve-out at this scale runs two financial advisers, a Big Four transaction advisor for carve-out financials, and separate counsel. Verdict: ranked because the credit is SEC-filed and the deal is the sector's reference multiple; one credit, at scale.

6. BofA Securities: the most-evidenced bank across all three lanes

BofA Securities is the only bank with SEC-filed roles in dealerships, suppliers and the aftermarket: Asbury on the $1.45B Herb Chambers purchase; Allison on Dana Off-Highway while also providing committed financing; LKQ's pending Specialty process; and, with Centerview, Mister Car Wash's Special Committee. Its DEFM14C disclosure there is the sector's conflicts lesson: BofA and its affiliates had derived roughly $100 million from Leonard Green, its affiliates and its portfolio companies between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2025, and expected concurrent revenues from that sponsor to be "materially more" than its fee on the deal. Verdict: the bank most likely to sit across the table from you; read its disclosures rather than hire it for a $50M sale.

7. Haig Partners: the research a public dealer group files with the SEC

Haig Partners, 500 East Broward Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, publishes the Haig Report, quarterly since 2014; Sonic Automotive attributes its multiple table to "the most recent Haig Partners Report," the Sonic citation string described above. Registration: none published. Why seventh: no dates and no acquirers on its transactions page, though it publishes 245+ transactions and $10.8 billion of transaction value, and "more than 600 dealerships" is the team's career count. Verdict: hire it when the fight is over the multiple itself, because the buyer's benchmark is Haig's.

8. Brown Gibbons Lang: the deepest automotive coverage map in the middle market

Brown Gibbons Lang, Cleveland-headquartered with its automotive team in Chicago, fields three named teams, Industrial Automotive & Aftermarket (Vincent J. Pappalardo, Hubert de la Vauvre), Automotive Services (Patrick Gillin, Michael J. Doyle) and Consumer Automotive Aftermarket, whose professionals and affiliates report "more than 100 transactions in the automotive sector globally." Registration: securities through "Brown, Gibbons, Lang & Company Securities, LLC," an affiliate. Its research is last dated December 2024, and its featured tombstone is still the 2020 Lordstown Motors SPAC merger, a company that filed for Chapter 11 in June 2023 (Stout, April 2026). Verdict: the broadest coverage map for a supplier or aftermarket seller; ask for the last three dated closes.

9. Piper Sandler: the only mid-market bank with a published practice in all three lanes

Piper Sandler runs a dedicated Vehicle Aftermarket Products & Services effort, a team rather than a standalone sector, whose six published coverage areas are dealerships and dealer services, parts suppliers, distributors, retailers and e-commerce, vehicle service providers including car wash, collision and quick lube, and end-of-ownership auctions. Its roughly two dozen named, undated tombstones include Breeze Autocare's sale to Valvoline, Tucker Powersports' sale to Turn 14 Distribution and a co-manager role on Mister Car Wash's $646.8M IPO. Verdict: the one mid-market bank here with a published practice spanning dealerships, suppliers and the aftermarket; ask which tombstones the current team ran, and when.

10. Schwartz Advisors: the acquirer map for parts distribution

Schwartz Advisors publishes about 28 engagements whose value is the buyer list: Genuine Parts Company four times, Parts Authority four times, XL Parts twice, Transtar/NexaMotion twice, Kinderhook three times. Trade press dates two, in February 2023 and December 2018. Its SA Mobility Aftermarket Report, April 7, 2026, is the freshest aftermarket research here; registration and address are not published. Verdict: the first call for a parts distributor, because the consolidators it has sold to are the ones that will bid.

11. Focus Advisors: the only collision-MSO specialist

Focus Advisors, "the only Investment Bank that specializes in selling collision repair MSOs," names clients with named officers: Key Collision (ten New England locations plus Southaven, Mississippi; CFO Steve Titus), Cherry Collision (three southern New Jersey locations; former owner Brad Pogachefsky), Superior Collision (Marquette, Michigan). Registration: securities through "Independent Investment Bankers Corp.," with which "Focus Advisors is not affiliated." Tombstones are undated. Verdict: the collision lane's only specialist, and the biggest gap in every competitor list.

12. Amplify Car Wash Advisors: the best-dated car wash record

Amplify Car Wash Advisors is named exclusive financial adviser in three dated Professional Carwashing & Detailing reports, Glint Car Wash to Quick Quack, December 5, 2024; Epic Shine Car Wash to Spotless Brands, November 26, 2024; and Today's Car Wash, December 27, 2023, plus a fourth dated buy-side credit, Sparkle Express Car Wash's nine-unit acquisition, April 26, 2024. Its site blocks automated access, so HQ, principals and registration are unverified, and no 2025 or 2026 transaction surfaced. Verdict: first among car wash specialists on evidence; confirm current flow in the first meeting.

13. Jefferies: three SEC-filed aftermarket roles in twelve months

Jefferies advised LKQ on the $410M sale of its Self Service segment, completed October 1, 2025; was exclusive adviser to Mavis on the ~$700M purchase of Pep Boys' operating business, completed August 20, 2026; and advised Leonard Green on the $3.1B Mister Car Wash take-private. Verdict: the bank for a tire-and-service or salvage platform above $300M; two of three credits are buy-side, all at platform scale.

14. The Presidio Group: the best-structured dealership firm on disclosure

The Presidio Group, 255 Clayton Street, Denver, is "focused exclusively on the automotive retail sector" and publishes the lane's largest dollar-denominated claim, "320 completed transactions representing over $22 billion in value." Registration, verbatim: investment banking through "its subsidiary Presidio Merchant Partners LLC. Member FINRA, SIPC," filing from the same Denver address. No dated, named transactions are published. Verdict: the cleanest registration structure in dealership buy-sell; ask for dated closes.

15. Performance Brokerage Services: the most transparent tombstones, undated

Performance Brokerage Services names buyer and seller on every published deal, which no other dealership firm does: Arapahoe Hyundai & Genesis to Asbury Automotive Group, Airstream Adventures' six locations to Lithia & Driveway, Flynn Automotive Group's four Ohio stores to #1 Cochran. Its "over 900 dealerships sold" spans six divisions (automotive, RV, marine, powersports, commercial truck, equipment); no deal is dated; it publishes an Irvine, California headquarters and no broker-dealer registration. Verdict: strong for a domestic or import store with a regional buyer; ask which of the 900 were franchised auto and when.

16. Capstone Partners: aftermarket research plus two dated 2025 deals

Capstone Partners, Boston, a subsidiary of Huntington Securities, Inc., part of Huntington Bancshares, per its own footer, runs a named Automotive Aftermarket Investment Banking Group with a five-branch focus map, advised on Max Auto Supply's sale to Midas International and Left Lane Auto's sale to Bertram Capital, both December 2025, and publishes the October 2025 and August 2026 updates this guide relies on. Its reports publish no multiples, and it is bank-owned. Verdict: a legitimate lower-middle-market aftermarket bench pick as well as the lane's research authority.

17. Car Wash Advisory: disclosed, specialised, thin on tombstones

Car Wash Advisory, Miami, "the top solely car wash focused investment bank," its case study is Zax Car Wash, 19 express sites in Michigan. Registration, verbatim: securities through "Britehorn Securities," and "Britehorn Securities and Car Wash Advisory Are Not Affiliated Entities." Its "Investment Bank of the Year" badge is a nomination, not a win. Verdict: the disclosed car wash option; run it against Amplify.

How do I know if my M&A adviser has actually closed automotive deals, and is it FINRA-registered?

Ask for three dated closes with named counterparties, then check the right name on BrokerCheck. I ran fourteen advisory brands from this guide, the nine dealership and specialist firms ranked above plus Nancy Phillips Associates, Bel Air Partners, Dave Cantin Group, MD Johnson and Angle Advisors, through the SEC adviser-info firm database behind FINRA BrokerCheck: exact-name matches, zero, for thirteen of the fourteen. Call it the Automotive Registration Finding, a Peony-original observation. First, the deal is not a securities transaction: a franchised-dealership sale is normally an asset sale, goodwill plus parts, fixtures, vehicles and real estate, so no broker-dealer registration is required. Second, the securities leg runs through a separately named broker-dealer, and four of the five dealership and specialist firms that disclose one use an unaffiliated umbrella firm; Brown Gibbons Lang uses an affiliate.

Three traps make the search worse than empty: "Amherst Partners" returns ONE AMHERST PARTNERS, LLC (CRD 152359), unrelated to the Birmingham, Michigan firm; "Focus Advisors" returns FOCUS FUND ADVISORS LLC (CRD 319551), not the collision bank; and "The Presidio Group" returns THE PRESIDIO GROUP, INC (CRD 172060), an inactive Salt Lake City adviser, not the Denver dealership bank, whose broker-dealer is Presidio Merchant Partners LLC, CRD 46473. Three entities also share the J.W. Korth name, so type CRD 26455 rather than the name. A dealership group above $250M of revenue sits outside the federal M&A-broker exemption unless its EBITDA is under $25M, because the test is either limb (15 U.S.C. § 78o(b)(13), unadjusted until December 29, 2027).

Who did we leave off, and why?

Every firm below is real; what is missing is dated automotive adviser-of-record evidence, or an automotive practice behind a single credit, or the firm is in the wrong category, or its name collides with another's.

One SEC-filed credit, no automotive practice. Stephens (sell-side to Herb Chambers), William Blair (sell-side on Driven Brands' U.S. car wash), Rothschild & Co (sell-side on Driven's IMO business) and Centerview Partners (Mister Car Wash's special committee, with BofA) each carry exactly one automotive adviser-of-record credit in the ledger and publish no automotive team, so they are in the ledger and not on the bench: one credit is a deal, not a practice. If Asbury is your buyer, Stephens has already sat on the other side of the table.

Dealership practices I could not evidence. Nancy Phillips Associates, Exeter, New Hampshire, was founded in 1989 after Nancy Phillips sold her own dealership, the only firm in this guide founded by a former dealer principal; it covers New England and New York, publishes The Phillips Report, July 2026, and discloses no registration and no named or dated transaction. Bel Air Partners, founded in 1998 by Sheldon Sandler after the Rush Enterprises IPO, publishes a Tampa, Florida address and a New Jersey phone number and is the one dealership firm here offering litigation support; it discloses no registration and no named transaction, date or deal count. Tenure without a dated adviser-of-record credit is a call to make, not a rank: Nancy Phillips for a New England store, Bel Air for a dealer-versus-OEM dispute.

Dave Cantin Group publishes sell-side and buy-side practices and a Market Outlook Report, and zero named transactions and no broker-dealer disclosure; on this standard it cannot be ranked. PMCF has no automotive industry page in its current sitemap and its Automotive M&A Pulse stopped at Q1 2021; it is a manufacturing bank, which is how our industrial hub lists it. Angle Advisors, Detroit, lists no automotive industry on its site and names no client on any tombstone; its 320+ transactions since 2009 are firmwide, and its Industrials categories are Tier-2 work in all but name, which is why our Detroit M&A advisors guide profiles it on founder background, a different standard. Amherst Partners, Birmingham, Michigan, names automotive first among nine industries, but its research stops in September 2020 and no dated deal was retrievable.

Mercer Capital is a valuation, litigation-support and expert-witness firm with a live auto-dealer practice, not a sell-side adviser. MD Johnson Inc. publishes no address, state, founding year, transaction or registration, and its footer carries a different company's name. FOCUS Investment Banking (focusib.com) and Focus Advisors (focusadvisors.com) are separate, unaffiliated firms: FOCUS Investment Banking is a Washington, DC generalist with a tire and automotive-services team corroborated only by trade press; the collision specialist is Focus Advisors, profile 11.

Quality I could not evidence for automotive. Stout's automotive update series ended with its 2023 edition; Livingstone, Houlihan Lokey, Baird, Cascadia and Founders Advisors produced no automotive adviser-of-record credit in this pass. Harris Williams runs a named Automotive & Heavy-Duty Aftermarket sector inside its Transportation & Logistics group, and the only dated automotive credit I found is a 2019 collision sale. Stifel publishes no automotive sector; its three June 2026 "Automotive Aftermarket" transaction cards, a minority investment, a $240M term loan and a $60M ABL revolver, read as one unnamed client and one financing.

What are dealerships, suppliers and aftermarket businesses selling for in 2026?

Dealerships at 3.0x-10.0x adjusted pre-tax earnings by franchise on Sonic's SEC-filed Haig table, suppliers around the one sourced anchor, Dana's 7x, and the aftermarket anywhere from 5.0x to 20.6x EBITDA depending on sub-lane, all from BofA's tables in one SEC filing. Three currencies, and the first is the one owners most often mis-state.

Will my business be priced on a blue sky multiple or an EBITDA multiple?

A franchised dealership is priced on blue sky; a supplier or aftermarket business on EV/EBITDA; and the two do not convert. Blue sky is the goodwill portion of a dealership's price, what a buyer pays above the hard assets, and the market quotes it as a multiple of adjusted pre-tax earnings. An EV/EBITDA multiple values the whole enterprise after rent. Haig stops quoting a multiple when a franchise is weak: Haig's Q2 2026 table quotes Lincoln and Infiniti at $0M-$2M and Volkswagen at $0M-$5M, in dollars, not turns.

What are blue sky multiples by brand in 2026?

The benchmark a public buyer files is Sonic Automotive's, and it is Haig's. Sonic's 8-K Exhibit 99.2 of July 30, 2026 states: "Multiples are based on the most recent Haig Partners Report. Multiples are typically applied to a normalized dealership earnings before taxes."

Haig's own franchise table (Q2 2026 Haig Report, page updated August 19, 2026) puts Lexus at 9.5x-10.5x, the highest tracked; Porsche and Mercedes-Benz 8.0x-9.0x; Toyota 7.25x-9.0x, the highest non-luxury; Honda 6.0x-7.0x; Kia 4.5x-6.0x; Ford 3.5x-4.5x; Stellantis 3.0x-4.0x, with Toyota and Lexus raised, Porsche's top end cut on "product, pricing, tariffs and facility requirements," and everything else steady. Kerrigan's Q2 2026 Blue Sky Report discloses three moves: Kia's low end raised to 5.0x, Volkswagen and Audi reduced. Two of the most cited buy-sell advisers put Kia's floor half a turn apart in the same quarter, which is why a seller needs a franchise-specific opinion, not a national range.

How does real estate get treated in a dealership sale?

As a separate line nearly as large as the blue sky, and one SEC filing proves it: Asbury paid $1.45B for Herb Chambers, $750M of goodwill, about $610M of real estate and leasehold improvements, and about $85M of vehicles, loaners, fixed assets, parts and supplies net of $375M of non-manufacturer floorplan. Real estate was 42.1% of the price and 81% of the blue sky, our arithmetic. Call it Half the Price Is the Dirt, a Peony-original frame: advice that ignores the real estate ignores two-fifths of the outcome. No published franchised-dealership cap rate exists.

What do automotive suppliers sell for?

Nobody with a name publishes a current lower-middle-market supplier multiple, so use the one sourced anchor, Dana's Off-Highway carve-out at a seller-stated 7x in the ledger above, and price around it. Lincoln International's August 2025 aftermarket report (Capital IQ data as of August 18, 2025, the newest edition on its site) gives public comp medians: aftermarket suppliers 7.7x, global tire manufacturers 5.9x, collision 11.4x, multi-unit services 11.6x, parts distributors 11.5x forward EBITDA.

What does the aftermarket sell for?

Anything from 5.0x to 20.6x, all in one SEC filing, which is why "the aftermarket trades at X" is never a sentence to accept. BofA Securities' precedent table in the Mister Car Wash information statement prices Whistle Express's purchase of Driven Brands' U.S. car wash business at 5.0x LTM adjusted EBITDA ($385M on $76.9M), in the same month Valvoline paid 10.7x ($625M on $58.4M) for Breeze Autocare. Its public comps as of February 13, 2026: Advance Auto Parts 6.3x, Driven Brands 8.6x, Monro 9.0x, Valvoline 11.9x, Boyd Group 16.5x, AutoZone 16.6x, O'Reilly 20.6x 2026 estimated EBITDA. Monro's board opened a strategic review on May 27, 2026 with no assurance of a transaction; Monro has not been sold. Mister Car Wash itself went private at $3.1B, about 9.0x its FY2025 adjusted EBITDA of $345.4M, our arithmetic, at the top of Centerview's 7.0x-9.0x reference range.

How does the OEM approval and right-of-first-refusal gate work?

A dealership deal closes when the manufacturer says so, not when the parties sign, and the statute makes the notice package, not diligence, the gating document. Under California Vehicle Code § 11713.3(d), a dealer may not transfer the franchise "without the consent of the manufacturer or distributor except that the consent shall not be unreasonably withheld"; the notice must include "a copy of all of the agreements relating to the sale" and the buyer's application to become the successor franchisee; and the manufacturer must approve or disapprove, with reasons, "on or before 60 days after the receipt of all of the information required," failing which the transfer "shall be deemed approved." The clock starts on receipt of a complete package, not on submission. Florida's § 320.643 runs its own 60-day clock from the dealer's notice, with the same deemed approval.

The right of first refusal is a separate power, and state law decides whether it exists. California § 11713.3(t) lets a manufacturer take the deal only if the franchise agreement authorizes it; only by written notice no later than 45 days after the complete package; only on all or substantially all assets or a controlling interest; never where the buyer is a family member of an owner, a managerial employee owning 15% or more, or an entity owned by the existing owners; only if the consideration equals or exceeds everything the seller would have received; and never "in bad faith." Florida's transfer statute contains no right-of-first-refusal provision at all. No primary source says which manufacturers routinely exercise the right, so this guide names none, and no bank, trade body or dealer association publishes a sell-side timeline for dealership deals: the statutory clocks are the only hard numbers, and any "six to nine months," including in our own M&A process guide, is practitioner framing, not data.

What are buyers asking suppliers about tariffs and the EV slowdown in 2026?

For your country-of-origin file first, because Proclamation 10908 turned it into a priced liability. The proclamation applied a 25% Section 232 tariff to imported automobiles from April 3, 2025 and to covered parts no later than May 3, 2025. USMCA-qualifying vehicles may pay the 25% only on non-U.S. content if the importer documents its U.S. content, and clause (3) is the diligence item: if Customs finds the declared U.S. content overstated, "the 25 percent tariff shall apply to the full value of the automobile," retroactively to April 3, 2025 and prospectively, "to the full value of all automobiles of the same model imported by the same importer." Call it the Content-Substantiation Liability, a Peony-original frame: a bill of materials with country-of-origin evidence is now a schedule with a dollar sign on it.

The second question is solvency in your customer base. Stout's April 21, 2026 article reports automotive bankruptcy filings through early December 2025 "exceeded those of any other year over the last decade," and compiles OEM tariff costs of $4B-$5B a year at General Motors and $9.5B at Toyota for fiscal 2026. Since then First Brands Group was converted to Chapter 7 liquidation in August 2026 after the court rejected its plan, per Reuters. The third is EV volume: global EV sales passed 20 million units in 2025, but U.S. share was about 10%, U.S. EV sales fell 4%, and nearly $20B of announced U.S. EV manufacturing investment was cancelled (Capstone Partners, August 26, 2026).

What do automotive M&A advisers charge?

A retainer plus a success fee, and the most transparent fee data in automotive comes from merger proxies, because not one dealership buy-sell firm in the United States publishes a rate: the sitemaps of Kerrigan, Haig, Tim Lamb and Performance Brokerage Services carry no fee page. What is filed: on the $3.1B Mister Car Wash take-private, Centerview's fee was $6.5M ($500,000 on engagement, $3M on its opinion, $3M contingent on closing) and BofA's $12.5M ($2.5M on its opinion, $10M contingent), $19.0M in total, 0.61% of enterprise value, our arithmetic.

Below that scale the conventions are those in our M&A advisor fees guide: the modern double Lehman, roughly 10% of the first $1M of value, 8% of the second, 6% of the third, 4% of the fourth and 2% thereafter, or a negotiated flat percentage with a stated minimum, a monthly retainer credited against the success fee, and every term in writing. Settle two automotive-specific terms first: whether the percentage applies to the blue sky price or to total consideration including real estate, and what else your banker is being paid by the buyer's sponsor.

How do I keep a sale confidential when the bidders are my competitors, and where does Peony fit?

By deciding, document by document, who reads what and when, because in all three lanes the likeliest buyer can hurt you if the deal dies: the rival group across town and the manufacturer; the Tier-1 that already sees your quotes; the platform that will still be buying your neighbours next year.

• Dealership: the OEM franchise agreement, which confers the consent right and any ROFR; the statutory notice package, every transaction agreement plus the buyer's franchisee application (Cal. Veh. Code § 11713.3(d)); title and environmental reports, which California names as reimbursable buyer diligence; real estate, floorplan and vehicle, parts and loaner schedules, the buckets in Asbury's Herb Chambers price; facility obligations, which Haig reports "impacted transaction pricing"; and, as practitioner items, factory statements, F&I chargeback reserves, pay plans and technician rosters.
• Supplier: the U.S.-content substantiation file by model with country-of-origin evidence (Proclamation 10908); the net-working-capital and net-debt build, because Dana's price moved $36M between signing and closing on exactly that; and, as practitioner items, program awards with lifetime volumes, tooling ownership, PPAP packages and IATF 16949 certification, customer concentration, and the pass-through clause in every customer contract.
• Aftermarket: subscription penetration and member counts, which Mister Car Wash's filing makes the headline (79% of Q4 2025 wash sales, about 2.3 million members); comparable-store sales and greenfield-versus-acquired growth; in-house ADAS calibration; real-estate separability, which Icahn Enterprises kept out of the Pep Boys sale; and, as practitioner items, SKU velocity and DIFM-versus-DIY mix.

The fix is staged access, run out of a room you control:

• A separate data room per bidder, with visitor groups walling rival dealer groups or competing Tier-1s off inside one process, and a separate workspace for the OEM notice package.
• Staged disclosure: teaser and franchise-level summaries first; the blue sky build, F&I reserve schedules or the program-award margin bridge in the middle; pay plans, technician rosters, program-award terms and customer-level pricing last, after a bid you believe.
• Per-viewer watermarks on every rendered page, so a forwarded pay plan traces to one reader. Data Room plan and up.
• NDA gates before the room opens: acknowledge-only NDA on Business and up, Advanced NDA with a countersigned PDF on Data Room and up; one-click revoke on Business and up.
• Page-level analytics showing which consolidator spent forty minutes on the F&I reserve schedule, the one preparing a retrade.
• Auto-indexing so the notice package you deliver to the factory is complete on the first submission, because the 60-day clock runs from receipt of a complete package, not from the first send; plus structured Q&A, a custom domain and the security layer.

Peony is not an M&A advisor and does not place deals; the firms above do that. We are the confidential room the process runs in: pick your advisor first, then stand up the room. Peony is used by 6,800+ customers on exactly this layer; the build is in our M&A data room playbook and how to write a CIM. The Data Room plan is $52 per admin per month billed annually, the tier a sell-side process wants: dynamic watermarking, Advanced NDA, per-file permissions and unlimited rooms. Business is $30 per admin per month; Deal Team is $64 per admin per month billed annually with a four-admin minimum; a Free tier exists; every tier includes unlimited free viewers.

So which automotive M&A adviser should you hire?

The one whose dated evidence sits in your lane, because automotive is three markets and the currencies do not convert. A dealer prices on blue sky and needs the manufacturer's consent inside a 60-day statutory clock: Kerrigan for a luxury or import group with a public buyer, Tim Lamb for a domestic or import group with a regional buyer, Haig when the fight is over the multiple. A supplier prices on EBITDA off program awards and carries a content-substantiation file that is now a liability schedule: Lincoln International or Brown Gibbons Lang. An aftermarket operator prices on roll-up economics in a market where sponsors were 50.6% of year-to-date volume in October 2025: Focus Advisors, Amplify, Schwartz, Capstone or Piper Sandler, with Jefferies above $300M. Then decide who reads what, and when: your best buyer is your competitor in all three.

Related resources

• Best M&A advisors, the cross-sector hub, and the industrial, Detroit, consumer products and building products benches.
• M&A advisor fees, M&A advisor vs broker vs investment bank and quality of earnings.
• M&A data room, how to write a CIM, top automotive investors and mergers and acquisitions examples.
• Pricing and the M&A, due diligence and private equity solution pages.

Frequently asked questions

Blue sky offers on my rooftops look softer than last year — is 2026 still a good time to sell a car dealership?

Yes if you hold a Toyota, Lexus or Honda point, and probably still yes elsewhere, because the softness is in earnings, not in multiples. Kerrigan Advisors' Q2 2026 Blue Sky Report estimates average dealership earnings fell 10-20% year over year while its Blue Sky Index sits 78% above its 2019 level. Haig Partners' Q2 2026 table raised Toyota and Lexus and cut only Porsche's top end. A lower offer therefore usually means lower adjusted pre-tax profit times an unchanged multiple. Waiting helps only if you can rebuild the profit, not where the pressure is brand-specific, such as a Volkswagen or Infiniti point that Haig now quotes in dollars rather than turns.

My supplier business carries tariff exposure and an EV program that under-shipped its award — will that kill my sale value in 2026?

No, but both get priced, and one is priced as a liability rather than a discount. Proclamation 10908 put a 25% Section 232 tariff on imported automobiles from April 3, 2025 and on covered parts no later than May 3, 2025, and its clause (3) applies the full 25% to every unit of a model, retroactively, if declared U.S. content was overstated. A buyer therefore underwrites your country-of-origin file as a contingent liability and your pass-through clauses as the only hedge. An under-shipped EV award is a volume-risk discount, sized against U.S. EV sales that fell 4% in 2025 to about 10% of the market (Capstone Partners, August 2026).

Who are the best M&A advisers for an automotive business in 2026?

It depends which of three automotive markets you are in, because the benches barely overlap. For a franchised dealership, the advisers with checkable adviser-of-record evidence are Kerrigan Advisors, named in Group 1 Automotive's and Asbury Automotive's own SEC filings, and Tim Lamb Group, with dated 2026 sell-sides and named principals; then Haig Partners, The Presidio Group and Performance Brokerage Services. For a supplier, Lincoln International and Brown Gibbons Lang at $30M-$500M, and, only above roughly $1B, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and BofA Securities, the Dana Off-Highway roster. For the aftermarket, Schwartz Advisors for parts distribution, Focus Advisors for collision, Amplify Car Wash Advisors and Car Wash Advisory for car washes, Capstone Partners for lower-middle-market processes, Piper Sandler across all three lanes and Jefferies at scale. I run Peony, the data room 6,800+ customers use for processes like these; we are not an adviser.

Which are the best investment banks for automotive suppliers?

Lincoln International and Brown Gibbons Lang in the middle market, and Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and BofA Securities at the top. Lincoln runs a named Automotive & Mobility Technology group across six sub-sectors and carries a titled client quotation from Plastic Omnium's strategy director; BGL fields three separately named automotive coverage teams. Goldman and Morgan Stanley advised Dana on the $2.7B sale of its Off-Highway business to Allison Transmission at a stated 7x expected 2025 adjusted EBITDA, closed January 1, 2026, with BofA on the buy side. For a $30M-$300M revenue Tier-2 supplier the top three are out of range on evidence, not just fees: none shows an automotive credit below $1B in any filing I could find, and the only automotive fee on the tape, $19M for two banks on the $3.1B Mister Car Wash deal, is the scale their fee curves are built around. Lincoln and BGL are the banks that publish named supplier teams at your size; ask both for dated supplier tombstones, because neither publishes dates.

Who are the top auto aftermarket M&A advisers for collision, tire and service, car wash and parts distribution?

Different firms for each sub-lane, because the sponsor platforms buying them differ. Parts distribution: Schwartz Advisors, whose published engagements name Genuine Parts Company four times, Parts Authority four times and XL Parts twice as acquirers. Collision: Focus Advisors, the self-described only investment bank specializing in collision repair MSOs, which names Key Collision, Cherry Collision and Superior Collision as clients. Car wash: Amplify Car Wash Advisors, named exclusive financial adviser in three dated trade-press reports and buy-side adviser in a fourth, 2023 and 2024, and Car Wash Advisory. Tire and service at scale: Jefferies, exclusive adviser to Mavis on its roughly $700M Pep Boys purchase completed August 20, 2026. Across sub-lanes: Piper Sandler, whose dedicated vehicle aftermarket effort publishes about two dozen named, undated tombstones, including Breeze Autocare's sale to Valvoline. A dealership buy-sell firm is the wrong hire: it sells rooftops on blue sky, while the aftermarket ran 50.6% private equity by year-to-date volume in October 2025 (Capstone Partners) on EBITDA.

Kerrigan Advisors vs Haig Partners — which is better for selling my dealership group?

Kerrigan on checkable deal evidence, Haig on research a public counterparty relies on. Kerrigan is named in Group 1 Automotive's July 30, 2026 filing as Hennessy's transaction advisor, and in Asbury Automotive's filings on the roughly $1.2B Koons sale and on Stevinson. Haig publishes no dated tombstones and no acquirers, but Sonic Automotive attributes its blue sky multiple table to the most recent Haig Report in seven consecutive SEC-filed investor decks. The Presidio Group is the only one of the four names AI engines recite that both owns its FINRA broker-dealer and publishes a dollar-denominated record, 320 transactions and over $22 billion; Dave Cantin Group publishes consumer research and no named transactions. For a Top-150 luxury or import platform with a public buyer, Kerrigan's evidence is the most relevant; when the fight is over a franchise-specific multiple, Haig wrote the buyer's benchmark.

How is blue sky value calculated for a franchised dealership?

Adjusted pre-tax earnings multiplied by a franchise-specific blue sky multiple, with the hard assets valued separately and added on top. Haig Partners defines a blue sky multiple as the value of a dealership's future earnings potential expressed as a multiple of adjusted pre-tax cash flow, separate from real estate, inventory or fixed assets. Buyers adjust out owner compensation above market, related-party rent and one-time items; they refuse to adjust out factory-program income you cannot show recurs. Asbury's purchase of Herb Chambers shows the arithmetic: $1.45B in total, of which $750M was goodwill, about $610M real estate and leasehold improvements, and about $85M inventory and fixed assets net of $375M of non-manufacturer floorplan.

What EBITDA multiple will a Tier 2 automotive supplier get in 2026?

Nobody with a name publishes a current lower-middle-market automotive supplier multiple, so any range you are quoted is an adviser's opinion. Capstone Partners' August 2026 automotive update contains no multiples. The one sourced data point at scale is Dana's Off-Highway carve-out, announced at $2.7B and a stated 7x expected 2025 adjusted EBITDA and closed January 1, 2026 at about $2.664B. Public aftermarket suppliers including Dorman, PHINIA and Standard Motor Products carried a 7.7x median forward EBITDA in Lincoln International's August 2025 report. Buyers then price customer and program concentration, program life remaining, tariff pass-through, ICE versus EV content mix and aftermarket content. Put a program-by-program margin bridge in the data room so the buyer prices your book rather than the sector.

Private equity keeps calling about my collision shops — is the number they floated anywhere near what the business is worth?

Probably not, because a platform prices an add-on to its own accretion target, not to what a second bidder would pay. Focus Advisors, the collision specialist, publishes the drivers buyers underwrite: DRP diversification, OEM certifications, management remaining and trained technicians, and states that larger MSOs earn larger multiples than single shops. The public reference points sit far above any add-on offer: Boyd Group traded at 16.5x 2026 estimated EBITDA on February 13, 2026, and Lincoln International's August 2025 collision set had an 11.4x median. Those are platform multiples, not shop multiples, and the gap between them and an add-on price is what a competitive process captures. The tells of a fixed-accretion offer: no diligence list, a price stated before anyone has seen your DRP mix, and a short exclusivity ask.

How does the OEM approval process work when I sell my dealership?

The manufacturer sits inside your deal as a third party with a statutory veto, and its clock does not start until it has everything. Under California Vehicle Code section 11713.3(d), a franchise cannot be transferred without the manufacturer's consent, which may not be unreasonably withheld; the seller must deliver the transfer agreements and the buyer's franchisee application; the manufacturer then has 60 days after receipt of all of that information to approve or disapprove in writing with reasons, and silence is approval. Group 1 Automotive's SEC-filed Hennessy release makes the point at $1.3B: closing is subject to OEM approvals and expected by year-end 2026. The application package is the gating document: the clock does not run until the factory has every agreement and the buyer's application, which is why the package is assembled before the buyer is chosen, not after.

Can the manufacturer block the sale of my dealership or take the deal itself?

Both, and they are different powers with different outcomes. Blocking is withholding consent to your buyer; in California and Florida that consent may not be unreasonably withheld, and a rejection must be in writing within 60 days, running in California from a complete package and in Florida from the dealer's notice; in both, silence is approval. Taking the deal is a right of first refusal, and it is state-by-state and contract-by-contract: California Vehicle Code section 11713.3(t) lets a manufacturer exercise one only if the franchise agreement authorizes it, only within 45 days of the complete package, never against a family member or a managerial employee owning 15% or more, and only if it pays every dollar your buyer would have paid and reimburses that buyer's legal, accounting, title and environmental costs within 30 days. Florida's transfer statute contains no right of first refusal at all. Your price is protected by the match requirement; your timeline is not.

How do I sell my dealership without my employees or my OEM finding out before I am ready?

By accepting that the OEM will know at a point you only partly control, and designing everything before that point around who can read what. Your best buyers are rival groups in your own market, and the manufacturer must receive the full agreement set and the buyer's application before its 60-day clock starts. So: a teaser with no rooftop names, a signed non-disclosure agreement before any room opens, a separate room per bidder so no group sees another's presence, pay plans and technician rosters held back until a bid you believe, and the OEM package assembled in a workspace your general manager never sees. Peony's dynamic watermarking on the Data Room plan puts the reader's identity on every rendered page, and its page-level analytics show which bidder opened the pay plans and when.

What should the data room look like when the bidders are rival dealer groups in my own market, or a customer of my own OEM programs?

One room per bidder, staged tranches, and identity on every page. For a four-rooftop group running six consolidators, three of them local rivals: a separate Peony data room per bidder so no party sees another's tranche, activity or Q&A; a middle tranche with the blue sky build, F&I reserve schedules or the program-award margin bridge; and a last tranche holding technician and salesperson rosters, OEM program-award terms and customer-level pricing. Per-viewer dynamic watermarks trace a leaked page to the viewer who opened it, Advanced NDA gating holds a countersigned PDF before the room opens, and page-level analytics show which bidder actually read the blue sky build or the program-award schedule. The Data Room plan, $52 per admin per month billed annually with unlimited free viewers, is the tier this needs; Business at $30 covers the teaser stage, and a Free tier exists. Peony serves 6,800+ customers and is not an adviser.

What do dealership buy-sell advisers and automotive investment banks charge?

A monthly retainer plus a success fee is the standard shape in both lanes, and not one dealership buy-sell firm in the United States publishes its rate; Kerrigan, Haig, Tim Lamb and Performance Brokerage publish no fee page. What is published comes from merger filings: on the $3.1B Mister Car Wash take-private, BofA Securities earned $12.5M and Centerview Partners $6.5M, $19M in total or about 0.61% of enterprise value. Below that scale the conventions are the modern double-Lehman scale, roughly 10% of the first $1M of value, 8% of the second, 6% of the third, 4% of the fourth and 2% thereafter, or a negotiated flat percentage with a stated minimum. Negotiate the minimum, the tail period and expenses, and specify whether the percentage applies to the blue sky price or to total consideration including real estate.

A consolidator has already offered to buy my stores — is an adviser's success fee worth it?

Usually yes, and the arithmetic runs in turns of blue sky rather than in fee percentages. On $5M of adjusted pre-tax earnings at a Toyota point, the gap between the bottom and top of Haig Partners' Q2 2026 range, 7.25x to 9.0x, is 1.75 turns or roughly $8.75M of blue sky, our arithmetic; a low-single-digit success fee on the higher price is a fraction of that. Beyond price, the adviser adds a second bidder, management of the OEM approval package, and closing certainty. The honest case for negotiating directly exists: if your buyer universe is two groups you already know, the store carries facility commitments that cap the multiple regardless of process, and you have counsel and a transaction accountant, a direct negotiation can match a process. Treat my arithmetic as illustrative, not a forecast.

Sources

• Haig Partners, "Franchise Blue Sky Multiples," page last updated August 19, 2026; Q2 2026 Haig Report press release. https://haigpartners.com/franchise-blue-sky-multiples/
• Kerrigan Advisors, Q2 2026 Blue Sky Report highlights; "5 takeaways from Q4 2025 dealership buy-sell activity." https://www.kerriganadvisors.com/our-reports/blue-sky-report; https://www.kerriganadvisors.com/in-the-news/5-takeaways-from-q4-2025-dealership-buy-sell-activity
• Sonic Automotive investor presentation, 8-K Exhibit 99.2, filed July 30, 2026, and the six prior quarterly exhibits from February 12, 2025.
• Group 1 Automotive 8-K Exhibit 99.2, July 30, 2026 (Hennessy). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1031203/000103120326000121/a2026q2exhibit992.htm
• Asbury Automotive 8-K Exhibits 99.1 on Herb Chambers (July 21, 2025), Jim Koons Automotive (September and December 2023) and Stevinson Automotive (December 2021). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1144980/000114498025000119/ex991herbchamberspressrele.htm; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1144980/000119312523231116/d494750dex991.htm; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1144980/000114498021000147/a991stevinson.htm
• Dana 8-K Exhibit 99.1, June 11, 2025; Dana 8-K/A, January 7, 2026; Allison 8-K, January 2, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/26780/000095014225001601/eh250640445_ex9901.htm; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/26780/000095014226000078/eh260722929_ex9901.htm; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1411207/000119312526000343/d97247dex991.htm
• Superior Industries 8-K Exhibit 99.1, December 8, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/95552/000114036125044874/ef20056560_ex99-1.htm
• Driven Brands 8-K Exhibits 99.1, April 2025 and January 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1804745/000180474525000036/a991drivenbrands_whistle.htm; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1804745/000180474526000010/a991drivenbrands_cwixclo.htm
• LKQ Corporation 8-K Exhibits 99.1, October 2025 and December 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065696/000106569625000055/exhibit991-selfservicesale.htm; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065696/000106569625000068/exhibit991-specialty.htm
• Mister Car Wash DEFM14C, April 24, 2026; 8-K Exhibits 99.1, February 18 and May 19, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1853513/000119312526174850/d88915ddefm14c.htm; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1853513/000119312526229866/d128344dex991.htm
• Icahn Enterprises 8-K Exhibits 99.1, July 21 and August 20, 2026; Monro 8-K Exhibit 99.2, May 27, 2026; Genuine Parts Company 8-K, September 9, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40987/000119312526385959/d136093d8k.htm
• California Vehicle Code § 11713.3(d) and (t); Florida Statutes § 320.643. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=11713.3
• Proclamation 10908, 90 FR 14705 (April 3, 2025), with 90 FR 44767 (September 17, 2025) and 90 FR 58230 (December 16, 2025). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-04-03/html/2025-05930.htm
• 15 U.S.C. § 78o(b)(13). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/78o
• Piper Sandler, "Vehicle Aftermarket Products & Services" page and tombstones (undated). https://www.pipersandler.com/vehicle-aftermarket
• Capstone Partners, "Automotive Aftermarket Sector Update" (October 8, 2025) and "Automotive Industry Update" (August 26, 2026). https://www.capstonepartners.com/insights/article-automotive-aftermarket-sector-update/; https://www.capstonepartners.com/insights/automotive-industry-update/
• Lincoln International, "August 2025 Vehicle Aftermarket Intelligence Report." https://www.lincolninternational.com/publications/august-2025-vehicle-aftermarket-intelligence-report/
• Stout, "Automotive Distress: Restructuring Considerations for 2026" (April 21, 2026). https://www.stout.com/en/insights/article/automotive-distress-restructuring-considerations-2026
• Focus Advisors, "The Gerber – Joe Hudson's Deal is Done" (February 4, 2026) and its published FAQ. https://focusadvisors.com/2026/02/the-gerber-joe-hudsons-deal-is-done/
• Trade press: Pulse 2.0 (Boyd / Joe Hudson's); Professional Carwashing & Detailing (Amplify); Body Shop Business and Underhood Service (Schwartz); Reuters (First Brands, August 24, 2026).
• Firm sites read September 14, 2026; SEC adviser-info firm database for CRD numbers.

About the author: Sean Yu is the co-founder of Peony, the data room platform used by 6,800+ customers across M&A, fundraising, and private-deal workflows. He works on the access-control and analytics layer that decides who is allowed to read a confidential document. Peony is not an M&A advisor; it is the confidential room a deal process runs in. Contact: hello@peony.ink.