Automotive Financial Group

Automotive Financial Group (normally styled as AFG) was a British company specialising in automotive retailing and the sale of associated products and services. The company was founded by the Austro Hungarian businessman Octav Botnar in 1985 as an extension of his successful Nissan import and distribution company Nissan UK.

History and background[]

Botnar had successfully built up his successful business since 1970, which imported and marketed Datsun and Nissan cars in Britain, eventually attaining an official 6% overall market share by 1980 to the point where the United Kingdom was the only export market where Nissan outsold its arch rival Toyota.

Botnar had achieved this by appointing a network of small, family owned dealers (many of whom were former franchisees of British Motor Corporation and British Leyland) to sell Datsun and placing an emphasis on customer service. However by the 1980s, it had become clear that many of these businesses were too small to handle the vast amount of extra used stock and servicing/repair work which was now being generated.

The solution was to buy out many of these smaller businesses to create a large conglomerate which would allow larger, more profitable sites to be developed. The company at its peak operated over two hundred car dealerships in the United Kingdom, specialising in primarily vehicles of Nissan, approximately 160 of the 220 sites held Nissan franchises.

However by the end of the 1980s, Nissan had established the assembly plant in Sunderland and was considering taking the existing Japanese import and distribution business in house, and negotiations with Botnar over possibly taking over of Nissan UK began in June 1988.

After disputes between executives of Nissan in Japan and Botnar over pricing of the then new Nissan Primera in September 1990, coupled to controversies surrounding alleged tax fraud implying certain AFG and Nissan UK executives (including Botnar himself), Nissan set up its own import and distribution business within the United Kingdom, appointing an all new network of dealers and effective in 1991, Nissan terminated the supply of new vehicles to Nissan UK and AFG.^[1][2]

The company was then sold in November 1994 to the Barclay brothers for £200 million.^[3][4]

As parts of the company were sold off, the remaining operations under the name Caledonia Motor Group refocused on sales of Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Citroën, Peugeot and Renault in North West England. A management buyout was effected in November 1999, which was completed later that month.^[5] The company was placed in receivership in January 2008, and the remaining sites were acquired by Cambria Automobiles, and became part of its chain known as the Motor Parks.^[6][7][8]

The group chose Capital Bank in January 2000 to provide financial services across its network, and mapped out their strategy in May 2001 for the forthcoming future.^[9][10] Caledonia delivered fifteen minibuses in June 2001 for national rental company TLS from their new fleet sales operation, and introduced the Business Manager Programme in April 2001 at one of their dealerships.^[11][12]

Blackburn Motor Park closed down in June 2018 due to the dealership being loss making and unprofitable.^[13][14] Caledonia dropped their franchise of Renault in August 2002, selling the dealerships to Sunwin, Renault Retail Group and Arnold Clark.^[15][16] The two firms announced they were to part company in March 2003.^[17][18] Caledonia was the largest independent dealer group for Renault in March 1998 as the dealer group added another dealership to their portfolio, bringing their total to eleven dealerships.^[19]

Caledonia launched another major expansion programme in July 1998 to increase its dealership network, buying six sites in North West England which were owned by United North West.^[20][21] The company operated nine franchises from eleven dealerships by August 2000.^[22] Caledonia lost their dealer franchise of Alfa Romeo in August 2006, which resulted in the group only being able to provide servicing for cars.^[23]

References[]