AutoCanada, one of the country’s leading dealership groups, has sold two Stellantis dealerships located in Alberta to “improve profitability and reduce financial leverage.” The two dealerships primarily sold Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram vehicles. Thus, following the problems declared by US dealers, who sent a letter to Stellantis and Carlos Tavares, Canada is now added to the list, demonstrating that the problem is real.
Stellantis: two dealerships sold in Canada due to high expenses and low profits
Last August, AutoCanada had announced its intention to sell some “unprofitable assets”: Paul Antony, CEO of AutoCanada, stated: “We are taking measures that allow us to focus our resources and efforts, optimize costs, and strengthen profitability.” AutoCanada, which owned 17 Stellantis dealerships in Canada and the United States before the sale, sold the two businesses to Kaizen Automotive Group, a Calgary-based company that manages 11 other dealerships in Canada and 6 in the United States.
The two sold dealerships generated $86.5 million in sales from June 2023 to June 2024, but the excessively high prices of Stellantis vehicles make sales complicated, causing profits to plummet. In fact, AutoCanada recorded a loss of $33.1 million in the second quarter of 2024, and a good part of this decline is due to Stellantis dealerships.
It appears that the US division also recorded a decline of $35.5 million in the same period of 2024. For this reason, the AutoCanada is considering selling Leader Automotive Group as well, which manages 18 sales points in Illinois. In short, increasingly complicated months are expected for Stellantis, with dealers now tired of dealing with customers who are less and less interested in vehicles from its brands, due to excessively high prices and lack of incentives. This is also the reason why the inventory of brands like Dodge and Jeep is literally enormous.