Motor veteran Bramall sells to Lookers
ONE of the best known names in Yorkshire car sales, Tony Bramall, today agreed to sell part of his motor retail business to industry giant Lookers.
The 72-year-old, who founded Bramall and Jones in 2004 after the £230m sale of his Harrogate-based CD Bramall motor retail business, will sell two VW dealerships in Lincoln and Boston and a contract hire and leasing business to quoted Manchester group Lookers for £2m.
Mr Bramall teamed up with former CD Bramall chief executive Peter Jones to launch Bramall and Jones, and the Harrogate business will retain Audi dealerships in Derby, Lincoln, Grimsby and Boston.
The move by Lookers increases its Volkswagen dealerships from nine to 11 and gives it entry to the contract hire market with a fleet of 1,500 vehicles and an experienced management team.
Mr Bramall owns 51% of Bramall and Jones and is a non-executive director of Lookers and holds around 18.8% of its shares.
Since selling CD Bramall – then Britain's fourth largest motor retailer with 110 dealerships – to Nottingham-based Pendragon in a deal which netted him £76m, Mr Bramall has remained an influential figure in Britain's consolidating motor retail sector.
He acquired a 24.4% stake in Lookers from GE Capital in 2006 and soon after voted against a hostile takeover offer from its bigger rival Pendragon – which after CD Bramall also acquired Reg Vardy ahead of Lookers.
Mr Bramall, who joined the board of Lookers in July 2006, trained as an accountant in his home town of Sheffield before going to run his father's motor business in Bradford in the early 1960s, building it up before floating it on the stock market in 1978 and then selling it to Avis in 1987 for £97m in a deal which made him his first fortune estimated at £45m.
Three years later he began again, building Harrogate-based CD Bramall – which also floated – from scratch and turning it into one of the market leaders.
He recruited Mr Jones, former commercial director of Rover, in 1997 as chief executive.
