I liked the "Lightnup" moniker much better.

I had no clue that so many (outsider) expert opinions existed on ATC as I have just read. In actuality, ATC has and continues to produce astonishing growth in all categories. I happen to also know that there are not many companies out there these days that have the courage to continue trying new things (for the benefit of both the consumer and dealers) like ATC has. One writer states ATC failed with their New Car program. Failed? They haven't failed. Does this writer actually think an ATC New Car product is going to roll out nationwide to thousands and thousands of ATC dealers and reach the dominating position ATC has produced in the Used Car arena...overnight? I don't think so. It is and will no doubt remain a strong focus point of growth for ATC for the next many, many years ahead. All in all, in my book, I applaud ATC for their innovation, the creation of thousands of jobs and their commitment to community (you did know that ATC gives hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands each year to St. Jude Childrens hospital didn't you?)...OK...enough is enough. It is obvious that I am a believer in this company and quite frankly I feel they are a valuable contributor to the retail automotive communities (and consumer shoppers)all across our great nation...."Nuff said"

T.D. Mac

Cox initially had plans to take ATC public back in 2000 but decided not to and keep it private. Cox has come to the table late in trying to sell of some of it's unprofitable divisions, newspapers, direct mail, etc. now news that they are looking to unload ATC. I'm trying to see their ultimate strategy here, is it to remain in the cable & communications biz exclusively and reduce debt? ATC had tremendous double digit growth for every year since it's inception in 1997 but their direction in the past couple of years has become arrogant and downright greedy. I'll tell you what thought, I'll bet there are a bunch of ATC execs scrambling to update their resumes on Monster.com right about now.

You know, we all have our opinions of business's I can tell you that any company who has over 2,600 employee's and keeps adding new products, new jobs to the US Economy has to be "good people" in my book. Do I believe their rates are too high? "Maybe" Do I believe that their products work? "Yes, some more than others" Would the next owner's of AT.com be as good as COX? Now that raises flags in my decision making process. Parent companies are the reason for most .com failures. If cox needs the $ so bad they should make it a public trade company.

What a bombshell! No company is safe in this economy, I guess.

I doubt AT is truly "off the market" if another company offered the right buy price, I bet they'd sell.

I'm guessing they had to say it's not on the market now, think of the turmoil with AT employees, all the questions, etc.

I'm shocked that internal doc leaked to Edmunds, that's crazy. Or was it perhaps planned that way?

Ahh, who cares. I just wish people would start buying cars again.

Autotrader just took me out to lunch - thanks guys!

PS. No way is their revenue up 23% this year. Their New Car Partnership product was a large failure, Alpha Product is too top heavy in this economy. They've had more cancellations & write offs than they've written in new business, ask your rep, they'll tell you (if their honest!)

They want to sell because they reached viable market penetration a while ago and realistic new sales growth is not there at least in this economy their revenue will do nothing but decline. They've recently consolidated top end management regionally from 4 national divisions down to only two (East & West) I would venture a guess that they are going to reduce force after their fiscal year ends in Dec. by reducing field sales operations by a significant amount. They've had a crazy year raising rates and renewing contracts early into a reccessive economy. I can't think of another possible way they could've alienated and pissed off their dealer accounts anymore than they managed to accomplish this year. As soon as the capital markets improve they'll dump it, they've already put 29 unprofitable newspapers up for sale along with Valpak.

AT has done a great job of portraying themselves as the 800 lb gorilla to dealers and the public.

Through our lead provider rating report, AT ranks as above average among all lead providers.

Even for dealers that have no idea what their ROI is for AT or any other lead provider (yes I know you guys don't call yourselves lead providers) the image of that 800 lb gorilla is too much not to be a part of.

The revenue of AT is very questionable in the present market. AT is a online classified ad. They do not project,or claim to be a lead provider and unless you have an internel method to track where your customers originate you would only guess as to the ROI of AT.
I believe that the some of the new marketing concepts discussed here are implemented in AT then they will further decrease in market share.

We are a software company based in Tulsa Oklahoma. We have about 80 dealer customers. For the last couple of Months, we start to have dealer calling us and ask if they can do any Ad besides AutoTrader.com. (Half of our dealer use AT) This has never happen before since we assume AT give them the result or return that dealer expected. Now we have to assume AT is NOT performing well as they used to do.

Some comments from our dealer customer

1) Cars.com is performing the same as AT, but with lower price tag
2) Price increasing is beyond dealer’s budget
3) We feed our dealer’s inventory to AOL, MySpace, Google Base really help dealer to get more attention.
4) We have been looking at all AT customer in Tulsa Area, we have not seen their customer base grow like they used to be.
5) Craigslist give dealer VERY positive results.

Can you share your comments on AT results? return? ROI?

Thanks

David

Oh and Ryan, I see that you have learned that you never take the under on ATC. Alex I hope you have learned your lesson as well

635 million in revenue is a crazy amount of cash! I wonder how much they were hoping for? Going off what some dot com's have sold for that didn't have any revenue and using atc math, 635 billion will be the buy it now price! I think dealer refresh should start a buy autotrader.com fund. Could you imagine if the dealer community owned atc?

I'd like to have the over at 150 posts!

From the Ward's article 'Sources say the process didn’t get far enough with interested buyers to determine a possible price. Although there were several interested purchasers, the current market environment makes it difficult to contemplate such a large transaction."

Who do you think the "interested purchasers" are and what would they do to the product?

Cox has a signifcant amount of debt it has to get rid of AT will bring Cox a lot of cash it will use to pay down that debt.

Ony problem is, acquisitions aren't happening while the credit crisis is ongoing. So they had to take it off the market for the time being.

I'm not buying that their revenues are up. Not in this economy... dealers are slashing their advertisement budgets.

Alex, I can usually talk my way out of it. Lets do it, I have never sat in jail expecially in Cancun...

When is the Taxi arriving!

Thanks Jennifer!

So you want to get arrested with us in Cancun - c'mon!

Alex,
Welcome Back! It is amazing what other countries and travels can get the "Back To Reality" thought going again.

Appreciating what we have is hard to understand sometimes until we are put in a spot where they don't even have 1% of what we have.

Again welcome back!

"Your sending a cab to pick me up to go to Cancun right?"

Ha - actually I am leaving again in about 3 weeks. This time it is just Cancun.

If I were leaving for a while, I think I'd move to Chile. That is an awesome country!

well if you're leaving the country, I'll take all ya got.

If you're not leaving. A ten will do

Billy,

Glad to hear you enjoyed it - that's what that blog was for.

So...how much do you need?

Alex,
Followed your progress on the blog.

Amazing job with the photos. I envy you!

Nice to have you back. Can I borrow some money and get a job?

Yeah but we gotta think positively!