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Cars.com hires JPMorgan to explore possible sale

Alexander Lau

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Feb 11, 2015
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https://nypost.com/2018/05/30/cars-com-hires-jpmorgan-to-explore-possible-sale

Possible suitors include buyout firm Apax Partners and Atlanta-based cable TV company Cox Communications, which reportedly kicked the tires on the company two years ago before it went public.

Publishing giant Hearst, which owns Popular Mechanics, last month told trade publication DealReporter it might have interest in Cars.com if it were for sale. Cars.com says it attracts 19.4 million unique monthly visitors.
 
Good Gord.

If Cox buys Cars.com... I don't know how I feel about that.
Hearst owns Canadian Black Book and a few other interesting ones too.

I didn't see this coming though (if, in fact, it is coming) - but maybe the DI play made them a smarter acquisition.
 
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Good Gord.

If Cox buys Cars.com... I don't know how I feel about that.
Hearst owns Canadian Black Book and a few other interesting ones too.

I didn't see this coming though (if, in fact, it is coming) - but maybe the Dealer Inspire play made them a smarter acquisition.
If they own Autotrader and Cars then what...? Will those merge or stay separate products. Agreed, I bet they do want Dealer Inspire (now that Cars owns them) and will scrap the 'much to be desired' Dealer.com platform.
 
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If they own Autotrader and Cars then what...? Will those merge or stay separate products. Agreed, I bet they do want Dealer Inspire (now that Cars owns them) and will scrap the 'much to be desired' Dealer.com platform.

I don't know if moving all Dealer.com clients to DealerInspire is an option though.. There would be plenty of complexity there.

I can't see Cox actually going for this right now, unless they're worried about who else might acquire them.
 
Cox didn't replace the incredibly dated and old VinSolutions with the Dealer.com CRM due to the difference in revenues coming in. Which was substantial in a nearly 20 year old solution being around vs a 3 year old solution.

I think the same would happen for Dealer Inspire IF Cox purchased Cars.com. A system built in 1998 with 13,000+ clients with significant advertising spends, managed services solutions, and long OEM deals vs a system with maybe 15% of that. No doubt, IF Cox purchased Cars.com it would be a technological mistake (as they made with Vin) to continue with the dated stuff. But it would be a financial mistake to not stick with the old junk.

At the end of the day, I think Cars.com is smart to see what their value is. Even if it doesn't amount to anything in the acquisition department it can make for a decent Wall Street story.
 
Cox didn't replace the incredibly dated and old VinSolutions with the Dealer.com CRM due to the difference in revenues coming in. Which was substantial in a nearly 20 year old solution being around vs a 3 year old solution.

I think the same would happen for Dealer Inspire IF Cox purchased Cars.com. A system built in 1998 with 13,000+ clients with significant advertising spends, managed services solutions, and long OEM deals vs a system with maybe 15% of that. No doubt, IF Cox purchased Cars.com it would be a technological mistake (as they made with Vin) to continue with the dated stuff. But it would be a financial mistake to not stick with the old junk.

At the end of the day, I think Cars.com is smart to see what their value is. Even if it doesn't amount to anything in the acquisition department it can make for a decent Wall Street story.
I can appreciate that. It can cost a company more to migrate to new systems than just to stick with the insitu offering. Banks and corporations are still running COBOL, if you can believe that (similar reasoning). Still, DI is obviously a far superior product.
 
If I were Cox, instead of thinking about product replacements, it would be nice to think I could add big value to my portfolio of Dealer (& OEM backed) choices in advertising, websites (& talent for other product growth) by owning the top 1-3 spots in the categories.