CMA investigating BCA acquisition of Aston Barclay

The acquisition of Aston Barclay by BCA has been thrown into doubt after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation into the takeover.

The owners of BCA, Constellation Automotive Group, bought Aston Barclay, including its subsidiary The Car Buying Group, for an undisclosed sum in April.   

However, issuing an initial enforcement order last week, the CMA says the investigation will establish whether the sale has resulted or may be expected to result in a “substantial lessening of competition”.

Both businesses must continue to operate as separate entities and brands while the investigation is ongoing.

A CMA investigation is a fairly routine situation when two companies look to merge when annual turnover in the UK is of at least £70 million or the combined businesses would have at least a 25% share of the market.

The Constellation Automotive Group also operates Webuyanycar.com, Cinch and Marshall Motor Group.

Aston Barclay has five auction centres, located in Chelmsford in Essex, Prees Heath in Shropshire and Westbury in Wiltshire, and so-called mega centres at Donington Park and in Wakefield.

Announcing the acquisition in April, Constellation Automotive Group said that Aston Barclay had been experiencing difficult market conditions and, as a result, closed its Leeds remarketing centre in January. 

The acquisition, it explained, aimed to secure the longer-term viability of the Aston Barclay network of centres and avoid further closures by bringing further investment into the business, along with incremental volume from the Group’s WeBuyAnyCar business.

Aston Barclay was once owned by the Scarborough family, after it was founded by Les Scarborough in 1984.

A multi-million pound management buy-out of the Aston Barclay Group was led by Neil Hodson in 2017. The exact details of the deal were not disclosed.

At the end of 2023, Aston Barclay announced the sale-and-leaseback of its Chelmsford, Westbury, Prees Heath and Leeds owned sites, with long-term leases across all four of the sites.

In its most recent company accounts, Aston Barclay reported revenues of £34.8m, up from £29.3m the prior year, but a slump in pre-tax profit from £997,000 to £298,000.