MAN buys dealers
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• TC Harrison's MAN dealership in Sheffield looks set to be acquired by the German manufacturer as part of the continued expansion of its wholly owned dealer operation. Discussions have been under way for the past nine months; if the deal goes ahead the business will trade as MAN Sheffield.
The operation is also responsible for satellite sites at Scunthorpe and at Tuxford, near Newark. The MAN outlet is also a Ford Transit specialist dealership—this activity will be moved to TC Harrison's Ford car outlet in London Road, Sheffield once the deal is completed.
This follows MAN's acquisition of the Northampton depot formerly run by The Truck Centre of Milton Keynes, which no longer holds the MAN franchise. Northampton is now a service satellite of Coventry-based MAN Central, which is due to move to a £2.5m purpose-built site on Nuneaton's Bermuda Park industrial estate on 7 February. Once completed it will be the biggest MAN dealership in the UK.
MAN has spent more than £3m in the Midlands during the past year, including the Bermuda Park investment. Some £250,000 has been sunk into another satellite site, MAN Central (Birmingham), to refurbish its existing premises. Based in the Neachells area of the city, it now boasts a fully equipped seven-bay workshop.
Two independent service dealers—John Arnold of Bedford and AW Commercials of Luton—which used to be the responsibility of The Truck Centre, now conic under MAN North London, which has a new general manager, Dave Greening, who has also taken charge of MAN Eastern.
Previously with P DE Geesink as aftersales director, Greening has also worked for Volvo Penta in Saudi Arabia.
North of the Border, independent Aberdeen dealer Rennie 8c Nicol will become part of MAN's wholly owned Scottish set-up with effect from NI January, and the manufacturer is building a new dealership in Dunfermline. "We'll have 22 company-owned sites by the end of January," says Tony Clinkard, head of MAN's UK branch operations.
Clinkard stresses that none of this is criticism of the efforts of independently owned dealerships. "Lex has done a very good job for us in Derby, and RK Trucks of Belfast has come from nowhere to achieve a share of over io%," he says.
However, the level of profit dealerships make—and that goes for any franchise—means it is difficult for independent players to justify making the sort of investment MAN looks for, he admits.