About two years ago, Chrysler’s Sterling Heights (Mich.) Assembly Plant was on the chopping block. How times have changed. On Tuesday, the automaker announced it is pumping $165 million into the plant to add a 1 million square-foot body shop. As part of the investment, the plant will not only get a new body shop, but […] [Read More]

Avis Budget Group announced that its Avis Budget Rental Car Funding subsidiary renewed its U.S. asset-backed bank conduit facility, expanding its borrowing capacity by $450 million to $2.5 billion. Officials indicated the date until which the company may borrow under the entire facility has been extended to October 2013. J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank served […] [Read More]

Asbury Automotive Group revealed Monday that it has secured a new $900 million five-year syndicated credit facility that it will use for new- and used-vehicle inventory floor plan financing and general corporate purposes. The facility includes nine financial institutions and five automaker-affiliated lenders. [Read More]

While it’s cliché, the old adage that the “only constant is change” has never been more true than in the past five years within the recovery industry. Several breakthrough technologies are transforming the industry from a fragmented, local market-centric business into a more consolidated model, with competition nationwide. This change has forced many recovery service […] [Read More]

Those interested in the recovery, repossession and remarketing industries should take note of a special complimentary registration offer from Cherokee Automotive Group and the Used Car Week Conferences. Attendees who register for either the CPO Forum or the National Remarketing Conference, or both, will be automatically registered at no additional cost to attend the group’s […] [Read More]

Lease penetration may have dipped modestly year-over-year and sequentially during September, but that doesn’t indicate a weak market. What caused the slight dip in leasing rates, J.D. Power and Associates’ Thomas King told Auto Remarketing, was a combination of two things. For starters, segments that are more lease-centric saw their market share dip in terms […] [Read More]

Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group is no longer up for sale. Having received no offers that it believes avoid regulatory hurdles, the company announced Tuesday that it is moving on as a standalone company. This apparently ends a heated saga between three rental-car giants that lasted nearly a year-and-a-half. In recent developments in the pursuit of […] [Read More]

The Federal Trade Commission invited the National Vehicle Leasing Association’s legislative coordinator to participate in the next session of roundtable discussions officials have orchestrated since April. The event scheduled for Nov. 17 at the FTC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., will include David Blassingame, who also is NVLA’s Texas chapter chair. Blassingame, senior vice president of […] [Read More]

The three segments of LexisNexis Skip Tracing Index moved in different directions during the second quarter as activity by creditors and collection agencies dropped, while action from collection law firms climbed higher. The index reading for collection agencies slid to 81.0, continuing a downward march that’s now six quarters old. The creditors index segment dropped […] [Read More]

The fate of ex-used-car sales manager Alireza Zolnasr is now in the hands of British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Peter Willcock after Zolnasr was convicted of  swindling nearly $260,000 from the Pacific Honda dealership that used to employ him, according to a report by North Shore News. Sentencing for Zolnasr is scheduled for November, and […] [Read More]