Hyundai Glovis, the logistics arm of Korean conglomerate Hyundai Group, has acquired a family-owned automotive auction in Pennsylvania.

It is the first acquisition in a national wholesale-to-retail business Hyundai Glovis plans to build in the United States.

“In Korea, Glovis is the largest auction house. The US is the largest used-car market in the world. Hyundai wanted to be able to tap into it,” Kurtis Johnson, national manager of the used-car business at Glovis America, Inc., tells Auto Remarketing.

Hyundai Glovis includes five business lines: logistics, shipping, Knock-Down, trading, and used car sales.

In other parts of the world, it owns both on- and off-line auctions and retail stores selling used vehicles. In the U.S., such relationships don’t really exist, says Johnson.

“We see a synergy between owning not only auctions, but retail stores,” he says.

A 10-year plan calls for creating five hubs in the U.S. with three to four auction houses and 10 to 15 retail stores in each hub. Hyundai Glovis will acquire existing retail stores, says Johnson. He wouldn’t reveal where the hubs will be located.

Hyundai Glovis launched that plan by acquiring 100% of the Greater Erie Auto Auction in Pennsylvania from the Briggs family.

“GEAA presented us with the right people who would actually fit into the organization and who have a passion for what they do,” says Johnson.

GEAA sits on 46 acres of which 23 are undeveloped, general manager Chrissy Briggs, tells Auto Remarketing. Ideally situated near the I-90 freeway and located between Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, it moves 375 to 400 units weekly. Dealership consignments account for 90% of its business with New York-based West Herr Auto Group being the largest customer, she says.

The auto auction business is evolving and, like the retail auto industry, faces ever-greater pressure to offer both digital and physical options as well as cater to disruptive technologies such as electrification. Briggs’ parents retired from running the business in 2018. “They had seen the writing on the wall in the industry,” says Briggs.

Being part of a huge conglomerate will allow GEAA to compete in the evolving industry, she says, because “Glovis has abundant resources to help us modernize.”

The first change will be adding a photo editing booth, essential in a digital auction world. GEAA’s business is “heavy in-lane,” with only about 15% of sales occurring online. “We have a huge opportunity in that space,” says Briggs.

GEAA’s reconditioning center also will be overhauled, adding mechanical bays in the fourth quarter of 2023 to expand the services the auction house offers customers.

The extra resources will allow GEAA to become a more well-rounded company, which mirrors the thinking behind Hyundai Glovis’ U.S. expansion.

“We are going to be given the resources and the personnel to make it great here in the U.S.,” says Johnson.